Ottawa must help

To say Toronto’s emergency shelter system is facing a crisis would be a gross understatement.

Alarmingly, as of Friday, there were only 20 vacant beds out of the record-breaking 6,740 the city now funds. But this time municipal politicians are not to blame. Instead, they are to be commended for trying diligently to keep up with the unprecedented demand for beds created by political decisions that are made, but not paid for, by Ottawa.

Indeed, the current bed shortage is not the result of poor civic planning but of an unprecedented influx of thousands of asylum seekers travelling here from the U.S. In fact, refugee claimants now make up 41 per cent of Toronto’s shelter population, up from 11.2 per cent in 2016.

Some of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s critics accuse him of making the situation worse back in January 2017 when he tweeted out a message saying that Canada welcomes refugees.

There was nothing wrong with that. This country should help those “fleeing persecution, terror & war,” as Trudeau said at the time. But regardless of why the numbers are up, Ottawa has not provided money or a plan to house the influx of refugees, even though they are a federal responsibility.

The city has already budgeted almost $65 million to provide food and shelter for refugee claimants. And as Mayor John Tory points out, “We could not, cannot and should not be doing this alone.”

It’s time Ottawa helped out before Toronto ends up having to turn any homeless person away from its shelter system.

That would be both inhospitable and irresponsible.

The city’s shelter system is being swamped by refugee claimants. Ottawa must do more to help