Humour can make something as mundane as a no parking sign, more tolerable. For example, have a look at these signs. “Handicap Parking. Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere.” “No Parking. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.” “Veterinary Hospital Parking only. All others will be neutered.” “Crunch Zone: Cars parked here will be crushed while you dine and shop for stuff.”
All those signs relay a clear message: parking in those zones is illegal. There is no confusion in the messages.
However, a recent news report I was listening to was somewhat confusing.
The news reporter described a housing shortage in Toronto for irregular migrants. “What’s an irregular migrant?” I asked myself. As it turns out, it’s now the federal government’s preferred term instead of “illegal migrant,” even though signs posted at border crossings state “it is illegal to cross the border here.”
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One wonders if using the word irregular in other instances would be equally acceptable. For example, irregular parking, irregular drugs and irregular hunting all sound much less confrontational than illegal parking, illegal drugs and illegal hunting.
But let me return to the shortage of shelter in Toronto, where college dorms are being utilized as temporary housing for irregular migrants. The mayor of Toronto stated the city can no longer absorb the cost of the increasing numbers of refugee claimants, and let me clarify what he means by increasing numbers.
During the first three months of 2017 there were 1,890 irregular border crossers compared to 5,052 during the first three months of 2018. Due to the number of RCMP required at the rural Quebec border crossing, the federal government is spending $250,000 to build an “unofficial” police station there to process the irregular border crossings.
I’m sure Canadians would be surprised to hear there are more people entering Canada illegally than those who are making legal refugee claims.
Legal refugees are the ones who enter via official border crossings and airports, refugees who are sponsored, who come here and begin working and contributing to our country.
Canadians would also be interested to hear that many of the border crossers appear to have entered the U.S. on recently acquired tourist visas in order to slip into Canada. After all, crossing illegally is quicker than going through legal channels.
Fortunately many of those claims will not be accepted, but each refugee needs their claim processed before they can be deported, and there is a huge delay in processing those claims. The waiting period now stands at 20 months and will lengthen as the number of claims increase. In other words, irregular migrants could live in Canada for years before being deported.
By comparison, you could imagine the chaos that would ensue if all motorists in our busy Canadian cities were permitted to ignore all No Parking signs and park anywhere they pleased.
Yet huge numbers of illegal border crossers are allowed to ignore all illegal border crossing signs, and enter our country. Unfortunately, politicians who attempt to address this issue are accused of fear mongering.
No matter how you look at it, the migration situation in our country is irregular, illegal and Canadians are ill-informed.
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