2023-11-23 05:00:00
The Legault government is launching an operation to double the number of asylum seekers received in Quebec, in order to ease the pressure on Montreal’s reception capacity and meet labor needs in the national capital.
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A first bus of new migrants arrived in Quebec last week. The Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, went to meet them on Tuesday, accompanied by the QMI Agency.
Josué Kabongo, a young Congolese asylum seeker, is impressed when Ms. Fréchette stops to chat with him.
“At 21, everything is possible,” said the minister, smiling.
“It’s going well,” agrees Josué. But you have to take your time, make careful choices.”
The Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, met a young Congolese, Josué Kabongo, during her visit to an asylum seeker accommodation center on Tuesday in Quebec. Photo: Gabriel Côté, QMI Agency
Shift
The young man is part of the first cohort of 12 asylum seekers who raised their hands to leave Montreal and settle in the national capital, as part of a pilot project that the government has just launched.
Over the coming months, there will be 540 of them to do like him, which will have the effect of doubling the number of asylum seekers welcomed in Quebec each year.
Every Wednesday since the beginning of November, a bus from the metropolis arrives on rue des Sœurs de la Charité, in Old Quebec, to leave a dozen irregular migrants there, who are housed and fed by the multi-ethnic center of Quebec while waiting to find a place to settle.
Arrival of a bus of asylum seekers in Quebec, Wednesday, November 22, 2023. Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
“We want to help relieve some pressure on Montreal by bringing asylum seekers to come and settle in the region. So we start with Quebec City,” explains Minister Fréchette in an interview.
“And the message we get from the City [de Québec]is that they want immigration of all statuses combined, commensurate with their demographic weight […]. So, from there, we suggested that it could be asylum seekers, among others.”
Incentives
To encourage these people to come to Quebec, the government is also offering them support in finding a job, and in the meantime, emergency social assistance of $850 per month and an allowance of $230 per week so that they take French lessons.
For now, the government is planning a pot of $15 million for this operation over the next three years.
“It’s a project that is super important for the region, because it allowed us to structure all the stages of the asylum seekers’ journey,” insists the general director of the multi-ethnic center of Quebec, Natacha Battisti.
Still, she agrees that some things will need to be adjusted along the way. The agreement provides that the center accommodates migrants for a period of two weeks, while in reality, many stay there for up to twelve weeks.
“Right now, it’s fun, because I still have rooms available,” she thinks. But I know that we have to think that at Christmas, we will be full.”
Public services under pressure
“We are also asking the federal government to distribute asylum seekers throughout Canada because Quebec has assumed a very large part of welcoming these people and supporting them”
«[À Montréal], resources are stretched to the maximum. It’s tight here too [à Québec], but we work with groups to find places that were not occupied by asylum seekers. So you have to rack your brains, you have to innovate.”
– Christine Fréchette, Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration.
The food supply puzzle
The multi-ethnic center, which already hosted 500 asylum seekers before the government’s project, makes considerable efforts to offer migrants food that they like. “It’s a way to integrate them more quickly,” Natacha Battisti explained to Minister Fréchette, giving her a tour of an accommodation center in Old Quebec on Tuesday.
But this task is not always easy. “The problem we see is that they don’t eat the same way we do. The foods used are different,” emphasized Ms. Battisti.
The Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, with the general director of the Multiethnic Center of Quebec, Natacha Battisti. Photo: Gabriel Côté, QMI Agency
Unfortunately, the center learned this the hard way, when the food it purchased “ended up in the trash”. “It was not financially advantageous, nor in terms of integration, because they were still hungry,” the general director told Christine Fréchette.
Some foods in particular, like cauliflower, “don’t work at all.” “Even the fish, you really have to gauge it […]. We thought it was going to be easier. But no, it’s difficult,” added Ms. Battisti.
But it’s not just a matter of taste. “They can have colic, they have stomach aches…” she concluded.
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