Migrant issue needs better plan
Both Trudeau, Ford handling matter poorly
Despite repeated scolding from the federal Liberals and the NDP opposition at Queen’s Park, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his new Tory government refuse to endorse the progressive Canadian consensus that asylum seekers may only be spoken of in the most dulcet, welcoming and self-satisfied tones.
Ford’s line, via spokesman Simon Jefferies, is as follows: “The federal government encouraged illegal border crossers to come into our country, and the federal government continues to usher people across the U.S.-Quebec border into Ontario.”
Thus he demands the federal government foot 100 per cent of Ontario’s and its cities’ bills — including for an alleged “crisis” the influx has created with respect to housing and “the services that Ontario families depend on.”
Lord knows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to educate his polar opposite. “It didn’t seem to me that the premier was quite as aware of our international obligations to the UN Convention on Refugees as he might have been,” he told reporters after they met earlier this month. “I reassured the premier — or I attempted to reassure the premier — that the asylum-seeker stream is separate from the immigration stream.”
He was fighting the “queue-jumper” fallacy, in other words: the idea that each person who crosses into Canada illegally bumps someone waiting dutifully in line for permanent residency down a list when, in fact, they go into a separate (and rapidly growing) pool.
Trudeau’s lesson clearly didn’t take. “There are legal ports of entry for those seeking asylum against persecution. We will always welcome people who follow that process,” Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod said the following week. “Illegal border-crossers are not following these rules, and the federal government is not enforcing them.”
MacLeod, along with Saskatchewan Immigration Minister Jeremy Harrison, refused to sign a joint communiqué with federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen expressing general support for asylum seekers. She accused Hussen of calling her “un-Canadian,” stormed out of a meeting with him and demanded an apology. Where Trudeau failed with dripping condescension, Hussen attempted earnest disappointment.
“Ontario sadly has chosen the language of fear. They’ve chosen to intentionally use language that could potentially criminalize asylum seekers in the minds of Canadians,” Hussen intoned. “It’s divisive. It’s fear-mongering and it’s not Canadian. It’s very dangerous.”
“Crisis” or not, the issue is certainly real: Toronto’s shelter system has been rammed for years, and is now roughly half populated by asylum seekers. Accommodations have yet to be secured for hundreds of refugee claimants currently housed in college dorms, which will need to be vacated once classes resume. City staff have mooted the idea of shutting community centres to house those people if other options don’t materialize.
There is nothing to credit in the Tory approach, however. It’s dumb, pugnacious and factually challenged — and for no obvious purpose.
Every Canadian is free to judge the morality and ethics of “sneaking” across the border, but the vast majority of people who do would be turned back at one of MacLeod’s “legal points of entry.” That’s why they’re “sneaking” across. It is illegal under the customs act to do it, but it is perfectly legal to claim asylum once it is done. The “rules” MacLeod demands the government enforce make no distinction in the adjudication of an asylum claim based on how the claimant arrives in Canada. She must know this.
There is at least partisan purpose in the Tories’ silly claim that the illegal border crossings are solely the Liberals’ fault: opposing Trudeau is a huge part of their overall strategy. But if they’re going to distort the refugee system and falsely accuse bordercrossers of abusing it, instead of calling for the actual system to be fundamentally reformed — difficult, but perhaps not impossible — then they deserve to be called out for intolerant rabble-rousing.
There may be a certain utility in all this, though. Trudeau’s famous “welcome to Canada” tweet didn’t open
THEY’VE CHOSEN ... LANGUAGE THAT COULD POTENTIALLY CRIMINALIZE ASYLUM SEEKERS.
the floodgates, but it’s a testament to the exhibitionist unseriousness with which his government initially approached the issue. The backlog of claimants has ballooned; the average time to decide a claim has soared from a matter of months to two-and-a-half years; and the resources the Liberals have committed to dealing with it seem woefully insufficient. Ford’s Tories are politicizing uncontrolled migration to a very limited and mild extent; from an American alt-right or European far-right perspective it would look something like wanton permissiveness. Nevertheless, the Liberals argue it could poison Canadians against asylum seekers, and perhaps it could.
But surely the factual situation itself is a far bigger concern in that regard: in many countries, the mere sight of federal police officers helping people with their baggage as they cross the border illegally would be a PR disaster, never mind taking three years to decide if they can stay.
If the federal Liberals are as concerned about the Ontario Tories as they say they are, they could usefully treat this as an opportunity finally to treat asylum seekers and the system they’re navigating with the seriousness they deserve.