MONTREAL — “The Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) deplores the government’s legal harassment of asylum seekers by pursuing their case all the way to the Supreme Court to restrict their access to the early childhood education and care network. Once again, it is women and their families who will bear the brunt of this,” the union in Quebec said June 17.
They were protesting the latest attack on the rights of immigrants by the Coalition for Quebec’s Future (CAQ) government. It comes three months after the federal Supreme Court ruled the exclusion of children of asylum seekers from the government-subsidized childcare system was discriminatory, violating the right to equality guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This anti-immigrant, exclusionary policy was begun in 2018 by the Liberal government then in power. It was challenged in court by Bijou Cibuabua Kanyinda, an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who had obtained a work permit. Under the government policy, her three children were denied access to the subsidized daycare network.
After the Supreme Court ruling, the CAQ government drafted a new regulation restricting priority access to childcare at reduced rates — nine Canadian dollars and 65 cents a day ($6.80) — to Canadian citizens, permanent residents and temporary foreign workers with a closed work permit.
But asylum seekers, open work permit holders and international students could only get subsidized childcare if additional places were available, which is highly unlikely since the CAQ government refuses to fund them. There are 30,688 children in Quebec today on a waiting list for a place in the system. Thousands more families will be impacted if the new rules are put into place.
Temporary foreign workers with closed work permits are barred from leaving their current employer for another job, however bad the conditions and abuse they face are. Those with open work permits are allowed to change jobs. Last year Ottawa deported over 19,000 immigrants, the highest number ever.
In a statement given to Radio-Canada, Genevieve Blanchard, executive director of the association of early childhood centers — the subsidized daycare centers — pointed to the serious shortage of places in the system. “A child who has been waiting for two years deserves a spot,” she said. “A child who has arrived in a new country, often under difficult conditions, needs one just as much.”
“There is indeed a shortage of spaces in the early childhood education and care network,” Caroline Senneville, CSN president, said. “What’s needed is more spaces in early childhood centers and home-based childcare services,” as well as improved working conditions and wages for childcare workers. “But one thing is clear — targeting asylum seekers and their children is not and never will be the solution.”
Unite workers, strengthen unions
“The proposed new anti-immigrant regulations aim to divide working people, weakening our ability to unite to defend our common class interests against the drive by the capitalist rulers and their governments to save their crisis-ridden system on our backs,” Joe Young, Communist League candidate in the Oct. 5 Quebec provincial election, told the Militant.
“To counter this drive, the unions need to organize a broad campaign to guarantee permanent residence for all immigrants in Canada. And to expand access to social services like affordable childcare to all workers that need it,” he said. “This is the road to strengthen the working class and the unions.”
More than 50,000 working people took part in a union federation-sponsored demonstration in Montreal Nov. 29, protesting Quebec government attacks on the right to strike, the rights of immigrants and in defense of the government healthcare system. In February, thousands joined rallies in eight cities across Quebec protesting additional government attacks on the rights of immigrant workers.