The RCMP is in the process of settling in for a long time

Photo Martin Alarie
The two trailers used by the RCMP to the border, Lacolle to welcome and interview the migrants crossing irregularly will soon be replaced by a shelter built for the winter.

Christopher Nardi

Monday, 29 January, 2018 22:41

UPDATE
Monday, 29 January, 2018 22:41

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OTTAWA-The RCMP is preparing to install it on the rang Roxham, Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, a shelter in good and due form, which can be used in summer as in winter by its agents. A sign that the place where thousands of irregular migrants have crossed the border on foot gradually becomes a border to be permanent, according to a trade union.

On Monday, the federal government has launched a call for tenders for the purchase and installation of a “shelter hivernisé” to the canada-u.s. border.

This installation is custom built to replace two existing trailers, and installed in a hurry there are less than six months as a docking station and excavation of the migrants to the police officers of the RCMP.

In 2017, the police have intercepted no less than 20 000 migrants crossing irregularly near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle. They crossed the border by crossing a wooded area near the path Roxham, outside of the positions of customs officials, in order to be able to apply for refugee status.

“Following the announcement of the United States that the president, Donald Trump is putting in place visa restrictions for refugees entering the United States, the RCMP has mobilized their operations to the borders […] A recent analysis of the situation has confirmed the need for a continuity of current operations “, one can read in the call for tenders.

“In anticipation of delays and extensions, if any, shelter [built for winter] and heated, which will house the operations of the RCMP, must be erected. This shelter will need to be appropriate to house the operations not only during the winter months, but also during the summer months. “

Photo Martin Alarie

Shelter built for the winter

Trailers ill-suited

If the RCMP ensures that this is not a permanent installation, a spokesperson said that the two trailers that served as home of the migrants were poorly adapted to the situation.

The purpose of installing this new shelter 25 feet 70 feet is, therefore, to allow agents to better question and search the migrants when they are arrested.

“The installation is not necessarily bigger, but much better suited to the needs of the agents. But this is nothing permanent […] The goal is to do a quick install, and if you need to leave the site in two days, we’re going to do, ” says the spokesperson Generic Gasse.

Permanent Installation ?

Is it that the RCMP would pay for a new shelter if it was expected that the crisis of migrants fades soon ? The RCMP is not speculation, says the spokesperson.

It was impossible to know on Monday what the budget was reserved to purchase this shelter. Last October, the government had leased 27 trailers to accommodate up to 200 migrants at a price of$1.2 Million.

For his part, the president of the union of the border agents in canada, Jean-Pierre Fortin, sees the arrival of this installation as a sure sign of the “permanentisation” the site of illegal crossing at Lacolle.

“We are in the process of creating a position of continued passage […] I’m not surprised, it is clear that it is slowly in the process of formalizing the entrance corridor of the path Roxham,” says the blunt Mr. Fortin.