Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called on Tuesday for the closure of the Roxham Road unregulated border crossing, but shrugged off questions over one of his MPs refusing help to a family who used it to enter the country.
During a news conference on Parliament Hill, his first of 2023, he told reporters he favors legal immigration but can understand the frustration that migrants face as they try to cross into Canada through an unofficial entry point south of Montreal. inspires to
“I understand why there are desperate people trying to get through,” he said. “Our system is so slow and so broken now.”
Poilievre pointed to the fact that the federal immigration department currently has a backlog of about 1.1 million applications to process, which was higher during the lockdown period than during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reported that as of the end of November, it had 1.09 million applications in queues that exceeded the department’s service standard, a problem that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is committed to tackling.
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The Tory leader argued on Tuesday that fixing the problem could result in fewer people having to choose through informal entry points such as Roxham Road.
“It is not legal to cross there. This is a reality. It is not legal to pass through there.
Tens of thousands of refugees have entered the country between official ports of entry in recent years and then made refugee claims once in Canada.
Those who arrive from the United States through official crossings may be returned under Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the US, on the basis that claimants have access to fair asylum procedures south of the border.
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Radio-Canada reported last month that Quebec Conservative MP Richard Martel recently refused to help a family facing deportation after entering Canada via Roxham Road in 2018, calling them “illegals”. Refugee”.
Poilievre did not respond directly when asked about Martel’s comments on Tuesday, but said the Liberal government should renegotiate the Canada-US agreement “to close the Roxham Road.”
He said Trudeau should fix the system so people can enter through official entry points, instead: “renegotiate the deal with the Americans, and generally speed up the process of immigration.”
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In December, in a French interview with The Canadian Press, José Nicola López said that his sister-in-law Leticia Cruz and her son had moved from Roxham Road to Canada in 2018 to join relatives.
She said she did it because she feared deportation under former President Donald Trump’s policies, and feared that a possible return to her home country of El Salvador could make her a target for street gangs.
López said at the time that he found Martel’s comments “offensive” and “ignorant”. After being unable to get help from Cruz Martel, whose Chicoutimi-area he and his son call home, Mario Simard, MP for Bloc Québécois, said he called on Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to help the family avoid deportation. Worked with.
Fraser, The Bloc and the NDP criticized Martel’s comments as lacking compassion.
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