MPs Vote to Investigate Government Funds Used at Unofficial Quebec Border Crossing

The end of Roxham Road where thousands of asylum seekers have crossed in Hemmingford, Quebec, on March 20, 2020. Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press

MPs on the House of Commons ethics committee voted during a meeting on Oct. 3 to launch an investigation into public funds used to build infrastructure at the unofficial border crossing of Roxham Road in Quebec.

“We’re talking about spending over the past five years of half a billion dollars around Lacolle and Roxham Road,” said Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus during the meeting. “There are people involved in this, hidden contracts. They invoke national security. It’s ridiculous.”

The Roxham Road border crossing, located in Quebec south of Montreal, is used by a large number of illegal immigrants seeking asylum in Canada. Since 2017, the number of illegal immigrants attempting to enter Canada from New York state through Roxham Road has risen by 13 percent, according to the RCMP.

Radio-Canada recently reported that the federal government paid around $500,000 to reimburse Quebec costs or private suppliers renting land and building accommodations for illegal immigrants at Roxham Road.

Bloc Québécois MP René Villemure initially sponsored the motion requesting that the commons ethics committee investigate the funds allocated by the federal government, as well as a warehouse lease at Roxham Road that Ottawa granted to a known Liberal-party donor, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

“We are concerned about the impact these revelations may have on the public and the trust the public is obliged to place in the government,” reads a letter sent to the parliamentary access to information committee chair. It was signed by commons ethics committee chair Pat Kelly, along with Villemure and Conservative MPs James Bezan, Ryan Williams, and Damien Kurek, and NDP MP Matthew Green.

“The federal government signed the lease without a tender in 2017 with a donor who contributed around $23,000 to the Liberal Party. The lease was even renewed for five years, again without a tender. This is a huge problem with a simple solution,” said Villemure in the House of Commons on Dec. 13, 2021.

“Why not shut down Roxham instead of jumping right into another Liberal ethics scandal?”

Liberal MPs on the ethics committee opposed the investigation into Roxham Road spending, with Liberal MP Greg Fergus saying “there’s nothing there.”

“Hopefully the evidence we’ll hear will prove there is nothing there and that things are being done properly so we can move on to something else,” said Fergus.

Liberals on the committee also pushed for an amendment reducing the number of meetings on the investigation from six to two, but were defeated 6–5 in the vote.

“This is not the first example of such a case since 2015 of shady activities,” said Paul-Hus.

The Canadian Press and Reuters contributed to this report.