In all discretion, Ottawa has one just this week temporary public order aimed at expediting this process, at the request of the Quebec government and many organizations.

This measure aims to allow asylum seekers to obtain work permits about a month after arriving on Canadian soil via Roxham Road, compared to more than a year now.

To this day, the procedure obliges asylum seekers to wait in front of border officials for their admission interview, which allows them to have it asylum seeker documentan essential step in obtaining their work permit.

Currently, such appointments are being made for late 2023 or early 2024, delays that have been mounting since the pandemic began, particularly given Canada’s record influx of asylum seekers in recent months.

From now on, these people no longer have to wait for this interview in order to be able to work, but must still undergo a medical examination and the usual security checks.

This includes asylum applications that are currently backlogged and those that will be made in the futureindicates an email from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada sent to organizations from which Radio-Canada received a copy.

This change, effective for the next 18 months, was not the subject of a public announcement or press conference.

According to our information, the federal government did not want to make this public temporary measure so as not to encourage more migrants to enter Canada irregularly.

Between January and the end of October, more than 30,000 people entered via Roxham Road, which lies between upstate New York and Montérégie. Quebec and Canada have never received so many asylum seekers.

Quebec welcomes the initiative

François Legault’s government has been demanding for months that the processing of these asylum applications and work permits should be speeded up.

It’s a step in the right directionstresses Alexandre Lahaie, deputy chief of staff to Quebec’s new immigration minister, Christine Fréchette.

” The federal government has heard Quebec’s appeal. We are satisfied, but we are waiting for the implementation and the results. »

We are very happyagrees Stephan Reichhold, director of the Round Table of Organizations Serving Refugees and Immigrants (TCRI).

” It will allow all these people to work legally. That will solve part of the problem. »

The latter nevertheless accuses the federal government of dragging its feet on this topic. It took a long time, we lost a lot of time and we could have implemented this policy a long time ago.he says, recalling the plight of the families affected by these long months of waiting.

Without a work permit and with only about $700 in emergency aid, finding housing was nearly impossible. This is really good news.