P.E.I. hunger strikers hopeful after small meals and government meeting

Protestors ended a 10-day long hunger strike outside the Prince Edward Island legislature Friday, but said they wouldn’t halt their demonstration until the provincial government met their immigration demands.

Jaspreet Singh is among the roughly 25 people who have camped out by the building since May 23, challenging the Progressive Conservative government’s decision to slow the Island’s population growth by reducing the number of immigrants who will be granted permanent residency.

Singh said Saturday he was hopeful after officials finally met with the protesters, though his voice was small and hollow after the ordeal he’d put this body through in an effort to get their attention.

“I had a different life in my mind when I chose Canada as a land of immigration,” he said in an interview. “But I saw a very different side coming here. It has been hard on me since I faced all these unfair changes.”

When Singh arrived in P.E.I. in January 2023, the Island’s immigration rules were much different than they are now. Under the old rules, he had a path to permanent residency if he worked for a set probationary permit and had a job lined up when his work permit expires, he said.

But the new regime introduced in February cuts the number of foreign workers it will nominate for permanent residency, with a particularly tight limit on those who entered the province on permits to work in the sales and service industry.

Applicants will also be assigned numerical points based on factors including their age and education, and they will have to meet a minimum score to be successful, he said.

Singh, 23, works in technical sales at a call centre. He came to the Island with a dream of starting his own business some day after obtaining his permanent residency. Now his work permit is ending and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stay.

He and his fellow demonstrators are asking to be grandfathered under the old regime.

“What we are demanding is our rights,” he said. “We came here with the hope of a better future, we came here with the old policies to permanent residency pathways, and they changed the rules overnight. And it’s totally unfair and unjust.”

Singh said he lost about 15 pounds during the strike and had begun passing out, particularly after the group stopped drinking water on Tuesday. The hunger strike was a last resort, he said; they felt there was no other way to make people listen.

He said when government officials met with the protestors on Friday, they took the demonstrators list of all the foreign workers they knew in the province whose immigration plans have been upended by the policy changes. The officials asked at the meeting that the protestors end their hunger strike.

Singh ate a small meal of roti on Friday, taking it slow as his body readjusted to being fed.

But though the hunger strike is over, Singh said he and the people around him at the legislature on Saturday wouldn’t be leaving until they got what they asked for

“It has been enough time now, we have been played around enough,” he said. “There is hope in all of our minds that something will be done.”

Premier Dennis King’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 1, 2024.

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press