Pro-and anti-immigration demonstrators held rival rallies on Saturday afternoon. Police, which have had to separate the groups in the past, were present in anticipation of the rallies.
LACOLLE — A dozen patrol cars sat idling next to cornfields, behind warehouses and in gravel parking lots scattered along the Canada-U.S. border Saturday morning, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble.
For more thantwo years, the quiet border town of Lacolle has become a staging ground for far-right groups to protest against the arrival of refugee claimants who cross into Canada at Roxham Rd.
The protesters typically wear military surplus boots, replica flak jackets and wraparound shades — giving them the appearance of a paramilitary organization. And, without fail, each of these “anti-illegal immigration” protests has been met by a group of counter-protesters dead set on drowning out the far-right rally.
Saturday was no different.
The far-right group gathered by a shipping yard in Lacolle while, only a few hundred metres away, the pro-immigration group saw a juggler, marching band and a school bus full of young people milling about.
“We’re here to show the far right that they don’t have a monopoly on public opinion,” said Mona, an organizer who did not want her last name published for fear of reprisals from online hate groups. “There’s this spectre that there’s an invasion of illegal immigrants coming into Canada, threatening us somehow.
“These people are fleeing violence, they’re just trying to take their families somewhere safe. … We want them to know they’re welcome.”
At the anti-immigration rally, organizer Lucie Poulin referred to the arrival of asylum seekers in Canada as “an invasion” that undermines Quebec identity. She allows “some are good people,” but has, in past statements, referred to them as “people with rags on their head” who should “go back to their country.”
The Sûreté du Québec maintained a heavy presence at both marches. Patrol cars flanked the anti-immigration group during their march. Meanwhile, busloads of SQ officers in tactical gear rolled through the farming town as children rode their bicycles up and down the main drag.
Men wearing masks and clothing that bears the Soldiers of Odin (SOO) logo mingled with the anti-immigration crowd. Another, sporting a Canadian Nationalist Party (CNP) T-shirt, pumped his fist as a convoy of motorcycles rolled into the parking lot.
SOO is a group with links to the neo-Nazi movement and the CNP is a white nationalist organization whose founder served jail time for promoting hate speech.
Though there have been clashes between the pro- and anti-immigration groups at past protests, Saturday’s marches remained peaceful.
With its small section of unguarded border at Roxham Rd., Lacolle has been the flashpoint of a debate over Canada’s refugee policy.
From February 2017 to June 2018, nearly 30,000 asylum seekers entered Canada to get away from the Trump administration’s crackdown on refugee claimants. The bulk of the claimants crossed the border illegally in Quebec.
Poulin says the province’s borders are little more than “turnstiles” for illegal immigrants, but the reality is much more complicated than that.
The migrants who cross at Roxham Rd. are almost always arrested on the spot.
They chose not to cross at a legal port of entry because if they did, they would be sent back to the United States. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has rescinded visas, increased deportations and placed the children of asylum seekers in detention centres.
Those who come to Canada hoping for a better fate are often disappointed. After being arrested by Canada Border Services agents, most are taken to a detention centre and sent back to their country of origin.
Poulin and her associates insist they are merely against illegal immigration and Canada should and does welcome people of all ethnicities and religions. But their politics are overtly hostile to Muslims.
In defending Bill 21 — Quebec’s religious symbols ban — Poulin has claimed it doesn’t go far enough. During a Facebook live post earlier this month, Poulin suggested Muslim women shouldn’t be allowed to wear hijabs in public.
“We’re fighting for Bill 21, they’re walking around with rags on their heads and in their faces … they get no fines,” she said. “It’s a good thing I’m not a cop. … They wouldn’t want to walk the streets. It would be finished. Finished. They’d be done, they’d be back in their country.”
Saturday’s rally was supported by Storm Alliance, Yellow Vests Canada, GSP Securité and a collection of fringe right-wing groups who decry the “Islamification” of Canada.
While many of the people who crossed into Canada at Roxham Rd. come from Muslim majority countries, thousands were also from Haiti, West Africa or Central America.
“Nobody wakes up one morning and says: ‘I hope I’m forced to move to a country where I don’t know the language or know anyone,’ ” said William Van Driel, who works with refugee claimants.
”The reality is it’s an incredibly difficult journey and they’re doing whatever they can to help their families survive. To characterize that as an invasion is just wrong.”
When a CBC Montreal truck drove by the shipping yard ahead of Saturday’s march, it was shouted down with cries of “fake news” and an assortment of profanity.
People in the crowd — which was almost exclusively white and predominantly middle-aged — said they felt angry, forgotten by their government and expressed a sense of anxiety about their role in a changing society.
Protesters held up a sign calling for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to be defeated. Others alluded to conspiracy theories about fluoride in Canada’s water supply and a plot, by Trudeau loyalists, to rig the election with massive voter fraud.
“We’re tired of being ignored,” Poulin said. “We love Quebec and if you love Quebec you can be allowed here to.”
