LILLEY: Premiers push back on Trudeau’s refugee resettlement plan

Feds sheepish after plans to send refugee claimants across the country made public

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Published Sep 12, 2024  •  3 minute read

Asylum seekers who came to Canada from African nations like Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania were camped outside of a city-run facility for homeless in Toronto for weeks waiting for assistance in July 2023. Photo by Jack Boland /Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

The Trudeau government is looking at taking the hundreds of thousands of refugee claimants currently in Ontario and Quebec and moving them across the country.

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It’s an idea that is already being met with resistance from premiers who say the feds should deal with their own programs.

“Alberta’s government is opposed to the federal government’s plan to relocate tens of thousands of asylum claimants to Alberta, especially without any financial assistance to support the province in doing so,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in a statement Thursday.

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Smith joined New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs who said during a speech on Wednesday that the federal government was looking to move 4,600 refugee claimants to his province. Higgs said during his speech that New Brunswick is a welcoming place but for the federal government to move so many people there without providing financial support is unacceptable.

“This sudden and unilateral proposal by Ottawa is deeply concerning, and I feel obligated to share the challenges it will bring to our province,” Higgs said.

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What would those challenges be?

For a start, provincial welfare payments would go through the roof – one senior Ontario government official shared that one in four people on welfare in that province is an asylum seeker. That fact alone they said was costing the provincial government $500 million per year.

In a province like New Brunswick, those figures would be lower but still a strain on the system.

It is the strain on school programs, on the welfare system and social services in general that has led to Quebec’s government and the Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa to push for relocation. According to a document viewed by my Postmedia colleagues at National Post, the Trudeau Liberals propose to send 32,500 asylum seekers to British Columbia, 28,000 to Alberta, 4,952 refugees to Nova Scotia and 4,600 to New Brunswick.

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The redistribution idea is being pushed by Quebec where 37,780 refugee applications were filed between Jan. 1 and July 31, that’s equivalent to the population of Sorel-Tracy in a year just from refugee claimants.

Ontario wouldn’t receive any of the resettled people from Quebec because in that same time period Ontario has seen 55,700 people claim asylum, more than the population of North Bay.

Here’s a crazy idea, instead of spreading the problem around, how about fixing it?

The Trudeau government allowed the illegal border crossing at Roxham Road to fester for years, claiming it couldn’t be fixed until it was. Now, instead of people walking across the border, they are flying in from around the world and claiming asylum as soon as they arrive.

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The Trudeau government has made it easier to enter Canada with moves such as lowering or eliminating visa requirements or making it easier to enter as a foreign student or temporary foreign worker. That has seen an upshot in asylum claims, including from places like India which has seen a huge uptick in asylum claims by people allowed in on work or study visas.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller hasn’t said the numbers reported by National Post are false, but he has said comments by Premier Higgs were “irresponsible” and that the “allegations by Premier Higgs are largely fictitious.”

Clearly, the Trudeau government is trying to move people around the country rather than fix the problem by dealing with a broken visa system and holes in the work and study programs. Thankfully, while the feds won’t try to fix the problem, some premiers are standing up and saying no.

“The Trudeau Government’s unrestrained open border policies permitting well over a million newcomers each year into Canada is causing significant challenges, and it’s simply not sustainable,” Premier Smith said.

She pointed out that such moves will increase the cost of living and strain social services.

It’s time to end Trudeau’s open border policies but it might take an election to do so.

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