Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think my colleague Frantz André gave a good description of the situation he is experiencing as a helper. As we speak, there are people outside with no coat, no clothing, who haven't eaten in three days. This phenomenon is very concentrated around the hotels leased by the feder

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would lead to indescribable chaos. People would try to find other roads, roads much less safe than Roxham Road. That would not benefit anyone—not refugees, not Canada's security, not the provinces'. It's an idea that looks good but isn't.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  To my knowledge, because those two aspects are not under its jurisdiction, the present Quebec government has never stated an opinion on the safe third country agreement or how the arrival of refugee claimants at the border should be dealt with. Certainly Quebec has something to s

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely not. In fact, I don't know how the road could be closed. Suppose we put a kilometre-long wire fence around Roxham Road. We can see what people do at the Mexican border or the Greek border or elsewhere, where they go around the fence and enter anyway, but in a much risk

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can't imagine how you can close the border. How do you want to do that, maybe by erecting a fence? People are going to get around the fence; that is to be expected, it's human. Everybody will do that and will still get in, but there will be no oversight. They will enter Canada

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If we closed Roxham Road, which we can't close, the only solution, in my opinion, would be to suspend the safe third country agreement. No one would need Roxham Road anymore.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening, everyone. I am the director of the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes, whose members are 160 intake and settlement support organizations dedicated to assisting newcomers, whether they be r

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That was a long time ago.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The situation we experienced in 2017 was not new. These types of situations were experienced in 1990-91 and 2001-02. There were several large influxes of refugee claimants, which everyone ended up sort of forgetting about. The majority of these people who came to Canada stayed an

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My time is up?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I could answer your questions if you want to know more about how things are done in Quebec. Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you. My name is Stephan Reichhold. I am the director general of the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes, which brings together 140 organizations in Q