Pressure from Toronto and the province of Quebec has prompted the federal Liberal government to announce $362.4 million in new money to shelter refugees nationwide, the Toronto Star reports.Quebec will get $100 million or nearly 28% of the new funds, Immigration Minister Marc Miller told a hastily organized news conference outside the House of Commons on Wednesday. However, that's less than a quarter of the money that province has demanded.Miller said Toronto would get a "significant amount" and said the exact figure would be announced in the coming days.Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has demanded Ottawa cover the $250 million the city expects to spend this year to take care of refugee claimants. Until recently, the Trudeau government has repeatedly argued it sends billions to Toronto and to the provincial government already. These new funds were announced the day before Chow introduced the city budget.In a brief statement, Chow said she was "encouraged" by the news and looked forward to working with Miller on Toronto's allocation. Chow has been railing for more federal money for months. She threatened to label an additional 6% hike as a “federal impacts levy” that would come on top of a city staff-proposed 10.5% increase, but members of Trudeau’s 23-strong Toronto caucus complained.At the press conference, Miller pointed to the ongoing “needs that people have” and the historically high and rising numbers of refugee claimants, saying, “there is a need to be a little more co-ordinated and get money into people's pockets that are best served to house those people.”Miller refused responsibility for whatever Chow did. “I have nothing to do with a federal levy. You can call a municipal tax whatever you want. It's still a municipal tax.”Premier Doug Ford has already agreed to provide $200 million a year to cover shelter costs for homeless populations and joined Chow to call on the federal government to cover the cost of sheltering refugees. The Ontario government said it was “disappointed” with Miller’s announcement.“Last year, more than half of all asylum claimants in the country came to Ontario, with even more expected this year,” Labour and Immigration Minister David Piccini said in a statement.“The funding announced by the federal government today doesn’t cover the needs of Toronto, let alone all the other municipalities facing the same pressures due to the increased numbers of asylum claimants.”Miller said all levels of government have to work to settle the growing number of asylum seekers. The new money will flow through the interim housing assistance program which works on a reimbursement basis, which Miller called a “very expensive stopgap measure" that Ottawa must reform alongside the provinces.The federal immigration department told the Star it provided $2 billion in 2023 to support refugees and asylum seekers across the country.As of 4 a.m. January 31, the Star found city data showed zero emergency beds were available in women’s or co-ed shelters, with a single men’s emergency bed and five youth spaces unfilled by night’s end. All of the city’s warming centres were filled to capacity, as were women’s drop-ins, with just two respite beds empty.Quebec Premier François Legault wrote the federal government in mid-January demanding Ottawa reimburse Quebec about $470 million that his province spent on shelter, education and health services to absorb asylum seekers in 2021 and 2022 and to do the same for subsequent years.He said Quebec services were nearing a breaking point as the province received 60,000 new refugee claimants in the first 11 months of 2023.According to data posted by the Immigration and Refugee Board, asylum seekers coming from Mexico represent the largest number of claimants Canada received last year. From January to September 2023, nearly 17,500 refugee claims were made, with 11% accepted and 10% rejected. The rest joined the cue of nearly 23,000 claims from Mexico still being processed.Miller said Ottawa is looking at its options, including restoring a visa requirement on Mexican visitors that the Harper government had imposed and the Trudeau government lifted.
Pressure from Toronto and the province of Quebec has prompted the federal Liberal government to announce $362.4 million in new money to shelter refugees nationwide, the Toronto Star reports.Quebec will get $100 million or nearly 28% of the new funds, Immigration Minister Marc Miller told a hastily organized news conference outside the House of Commons on Wednesday. However, that's less than a quarter of the money that province has demanded.Miller said Toronto would get a "significant amount" and said the exact figure would be announced in the coming days.Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has demanded Ottawa cover the $250 million the city expects to spend this year to take care of refugee claimants. Until recently, the Trudeau government has repeatedly argued it sends billions to Toronto and to the provincial government already. These new funds were announced the day before Chow introduced the city budget.In a brief statement, Chow said she was "encouraged" by the news and looked forward to working with Miller on Toronto's allocation. Chow has been railing for more federal money for months. She threatened to label an additional 6% hike as a “federal impacts levy” that would come on top of a city staff-proposed 10.5% increase, but members of Trudeau’s 23-strong Toronto caucus complained.At the press conference, Miller pointed to the ongoing “needs that people have” and the historically high and rising numbers of refugee claimants, saying, “there is a need to be a little more co-ordinated and get money into people's pockets that are best served to house those people.”Miller refused responsibility for whatever Chow did. “I have nothing to do with a federal levy. You can call a municipal tax whatever you want. It's still a municipal tax.”Premier Doug Ford has already agreed to provide $200 million a year to cover shelter costs for homeless populations and joined Chow to call on the federal government to cover the cost of sheltering refugees. The Ontario government said it was “disappointed” with Miller’s announcement.“Last year, more than half of all asylum claimants in the country came to Ontario, with even more expected this year,” Labour and Immigration Minister David Piccini said in a statement.“The funding announced by the federal government today doesn’t cover the needs of Toronto, let alone all the other municipalities facing the same pressures due to the increased numbers of asylum claimants.”Miller said all levels of government have to work to settle the growing number of asylum seekers. The new money will flow through the interim housing assistance program which works on a reimbursement basis, which Miller called a “very expensive stopgap measure" that Ottawa must reform alongside the provinces.The federal immigration department told the Star it provided $2 billion in 2023 to support refugees and asylum seekers across the country.As of 4 a.m. January 31, the Star found city data showed zero emergency beds were available in women’s or co-ed shelters, with a single men’s emergency bed and five youth spaces unfilled by night’s end. All of the city’s warming centres were filled to capacity, as were women’s drop-ins, with just two respite beds empty.Quebec Premier François Legault wrote the federal government in mid-January demanding Ottawa reimburse Quebec about $470 million that his province spent on shelter, education and health services to absorb asylum seekers in 2021 and 2022 and to do the same for subsequent years.He said Quebec services were nearing a breaking point as the province received 60,000 new refugee claimants in the first 11 months of 2023.According to data posted by the Immigration and Refugee Board, asylum seekers coming from Mexico represent the largest number of claimants Canada received last year. From January to September 2023, nearly 17,500 refugee claims were made, with 11% accepted and 10% rejected. The rest joined the cue of nearly 23,000 claims from Mexico still being processed.Miller said Ottawa is looking at its options, including restoring a visa requirement on Mexican visitors that the Harper government had imposed and the Trudeau government lifted.
