The government is closely monitoring public opinion on asylum seekers, according to documents

OTTAWA – The federal government is closely monitoring the public response to the influx of refugee claimants in Canada, conducting regular national surveys and measuring social media discussions.

Documents released to the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act show departmental officials weekly internal updates on media coverage and public reaction to applicant inquiries. Asylum entering irregularly into the country at the Canada-US border.

This monitoring includes internal surveys conducted by the Immigration Department to monitor public opinion on asylum seekers.

In March, the department conducted two surveys of 2,000 Canadians in the middle of the year. They suggested that Canadians were not overconfident about Canada's ability to manage the border at unsupervised entry points and that they had little obligation to do so. accept asylum seekers from the United States. .

Less than half of respondents – 43% in a telephone survey and 35% in an online survey – agreed that Canada is taking appropriate measures to manage irregular border crossings.

Forty-two percent of telephone respondents and only 18% of those online indicated that they felt that the number of people coming to Canada and asking for asylum was at an appropriate level.

"Canadians are more receptive to refugees selected by the Government of Canada than those who come to Canada and ask for asylum," says the internal document, which is one of the highlights of the survey. public.

The documents also show that the Department of Immigration is closely measuring public comments on asylum seekers on social media. This includes a weekly average of the number of times the problem is mentioned each day.

The government also measures the number of times press articles on asylum seekers published in the media include "myths countering messages".

It also uses social media as a tool for disseminating information as part of its outreach efforts to discourage irregular migrants from coming to Canada.

A targeted advertising campaign using search engine marketing to reach key populations in the United States was launched on December 18, 2017 and continued until March 17, 2018; it included a "targeted messaging based on search terms of users and intended for users of certain US cities populations with temporary protection status are found," says the internal document.

Canada began to face an influx of "irregular" border workers in early 2017, soon after the announcement by US President Donald Trump that it would end a program offering temporary protection status to Canadians. immigrants from several countries of the United States.

Since then, more than 36,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Canada from the United States, avoiding official border checkpoints where they would have been returned to the United States under the third country agreement on third parties. safe countries. Instead, they crossed the border along logging roads and fields, declaring their intention to apply for refugee status once on Canadian soil.

This issue has prompted calls in Canada to suspend or amend the safe third country agreement to stop the flow of irregular migrants.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair points to the fact that there has not been a significant increase in the number of irregular border officers apprehended by the RCMP this summer compared to the previous year. ;last summer.

"Our senior officials work hard, and they handle the situation with great skill," Blair said Thursday.

However, figures from one year to the next show that overall, more people have entered Canada irregularly this year compared to the number of people in Canada. individuals who crossed from January to September 2017.

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