Tag Archives: Francois Legault

Pathetic?: Quebec Premier Has to Beg New York City Mayor to Stop Giving Bus Tickets to Illegals to Come to Canada

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Quebec tells Eric Adams to stop buying NY migrants bus tickets

By

Jack Morphet,

The government of Canada’s second-most populated province is demanding that Mayor Eric Adams “immediately” stop helping migrants illegally enter the Great White North, as recently revealed by The Post.

“Any form of assistance to migrants crossing the border where it is strictly forbidden to do so should stop immediately,” a spokesperson for Quebec Premier Francois Legault said.

“We understand that the situation of migrants in New York poses major challenges, but the situation in Quebec and particularly in Montreal is even worse and constitutes an important humanitarian issue.”

Earlier this month, The Post exclusively reported that Adams was using taxpayer funds to get bus tickets for migrants in the Big Apple to travel upstate to Plattsburgh.

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From there, migrants take taxis and vans to a cul-de-sac at the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, where they walk across the border and surrender to Canadian Mounties to seek asylum, as The Post documented on Feb. 5.

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Migrants abandon NYC for Canada with taxpayer-funded bus tickets

As many as 250 migrants use the Roxham Road crossing to illegally enter Canada each day, with nearly all of them settling in Montreal, Quebec’s biggest city, Legault spokesperson Ewan Sauves said.

The situation has overwhelmed Montreal’s ability to provide housing and other public services, with the flood of new students alone equivalent to the opening of 13 new schools, he said.

Last year, 39,161 people used Roxham Road to illegally enter Canada, comprising 99.1% of all such border crossings, Sauves said.

By comparison, the latest figures released by City Hall on Monday showed that officials have processed more than 45,600 migrants since the spring, with about 29,100 housed in 91 emergency shelters as of Sunday.

Mayor Eric Adams has defended funding nonprofits to “reticket” migrants who want to leave the city and go to Canada.Paul Martinka

Those figures likely represent an undercount, however, because they don’t include migrants who stay with relatives, friends and other people in their networks after arriving in New York, according to City Hall.

But while the Big Apple’s population is nearly 8.5 million, Montreal’s is just 1.7 million.

Adams’ office didn’t immediately return a request for comment, but the mayor last week defended funding various nonprofits, including Catholic Charities, to “reticket” migrants who want to leave the city and go to Canada.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault said all aiding of migrants crossing the border “should stop immediately.”Getty Images

“We are not encouraging anyone to go to another country,” Adams said during a Wednesday appearance on CNN. “If we speak with a migrant, interview them, [we] find out their desires and make sure that we are assisting them like we’ve done.”

The surge in border crossings at Roxham Road has sparked controversy in Quebec, with the separatist Parti Québécois recently calling for police intervention and the creation of an “enclave” to block the Roxham Road path between the US and Canada.

Another separatist political party, Bloc Québécois, tweeted Friday that Quebec was not an “all-inclusive,” sparking outrage from the democratic socialist party Québec solidaire, the Canadian Press reported Sunday.

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“An all-inclusive is a place where we go to crash on the beach drinking margaritas,” Québec solidaire spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said while attending the party’s national council in Montreal.

“The people who enter Quebec to apply for asylum are people who are fleeing violence, exploitation, persecution. They are not people who want to take it easy.”

Nadeau-Dubois added: “These comparisons have no place.” (New York Post, February 13, 2023)

Quebec group launches private prosecution against Trudeau over illegal Roxham Road border crossings

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Quebec group launches private prosecution against Trudeau over illegal Roxham Road border crossings

Trudeau’s declarations have real-life consequences such as encouraging people to cross illegally into Canada at Roxham Road, the group’s head says

Author of the article:

Catherine Lévesque

Published Jan 12, 2023  •  Last updated Jan 12, 2023  •  3 minute read

A prominent Quebec author and historian at the head of a Quebec activist group has initiated a private criminal prosecution against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, claiming the prime minister has encouraged illegal immigration into Canada, in violation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

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Frédéric Bastien, president of Justice pour le Quebec, alleges that Trudeau made comments that encouraged illegal crossings into Canada at the infamous Roxham Road border point between New York State and Quebec. Private citizens in Canada have the right to initiate criminal proceedings without relying on the Crown to initiate them. Bastien said he believes he has reasonable grounds to proceed with the prosecution, which if successful could result in the prime minister being subject to a fine or even imprisonment.

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In his court filings, Bastien made reference to a widely publicized tweet by Trudeau in 2017 in which the prime minister said Canadians will welcome “those fleeing persecution, terror and war,” after U.S. president Donald Trump issued a travel ban for Muslim-majority countries and suspended refugee claims.

Bastien also pointed to comments made by Trudeau in 2022 suggesting that closing the irregular crossing at Roxham Road would not stop the arrival of asylum-seekers and that migrants would simply “cross elsewhere.”

Bastien said Trudeau is “not a normal citizen” voicing his opinion or using his freedom of expression, and that his public declarations had real-life consequences such as encouraging people to cross into Canada at Roxham Road.

“No one is above the law,” said Bastien of Trudeau. “It’s a matter of justice,”

Bastien, a professor at Montreal’s Dawson College, is a former Parti Québécois leadership contender who courted controversy with his 2013 book that accused a former Supreme Court justice of improperly interfering in the 1982 patriation of Canada’s constitution. The book led to a Supreme Court internal investigation, which failed to substantiate the claim.

Roxham Road, situated south of Montreal, has proven a popular way for asylum-seekers to avoid the Safe Third Country agreement, which prevents Canada from accepting refugee claims entering from the U.S. It has been a point of contention with Quebec as the province receives the bulk of irregular arrivals and is expected to provide social services for arrivals while the federal government evaluates the legality of their claims.

A recent compilation from the Journal de Montreal showed that a record number of 150,000 asylum seekers entered Canada since Trudeau’s 2017 tweet. Of that number, 91,000 entered through Roxham Road.

Quebec premier François Legault has been asking the federal government to permanently close the entry point, a position echoed by the Bloc Québécois, and  more recently by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

The end of Roxham Road where thousands of asylum seekers have illegally crossed the border into Canada.The end of Roxham Road where thousands of asylum seekers have illegally crossed the border into Canada. Photo by Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press/File

Léger poll last May showed that 60 per cent of Quebecers wanted Roxham Road closed. Bastien said a poll commissioned by his own group, Justice pour le Québec (Justice for Quebec), found that 68 per cent of Quebecers strongly or moderately agree with that position.

“I think that people are actually very frustrated because this process is bypassing the law,” said Bastien. “There’s a way to actually migrate to Canada… if you’re a refugee, if you want to seek refugee status in Canada, we have some laws, we have some rules in this country.”

“And what is going on now is that basically the government is helping people to violate the rules to bypass the law,” he said. “The more that goes on, the more frustrated people get.”

A justice of the peace must determine if Bastien’s arguments have legal basis in order for the private prosecution to proceed.

Justice pour le Québec last year launched a court challenge against the City of Toronto over its support for a legal challenge against Quebec’s Bill 21, banning certain public service from wearing religious symbols on the job. It  It also launched a court challenge against the appointment of Governor General Mary Simon, claiming her inability to speak French disqualified her.

In December, Bastien himself launched a human rights complaint over a job posting at the University of Laval that prohibited white, non-disabled males from applying.