Ontario formally asks federal government for $200M for asylum seeker costs

Ontario PC party MPP Lisa MacLeod arrives for a meeting to pick an interim leader to lead them into the June provincial election at Queen's Park in Toronto on Friday, January 26, 2018. Brown stepped down as PC leader following sexual misconduct allegations. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

The Ontario government is asking Ottawa for $200 million in funding to pay for the temporary settlement and support for the estimated 36,000 asylum seekers that have arrived in the province over the last 18 months.

Ontario’s Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod has penned an open letter to her federal counterpart Jean-Yves Duclos requesting “direct and full compensation for the costs associated with the lengthy support Ontario and its municipalities are supplying” asylum seekers.

In the letter, MacLeod says that Ontario has incurred $90 million in social assistance costs and $20 million in costs related to providing primary and secondary education spaces for asylum seekers. She says that the City of Toronto has also incurred an additional $74 million in costs related to housing and supporting asylum seekers while the City of Ottawa has incurred $12 million in such costs.

City of Toronto officials have previously said that asylum seekers and refugees now make up 45 per cent of shelter occupants, a situation that has undoubtedly put a strain on the system.

“Our government estimates the cost to Ontario so far to support the crossers to be $200 million. Federal support to date has been inadequate to meet the current and future needs posed by this crisis,” the letter states. “The Government of Ontario believes that managing the influx of illegal border crossers is the federal government’s responsibility. The federal government must also fund the services required to support them in full.”

In June, the federal government announced that it would provide $50 million to the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba to help cover the costs of providing temporary housing for asylum seekers.

The lion’s share of that money – $36 million – went to Quebec while Ontario received $11 million and Manitoba received $3 million.

In her letter, MacLeod says that while “Ontarians are pro-immigration,” the full cost of accommodating asylum seekers ought to be paid for by the federal government.

“For more than a year, communities across Ontario have been straining to support a high number of the illegal border crossers; and the approach of the federal government is now testing the patience and generosity of Ontarians,” she said. “Ontario can only do so much. Since January 2016, we have received over 36,000 refugee claimants. In addition, over 5,500 refugee claimants who made their claim in Quebec have reported moving to Ontario since January 2017.”

Premier Doug Ford and other officials in his government have repeatedly referred to asylum seekers as “illegal border crossers,” though it should be noted that the act of arriving at a port of entry and declaring asylum is not in and of itself against any laws. Following a meeting with Ford earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that the premier may not fully understand Canada's international obligations when it comes to asylum seekers.

“I spent a little time explaining how the asylum-seeking system works and how our system is supposed to operate," he said at the time. “"At the same time I agreed that it would be good for our officials to sit down and get clarity on how we can actually work together to ensure that we are holding true to our values but making sure that our immigration and refugee system is being applied in its integrity."