Nicolas: Quebec’s position on asylum seekers is pure madness

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Imagine a mother of young children who has been living in Quebec for a few months. Maybe even a few years. She could be a Congolese or Haitian asylum seeker. Or a Ukrainian who fled the war. She has a work permit, but not the permanent residence that comes with official refugee status.

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This woman would like to work. She would like to earn a living, of course, and provide for her family. It turns out that it is easy for her to find a job. She has even received unsolicited job offers, given the labor shortage affecting the province. She would be a boon to so many local businesses that are understaffed and struggling to stay afloat in the current economic climate.

But she has to turn down those offers. Why? Because she is a mother of small children. Her children need access to childcare if she works, and the Quebec government insists on excluding her from the subsidized system.

The Educational Childcare Act stipulates that a work permit holder who is in Quebec primarily for work can access subsidized childcare. But in 2018, in the context of the political panic around the arrival of asylum seekers through Roxham Rd., the then Liberal government of Philippe Couillard decided to reinterpret the law so that asylum seekers were no longer included in the definition of people “mainly in Quebec for work”. When the Avenir Québec Coalition took office, it did not overturn the decision, which had been denounced by both immigration organizations and human rights advocates.

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The impact of this exclusion on asylum seekers is such that the organizers took the matter to court. In May, the Quebec Superior Court ruled that the government did not have the authority to reinterpret the law in this way and called for childcare facilities to be made available to asylum seekers again. Many celebrated the victory, but the relief was short-lived.

The Quebec government ordered that children of asylum seekers not be admitted to subsidized day care, despite the ruling. And last week, Family Minister Mathieu Lacombe announced that the province would appeal the decision, leaving families destitute while the matter is resolved.

In theory, a mother of young children still has the option of a private daycare. But if the job she was going to take is a minimum wage position, then the cost becomes prohibitive. More often than not, a parent in that position will be forced to stay home and apply for access to welfare, in the midst of a massive labor shortage.

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The government’s stubbornness makes no sense from an economic or human rights perspective. It also goes against the CAQ’s own priority: making sure newcomers integrate and learn French as soon as possible. In fact, nursery programs are a great way for children to learn French. And countless experts have shown that the social, linguistic, cultural and economic integration of newcomers is closely related to employment. If a person has no choice but to stay home all day, they will not necessarily be as exposed to various aspects of Quebec society.

The only explanation for the government’s course of action is a form of cynical political calculation. With a fall election looming ever closer, the CAQ seems unwilling to appear too “forgiving” when it comes to asylum seekers. There is a perception, for many in the general public, that asylum seekers are not “real refugees” who deserve compassion. Years of misinformation about the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement has led many to disparage those who are forced to use Roxham Rd. to seek asylum in Canada while coming from the United States. Their irregular crossing, necessary for bureaucratic reasons, has been confused with a notion of “illegal migrants”.

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Because such cases have been the subject of so much discussion, now all asylum seekers, including those who arrived by plane from countries around the world, can be conflated with the first group by an ill-informed segment of the population, and also become the target of such lack of compassion. So much so that a humane policy, which also happens to be an economically sensible solution to the current labor shortage, has become a politically “sensitive” issue.

But even in this context, it would be perfectly possible for the CAQ to do the right thing without fear of losing votes in the fall. Prime Minister François Legault has more than enough political capital to enable him to explain, given the linguistic and economic benefits, why his government would want to withdraw its appeal of the High Court ruling.

The government’s choice to appeal is therefore not only absurd, but also cowardly.