Ford jabs at Trudeau in meeting with Tory
PM saddled mayor with a ‘mess’ on asylum seekers, premier says
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has saddled Toronto Mayor John Tory with a “mess” when it comes to accommodating asylum seekers, warns Premier Doug Ford.
In his first official meeting with Tory at Queen’s Park, Ford on Monday blasted Ottawa for its handling of the recent influx of irregular asylum seekers in Toronto, calling them “illegal bordercrossers that were put on the backs of the city.”
“The mayor is in a very tough … spot trying to get funding,” said the premier, who was sworn in on June 29.
That was a reference to the strain on resources due to asylum seekers entering Canada from the United States, a crisis triggered by President Donald Trump’s policies on migrants.
“The province and the city are spending a fortune and the person that created this mess, we haven’t seen any funding,” said Ford, referring to Trudeau. “Hopefully it’s coming. We hear it’s coming. We’ll wait and see.”
Those were the rookie premier’s first public comments since his contentious meeting with Trudeau on the issue last Thursday at Queen’s Park.
The mayor, for his part, was more measured, noting he was “discussing some of the pressures that we’re facing in our shelter system as a result of the refugee and asylum claimants.”
Tory, who met with Trudeau sepa- rately on Friday, said he was “absolutely confident” he could work with Ford on these issues “because it’s in our mutual interest to do so.”
As first disclosed by the Star, Ford stunned the federal government last week by signalling the province was stepping back from any role in alleviating the migrant crisis.
That decision sparked a withering salvo from the prime minister.
“It didn’t seem to me that the premier was quite as aware of our international obligations to the UN Convention on Refugees as he might have been,” Trudeau told reporters Thursday.
“So I spent a little time explaining how the asylum-seeking system works and how our system is supposed to operate. I reassured the premier — or I attempted to reassure the premier — that the asylum-seeker stream is separate from the immigration stream,” he said.
“Canada has always had a separate procedure to assess refugees and to determine whether they are, indeed, fleeing violence, persecution and terror, or else they are simply economic migrants, at which point they would get sent home.”
Monday’s meeting between the premier and the mayor was also an opportunity for the two men to discuss transit, housing, and Toronto’s recent spate of gun violence.
“We look forward to working hand in hand with the mayor,” said Ford.
The two political leaders are not close and have a complicated history.
Tory defeated Ford in the 2014 Toronto mayoral election and then worked closely with premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals.
Last month, Ford toppled Wynne’s party, leading the Progressive Conservatives back to power after almost 15 years in the political wilderness. In becoming premier, he achieved something that eluded Tory, who led the provincial Conservatives from 2004 until 2009.
Ford’s new government will outline its agenda in a speech from the throne on Thursday, one day after the legislature resumes to elect a new speaker. There will then be a brief summer legislative session.