Don’t be fooled—Liberal changes to asylum system are an election ploy

While I welcome any solutions to the ongoing border crisis and I do appreciate the recent changes to the Immigration and Refugee Act, I find the timing highly suspect.

How is it that up until now, only months away from the October election, the Liberals have been sitting on their hands on this issue?

Trudeau had four years to come up with a plan to curb the growing problem of illegal border crossings into Canada.

Besides, the fact is that while barring people from making an asylum claim in Canada if they have already made a claim elsewhere might mitigate some of the 64,000 strong backlog, the solution doesn’t address the underlying issue: the porous border.

In reality, the number of people who have previously made a claim in the United States and then crossed into Canada since 2017 has been only 3,150. Yet, since approximately the same period 42,000 migrants have crossed illegally at Roxham Road alone. Does that sound like a solution to you?

Clearly, this legislative change is like applying a Band-Aid to a bullet wound.

Like everything in the 2019 Liberal budget, the asylum provision is another ploy to please as many potential voters as possible ahead of the October election.

Justin Trudeau knows that Canadians are concerned with the state of border security and that more and more people are reacting negatively to his government’s disastrous handling of the refugee and asylum system.

It is likely that this overture is a means to pull the rug from under the Conservatives and to pull those voters who have become dissatisfied with the Liberals for their immigration policies back into the fold.

It seems that Trudeau is even intent on playing good cop, bad cop with his ministers.

Minister of Border Security Bill Blair, who for most of Trudeau’s tenure has been relatively silent on the issue is now suddenly front-end in the media parroting a “tough luck” routine on refugees, while Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen takes a back seat.

Hussen, who has accused the Conservatives of racism and xenophobia for similar measures, and even suggested that their attempt to close the Safe Third Country Agreement loophole was a “half-baked plan,” now remains silent while his government is trying to do the exact same thing.

It’s unbelievable how disingenuous and outright duplicitous the Trudeau government has been on this entire issue.

It not only shows a lack of continuity of principles and ideals, but it signals that the Liberals are only interested in one thing: reelection.