Refugee bill at $200M, MacLeod tells MPs

Debate ranges from money to vocabulary

Ontario’s bill for refugee claimants is up to $200 million, the province’s social-services minister, Lisa MacLeod, said Tuesday in a testy Parliament Hill committee hearing that spent much of its time in an argument over whether it’s OK to describe some crossings of the Canadian border as “illegal.”

The Ontario government is continuing to crunch numbers, finding new expenses to attribute to asylum claimants who come into Canada between official “points of entry” to ask for protection as refugees. While they wait for federal hearings that can take as long as two years, provincial and municipal governments cover social services like emergency housing and welfare payments if they’re needed.

MacLeod and Premier Doug Ford have already talked about the roughly $90 million the Ontario government has spent on social assistance payments, plus about $85 million the cities of Toronto and Ottawa have spent on shelter and social housing.

Now add $20 million for education for refugee-claimant kids, and $3 million the province has given the Red Cross for its help with 800 refugee claimants staying in two college dorms in Toronto. The tally rises by the day.

“I have a $200-million price tag that I need you guys to pay for. You would rather have a debate on words. I would rather have money for the things my ministry pays for,” MacLeod upbraided MPs on the House of Commons’ citizenship and immigration committee, where she’d been invited to testify about those costs. “The problems seem to be spreading without any light at the end of the tunnel.”

Refugee claimants cost real money, and it is a consequence of an inadequately funded federal system for deciding whether refugee claims are legitimate.

The process is supposed to take 60 days. It’s never that quick, particularly since claimants started turning to Canada after President Donald Trump was elected in the United States.

It doesn’t matter whether they arrive at the Thousand Islands Bridge or walk into Quebec through a forest path. Some are legitimate claimants, some make honest claims that we don’t accept, some are liars. There’s no way to know who’s which without hearing what they have to say for themselves. We cannot just point them back the way they came.

The word “illegal” suggests they’re illegitimate, which isn’t really right: If someone shows up in the country — anywhere — and asks for asylum, we’re required by both international and domestic law to hear their claim. There is no mechanism for turning them away without listening to their case.

The trouble: MacLeod and Ford stormed into the refugee situation shortly after being sworn in by objecting to the costs to the province for “illegal border crossers.” They knew what they were doing, or they thought they did at the time.

MacLeod’s case for the money is much stronger than the case for using the word “illegal.” Naturally, with the provincial minister before them, federal Liberals wanted to talk about the word.

Peter Fragiskatos, a Liberal MP from London, used much of his allotted question time to quiz MacLeod about whether she’s aware of the various legal instruments governing refugee claims — court rulings, a UN convention and so on — mostly drawing on written notes.

“Where does it say crossing the border is illegal?” he asked.

“Just because they put the paper in front of you doesn’t mean you have to read it,” MacLeod volleyed back, implying Fragiskatos was just reciting lines. “The federal government has sole jurisdiction on Canada’s borders and it’s your responsibility to identify a solution to the most recent influx.”

Calgary MP Michelle Rempel, the federal Conservatives’ immigration critic, had staff dig up transcripts of an earlier committee hearing where Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said he uses the words “irregular” and “illegal” to mean the same thing.

Vancouver MP Jenny Kwan spent a chunk of her time lamenting the word “illegal,” too.

What if Hussen recanted his earlier statement that “illegal” and “irregular” mean the same thing — would MacLeod do the same?

I mean, who’s supposed to care? Not the 800 people in college dorms who’ll soon have to make way for students (MacLeod said she’s presenting the feds with a list of federal properties that her ministry thinks could house them). Not Canadians who have an interest in getting claimants’ cases adjudicated so they can either get welcomed, integrated and employed, or escorted out of the country as quickly as possible.

The federal Immigration Department says Canada intercepted 10,744 people crossing into the country between regular ports of entry in the first half of 2018 — an annual rate of about 21,500 people.

For some perspective, Italy reported 117,000 people arriving on its shores just on boats in 2017, and 183,000 migrants in all. Germany got 186,000 migrants last year, which was down from 280,000 the year before and a stunning 890,000 the year before that. Proportionately, they’re getting three or four times the refugee claimants we are, after previously absorbing many times that.

Canada’s been insulated from mass migrations by geography: we have only one land border and it’s with a country that’s been more of a migrant-magnet than Canada has been. We can totally handle the change if we only recalibrate a little. Words matter but actually helping people and making our refugee system work would matter a whole lot more.