Unless they reverse their inglorious act, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government will forever be remembered for the injustice and potential harm that they have heaped on people seeking refuge in Canada, by closing the Roxham Road border-crossing.
The closing took effect at 12:01 AM on Saturday February 25, a few hours after Mr. Trudeau met with US President Joe Biden and they announced an update of the border-crossing treaty between Canada and the US, the Safe Third Country Agreement.
The agreement, which was signed in 2004 allowed Canada to turn away refugee claimants from the U.S. on the grounds that they’re already in a “safe country.” But didn’t prevent asylum-seekers making an “inland” claim after entering Canada through a border-crossing point like Roxham Road.
The change basically denies asylum seekers the right to run from perceived injustices of rigid, heavy-handed and sometimes inhumane refugee system the USA and seek sanctuary in Canada.
Since Roxham Road border-crossing was opened to refugee claimants in 2017 about 25,000 asylum-seekers per year from around the world have been using it to enter Canada.
Their crossing has been a thorn in the sides of anti-immigrant groups as well as a wide cross-section of politicians in Quebec including the Bloc Quebecois and Premier Francois Legault and his CAQ government, as well as other right-leaning ideological deviants across Canada.
They have never been able to come to terms with the plight of refugees whose status they sometimes deliberately confuse with illegal immigrants.
In the face of hatred and outright racism, it’s difficult to determine if the ignorance of these anti-refugee, anti-immigrant types is willful or genuine.
A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster; an illegal immigrant is a person entering or living in a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence.
A refugee is not an illegal immigrant. Refugees are not breaking the laws of Canada; they’re not jumping the immigration queues. They are mostly desperate people locking for a place to rest their heads and a piece of bread to break their hunger.
Most of the people who were making their way here through the Roxham Road crossing were “convention refugees” and in 1951, Canada was one of 148 countries that signed the United Nations Convention on the protection of refugees.
By doing what he did on March 25, PM Trudeau is acting as if he doesn’t know better. But he and his government know better and can do better.
Canada has, for much of its recent history has been half decent with its immigration policies. Today, the goal is to try open its doors to about 500,000 newcomers in the next year or two.
For the past year or so, it has been an easy passage for immigrants and refugees from Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of whom have made their way here, running from the horrors of conflict in their country.
Everyday close to a million people in other parts of the world are also fleeing desperate situations, the demands on Canada have not been as critical.
Two former well-respected Liberal government ministers, Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock have seen the errors in the actions of Prime Minister Trudeau and they’re calling on him let Canada take its place in building what they described as an “hemispheric migration network and devote the necessary resources to make it work.”
… (We) should scrap the STCA and strive to dedicate 20 per cent of our 2025 immigration goal to the resettlement of forcibly displaced people, taking in at least 100,000 in 2025. We can work to build up the capacity of our U.S. diplomatic posts, and our U.S.-Canada border crossing points, to receive, process and settle those with legitimate asylum claims.
Mr. Trudeau and his government should heed their advice and walk back their dastardly decision.
