Refugees are being used as political scapegoats after Premier Blaine Higgs made comments about asylum seekers earlier in the week, said Adi Rao, a board member at the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre in Fredericton.
“It’s always easy to blame immigrants,” he said.
“Immigrants, refugees are always the first scapegoat. It’s the easiest scapegoat. Refugees are … here desperately trying to seek protection. They’re not going to turn around and try and demand from the federal government something better.”
Rao said it’s also important to be clear that the group of people who are being talked about are “refugee claimants,” meaning they are coming to Canada and making the argument that they need protection from some sort of persecution.
He said this is a different group of migrants, managed differently in the immigration system, with protected rights under international and domestic law.
Premier Blaine Higgs alleged the federal government was trying to force New Brunswick to take on a proposed 4,600 asylum seekers. (Government of New Brunswick/Zoom)
In a speech on Wednesday, Higgs alleged that the federal government was trying to force New Brunswick to take on a proposed 4,600 asylum seekers.
He also alleged this was going to be done “without providing any financial assistance or any opportunity for us to have the ability to build the resources and the capability to manage.”
Later that day, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Higgs’s allegations were “largely fictitious.”
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller said that Higgs’s allegations were ‘largely fictitious.’ (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
The other political leaders in the province also criticized the comments, with Liberal Leader Susan Holt saying Higgs was “being reckless and exaggerating the facts,” and Green Leader David Coon saying Higgs was using “Trump-lite tactics … to scare people.”
Higgs wasn’t the only premier to reject the idea of taking in asylum seekers. Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday, urging the government to “drop the idea.”
“It is simply unacceptable for the Trudeau government to try to force thousands of asylum seekers on our Province at this time,” he wrote.
“Nova Scotia simply does not have the capacity to accept thousands of asylum seekers. … We have communicated to Trudeau’s cabinet that any attempt to ship asylum seekers to Nova Scotia will be challenged.”
Rao said it’s important to note that this whole conversation is happening around the idea that immigration is putting pressure on affordability. But he said this idea is a mistake.
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston posted on X this week, alleging the federal government is trying to force thousands of asylum seekers on Nova Scotia. (CBC)
He called the housing market “a wild west” and said it’s perfectly legal for corporations to buy residential homes, outbidding potential families.
“What is that corporation going to do with that family home? Get corporation married? Have corporation babies? Of course not. That corporation is going to buy that house solely with the aim to resell it for a higher price.”
“It’s not the temporary foreign worker that we are supporting in Neguac that is outbidding families trying to find a home in Saint John.
“It’s corporations, investors, speculative investors, who are gambling with housing.”
In Miller’s rebuttal to the premier, he said “consent and co-operation” from provincial governments is important when talking about taking in asylum seekers, but he said he hoped New Brunswick would do its part.
Rao agreed, saying this is a “shared responsibility across the country.”
“For provincial premiers to pretend like we are not part of the same country, that we don’t share the same responsibilities, that we can pick and choose what international obligations and what responsibilities we do have to the international community — it’s laughable.”