REFUGEE INFLUX ‘POSES NO THREAT’

>> TORONTO: Canada must do a better job of communicating that asylum seekers are not a threat to the country, parliamentarian Bill Blair, charged with dealing with the refugee influx said on Friday.

Mr Blair’s comments are a tacit admission by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government that it has fumbled its message on the migration issue ahead of next year’s federal election.

The government has come under fire from voters and political opponents but has chalked up the popular opposition to misinformation.

“We need to do a better job of communicating ... I think that’s one of my responsibilities, to explain to people, to reassure them that asylum seekers pose no risk to their community,” Mr Blair said in an interview.

Mr Blair was named minister of border security last month.

More than 30,000 people have illegally crossed the Canada-US border to file refugee claims in Canada since January, 2017, according to government figures, though the numbers dropped in May and June.

Many of them said they did not feel safe filing or pursuing refugee claims in President Donald Trump’s United States.

Canada and the United States have an agreement under which asylum seekers trying to cross at ports of entry are turned around and told to apply in the country in which they arrived. People have crossed between those formal crossings, where the agreement does not apply.

For months Canada has sought US consent to amend the agreement so that it applies across the entire border, allowing Canada to turn back thousands of asylum seekers, but with little success.

“So far there hasn’t been a strong indication from them that they wish to engage with us on that issue,” Mr Blair said.

Police dispersed anti-migrant protesters earlier this week in a Toronto-area city. An Angus-Reid poll released on Friday found that the majority of Canadians surveyed consider the border-crosser issue a “crisis” and the plurality believe Mr Trudeau’s opponent, Andrew Scheer, could handle it better.