After engaging the Canadian military to build a tent city for illegal refugees crossing at the Quebec-New York border, the Trudeau government now wants to buy trailers for them since winter is coming.
The government issued a tender seeking bids on “winterized trailers” that can be delivered on six-weeks notice.
“These tents do have heaters, but we also have a very, very cold winter in this country and so we are, as a precautionary measure, looking at the possibility of trailers,” Transport Minister Marc Garneau told reporters on Friday. Garneau, a former astronaut with deep U.S. connections, has been appointed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s point man on the growing border crisis that Trudeau insists is under control.
“We’re just doing our homework so that we are, if necessary, prepared for things that could develop over the coming months.”
In the last two months more than 6,000 illegals have come into Canada from New York, claiming they are refugees because they say they might be deported by the Trump adminstration next year if their temporary protected status (TPS) is taken away.
So many have arrived that the Canadian federal government not only has a tent city for them in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, but has converted a convention facility in Cornwalll, Ontario into a welcome center.
Garneau also said that the government is moving more immigration officials on-scene to process the illegals in a more timely fashion, and he also wants the migrants to have quicker access to temporary work permits.
But the government is aware that expatriate Haitians are not the only asylum seekers in the wings and has initiated a public relations program to tell other potential pools of would-be refugees that jumping the border into Canada isn’t necessarily a sure bet to landed immigrant status.
“You have to be able to demonstrate that you are in fear of returning to your country of origin, that you are fleeing persecution, war or terror,” said Garneau.
However, although Trudeau has repeatedly said that there is “no advantage” to entering Canada illegally, the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees has stated that this position is “obviously false.”
According to Janet Dench: “the reason that people come irregularly is because that is the way to avoid the Safe Country Agreeement.”
