Federal government pledges more money to help with refugee housing crisis

The federal government is allocating more money to help house a rising number of asylum seekers in Canada.

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller announced on Wednesday that more than $362 million is being allocated to the provinces and cities struggling to cope with a rising number of refugee claimants.

The money falls under the federal government’s Interim Housing Assistance Program. Miller said $100 million of the new money will be earmarked for the province of Quebec.

“This program is important because it gets shelters over people’s heads, particularly with the temperature that it is outside. But it needs reform, and that’s something that will have to be worked on … in the coming months,” he said.

“I think we owe it to Canadians to reform a system that has very much been a stopgap measure since 2017 to deal with large historic flows of migration.”

He said more details of how the funding will be allocated will be revealed in the coming days

The new funding comes after premiers and mayors called for more federal help.

Quebec Premier François Legault wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this month saying the growing number of asylum seekers was pushing government services to their breaking point.

He asked the federal government to slow the flow of asylum seekers and to cover the cost of providing services to those already in Quebec.

WATCH | Why Ottawa is announcing new funding for refugee housing:

Of the $362 million, Housing Minister Marc Miller says $100 million of the money will be put aside for Quebec.

Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette said Wednesday’s announcement was a “first step,” but she called on Ottawa for more funding and to make changes to the immigration system.

“We expect the federal government not only to reimburse us for the entire $470 million, but also to change the way it manages visas to reduce the flow of asylum seekers,” she said.

Paul Calandra, Ontario’s minister of municipal affairs and housing, echoed Fréchette’s concerns.

It “doesn’t cover the needs of Toronto, let alone all the other municipalities facing the same pressures due to the increased numbers of asylum claimants,” he said in a joint statement with Ontario Immigration Minister David Piccini.

“The federal government needs to take responsibility for the crisis it created and provide the necessary funding to address it.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has also asked for more federal money to help the city house asylum seekers. Miller said on Wednesday that the City of Toronto would be getting a “significant amount” of the funding, but he did not divulge an exact number.

Housing and support for asylum seekers are the responsibility of provincial and municipal governments, but Ottawa has offered multiple top-up payments like this one to ease the load.

As of last week, about 7,300 asylum claimants in need of housing were staying in about 4,000 hotel rooms provided by the federal government in six provinces.

Miller said many asylum seekers gravitate toward big municipalities such as Montreal and Toronto because of jobs or existing communities in such cities.

He said the system as it stands is “not perfect” and not a long-term solution.

“But it’s something we have to do.”