“I want Quebec to get less asylum seekers. I think we have too many.”
What they said. What they meant.
Plain-language translations from the House of Commons.
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A bill to make many changes to Canada's immigration and border control laws. During debate, Conservatives asked questions about specific cases and raised concerns about fraud, while the Liberal minister responded but often discussed unrelated topics like Canada Summer Jobs and praised a Liberal colleague.
“Quebec has helped a lot of asylum seekers. The number went down compared to 2024. Quebec got a lot of money to help with that. We're talking to Quebec's government.”
“Does the minister think all the provinces should take in the same number of asylum seekers?”
“I'm highlighting that New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador have agreed to take in refugees.”
“Okay, let's steer this back to a really broad-brush question. Does the minister think in general that refugees should be distributed evenly across different provinces? I'm not getting into details here.”
“I already answered that. I said I'm talking to people about this.”
“You're dodging the question. Do you agree the money should be split evenly between provinces?”
“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later.”
“Just tell me yes or no, should we split up refugees between all the provinces?”
“I'm filling time with kind words and not answering the yes or no question.”
“You didn't answer the question. I'll ask again and maybe you'll look bad if you don't answer.”
“I won't give a clear answer. I'll just say we're working with provinces. That sounds good, right?”
“You say you're working on it. So tell me the concrete steps.”
“I'm waiting for a committee to finish studying the problem.”
“I want the minister to agree with me that Quebec shouldn't have to bear the cost and French-language burden of too many asylum seekers. I'm asking if the minister will restart an old committee to spread them out more evenly.”
“I want to sound like I'm sharing good news and helping, so I'm talking about fewer applications and lots of spending since 2019.”
“I want the minister to admit her plan to distribute asylum seekers evenly has failed since Quebec still has 39% of them.”
“I'm filling time saying I worked hard. Quebec has fewer asylum seekers now. Fewer across Canada too.”
“Quebec has fewer asylum seekers, yes, but I need you to look bad anyway. The share of asylum seekers in Quebec is too high. Your work was bad and you should say so.”
“That's not true. Look at all I've done! I'm the minister and I've made things better.”