Ottawa is hiring 20 more immigration officials in Quebec as it opens a new temporary shelter in Cornwall, Ontario, federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced Thursday.
The assistance comes as the flow of asylum seekers across the U.S. border shows no sign of slowing.
Almost 4,000 people are known to have crossed into Canada illegally since the beginning of the month. A temporary tent city has been erected near the Lacolle border in Quebec, housing more than 1,000 people, most originally from Haiti.
Living in tents, they are forced to wait two to four days just to be processed before being sent to a shelter in Montreal.
Quebec has been asking for extra help managing the asylum seekers walking across Roxham Rd. and illegally into Canada.
“This is a situation that is, yes, out of the ordinary, but very much under control,” said Garneau, who visited the site Thursday.
Garneau said Ottawa is also mobilizing consulates to get the word out that Canada does not give citizenship to anyone.
“Unless you are being persecuted or fleeing terror or war you would not qualify as a refugee,” he said.
But many border guards say the measures Ottawa is announcing don't go far enough, saying they're already overworked, and the pressure keeps mounting
“It's disorganized,” said Jean-Pierre Fortin of the border guards' union.
Fortin claims there is no money to hire new border guards, so parts of the job of processing claimants is rushed
“In the past, we used to process them from A to Z and each case took approximately eight hours to deal with. Today it's about an hour and a half to two hours, max.”
The matter makes Lacolle Mayor Roland-Luc Beliveau uncomfortable.
Beliveau questions whether Canada is accepting too many asylum seekers.
“We have Canadians born and raised in Canada, they are suffering from lack of food and money, so why do we accept other people and providing with food, shelter and even that little card that provides healthcare benefits,” said Beliveau.
A total of 780 asylum seekers made the trek in June, another 3,000 in July and in the first two weeks of August, another 3,800 -- with no signs of slowing down.
