Threats of mass deportations under Donald Trump risk creating a new influx of immigrants to Canada, fear François Legault and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Quebec will send personnel to monitor the borders itself.
“We are really at a point where our capacity is exceeded. So we are going to challenge the federal government. It is the responsibility of the federal government to protect our borders. But even the government of Quebec will ensure that the federal government protects our borders,” declared the CAQ Prime Minister in reaction to the election of the new American president.
This means that the Quebec state will be on the lookout for entries at land borders, but also at the airport.
François Legault refuses to specify whether police officers from the Sûreté du Québec will be involved, but explains that state personnel will go directly to the field. “We will look at what the federal government is doing, but if it is necessary, we will ensure, perhaps on a random basis, that the borders are well monitored by the federal government,” he declared.
“What we want is to ensure, at the borders, that is to say at the physical borders and at the airport, that the work is well done,” he said.
20 million illegal immigrants
Same story with PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, according to whom the election of Trump could cause a “mass” migration to Quebec.
“Mr. Trump, I remind you, he ended his campaign on this issue, reminded several times that he intends to move, to deport up to 20 million illegal immigrants,” he recalled. Wednesday, the day after the American election.
“Without being alarmist, we must look at potential mass movements which can begin today,” added the sovereignist leader, who only sees independence to ensure that the borders are not the target of new asylum seekers from the United States.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon had no solutions to propose to restrict border control as long as Quebec is still in Canada.
The “incapacity” of the CAQ to impose its views on immigration to the federal government of Justin Trudeau is all the more worrying in the current context, he insists.
“François Legault’s failures with the federal government in recent years, his inability to seek full powers in immigration, his inability to make gains, it was problematic, but now it is becoming acute. The consequences of its failure have the potential to have very acute and urgent consequences for Quebec, because we have no control over anything.”
Rights of women under threat
The parliamentary leader of Québec Solidaire is more concerned about women’s rights which will undoubtedly be threatened under the Trump administration.
The day after the American elections, the majority of Quebecers have “a hangover,” added Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. While we must take comfort in the fact that public debate is generally calm in Quebec, we are not immune to “authoritarian excesses” like south of the border and in several corners of the globe, he warned.
“We have a political consensus that holds strong on the right to abortion (in Quebec), he insisted. But there are, here and elsewhere, movements that are rising and attacking women’s rights. (…) We have a political party at the federal level, the Conservative Party of Canada, in which there are several elements openly opposed to the rights of women to choose, to the right to abortion. Pierre Poilievre, in his career, voted on numerous occasions to restrict the right to abortion.
More details will follow.
