The Canadian government is developing a plan to relocate tens of thousands of asylum seekers from Quebec and Ontario to various other provinces across the country.
During a press conference on Sept. 11, Immigration Minister Marc Miller disclosed that he has been in talks with provincial officials throughout the summer to determine a fair distribution of asylum seekers across Canada.
“Our teams have been creating models to assess this distribution, taking into account population size,” Miller stated during a national caucus meeting in Nanaimo, B.C. “This means that some provinces will need to accept more asylum seekers to alleviate the burden on provinces like Ontario and Quebec.”
According to a federal government briefing document obtained by The National Post, there are currently 235,825 asylum seekers in Canada, with a majority of them filing claims in Ontario and Quebec. The redistribution plan aims to relocate many of these individuals to less populated provinces.
Under the proposed distribution ratio, Alberta would receive approximately 28,000 asylum seekers, British Columbia over 32,500, Nova Scotia 4,952, Manitoba 1,378, Saskatchewan 7,075, Prince Edward Island 943, and Newfoundland and Labrador 3,066.
Canada has experienced a significant increase in asylum claims in recent years, with over 106,000 claims processed by Ottawa from January to July of 2024 alone. This marked a substantial rise from the 57,000 claims processed in 2023, which was previously a record-breaking year. In the period from 2011 to 2016, annual asylum claims ranged from 10,000 to 25,000.
The province of Quebec, home to 54 percent of all asylum seekers as of January 2024, has urged Ottawa to implement a national quota system to distribute asylum seekers more evenly across the country. Quebec has also demanded reimbursement of $1 billion spent over the past three years on settling refugee claimants.
Earlier in January, Miller announced that Ottawa would allocate an additional $362 million to provinces and municipalities to provide temporary housing for asylum seekers, with Quebec receiving $100 million of that funding.
Related Stories
Opposition From Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia Premier Blaine Higgs expressed his opposition to the redistribution proposal in a social media post on Sept. 11, criticizing the federal plan as sudden and unilateral.
He raised concerns about the plan to send 4,600 asylum seekers to the province without financial assistance or resources to manage them effectively.
Higgs highlighted that the province currently hosts fewer than 400 asylum seekers, and the proposed influx would overwhelm healthcare and education systems.
In response to these objections, Miller refuted the claims, stating that Ottawa had never indicated imposing asylum seekers on provinces without compensation.
He emphasized the shared responsibility among provinces to accommodate asylum seekers and alleviate pressure on Ontario and Quebec, noting that provinces must cooperate in this effort.
Miller mentioned that Ottawa had been utilizing federally funded hotel rooms for asylum seekers, but acknowledged that this model had its limitations.
In July, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada revealed considerations for purchasing hotels to house asylum seekers, following substantial subsidies for temporary shelter since 2017.
Could you please rewrite this sentence?
Source link
