Posted at 5:00 am.
“All Senegalese know Boucar Diouf,” said Oumar Ba, who applied for asylum in Canada on June 27 as he entered Montreal-Trudeau airport.
– Ah great ! For what ?
— Because he was the one who discovered Quebec! »
La Presse met the 36-year-old Senegalese at the premises of the community organization Un route pour tous, where he was in charge of administrative management. Oumar Ba has been in Quebec for less than three months, but has already found a job and rented an apartment in Montreal North.
This is not the image we normally have of an asylum seeker.
In addition to French, he speaks Peul, Wolof, a little English and a little Spanish.
“I’m honestly very, very happy,” he admits.
Political reasons
Why did you ask for asylum? “I never dreamed of traveling. I’ve never thought about traveling before,” assures Oumar Ba.
I always believed that I could study at home and work for my country. Unfortunately, things have changed politically recently. We were not used to being beaten and oppressed. So I had to escape.
Oumar Ba
Four months after applying, he received a visitor visa from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), which happened very quickly. The processing time shown on the government website for a request from this African country is 452 days.
He then applied for asylum at Montreal-Trudeau Airport. He was taken to a room where there were about fifteen other applicants. He filled out documents and was recommended to go to the YMCA in downtown Montreal, which is managed by the Quebec government’s regional reception and integration program for asylum seekers (PRAIDA).
Oumar was housed in a Radisson hotel at federal expense for three weeks while he received his first welfare check and work permit.
He is divorced and the father of an 8-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl. He doesn’t want to go. “I’m thinking about bringing my kids one day,” he said. “In the future,” he would like to obtain a certificate in communications or public relations, “better understand Quebec society” and work in the world of media… “like Boucar Diouf.”
One job in a month
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Daniel Manga from Senegal applied for asylum in Canada on July 9th. A month later he found a job.
Daniel Manga, 34, took a similar path.
As a French teacher at a secondary school in Dakar, Senegal, he received a visitor visa to enter Canada in March. In his case the processing time was six months. Then, on July 9, upon his arrival in Montreal, he requested asylum.
“We were about twenty,” he explains. There were Senegalese, Latinos, Malians, a Gambian… The agents gave us papers to fill out to get the “brown paper”.
We arrived at 11am and stayed until 6pm. Afterwards I went to the PRAIDA YMCA. They told us to go to Radisson Hotel. They gave us rooms there. We stayed in a hotel while we waited for our work permit.
Daniel Manga
Daniel Manga found a job on August 10, a month after arriving in Quebec. Like Oumar Ba, or rather thanks to Oumar Ba, whom he met at the Radisson Hotel, he was hired by Un itineraire pour tous.
“I’m a local worker,” he explains. I work with young people like in my country. I think it’s good. I’m really calm at the moment. Canada is a country of peace where human rights are not violated and which respects people, regardless of their color, race, gender, etc. »
Daniel Manga is married and the father of two boys aged 2 and 6. He says he left his country because he was threatened because of his political views. Before he left, he took his family to his parents’ home in Ziguinchor, southern Senegal.
“If Canada gives me the opportunity to bring my family with me, I would say: why not. »
Delivery in three weeks
Unlike migrants who entered Quebec via Roxham Road, asylum seekers who arrive by plane receive work permits within weeks. They can apply for asylum via an online application immediately after arriving at the airport and submit their documents to IRCC. You will immediately receive the Asylum Seeker Document (ADD), also known as the “Brown Paper” in immigration jargon. “You complete the medical examination within 10 days and can obtain the work permit,” explains Stéphanie Valois, president of the Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers (AQAADI). “So things are going pretty smoothly on that front. Applicants must then complete IRCC forms and asylum application forms within 45 days. »