The federal government is preparing a plan to relocate tens of thousands of asylum seekers from Quebec and Ontario to other locations across Canada.
Speaking to reporters on Sept. 11, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he has been having discussions over the summer with his provincial counterparts about what a “fair distribution” of asylum seekers would look like in Canada.
“Our teams have been working on models on what that would look like, and we came up with a set of facts and figures about what each province should be taking based on population weight,” Miller said at a national caucus meeting in Nanaimo, B.C. “That means that some provinces should take on more to ease the pressure on provinces like Ontario and Quebec.”
According to a federal government briefing document obtained by The National Post, a total of 235,825 people are currently seeking asylum in Canada, with most making their claims in Ontario and Quebec. A redistribution of asylum seekers would result in many of them being sent to other, less populous provinces.
The distribution ratio would result in Alberta receiving around 28,000 asylum seekers, British Columbia receiving over 32,500, and Nova Scotia receiving 4,952. Other provinces would receive fewer claimants, with Manitoba receiving 1,378, Saskatchewan getting 7,075, Nova Scotia getting 6,131, Prince Edward Island getting 943, and Newfoundland and Labrador getting 3,066.
The province of Quebec, which as of January 2024 was estimated to be home to 54 percent of all asylum seekers, has called for Ottawa to introduce a national quota system to more evenly distribute asylum seekers across Canada. Quebec has also called on the federal government to reimburse the province for the $1 billion it says it spent in the past three years to settle refugee claimants.
Miller announced in January that Ottawa would be giving an extra $362 million to provinces and municipalities to temporarily house asylum seekers, with $100 million of that funding going to Quebec.
Opposition From Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia Premier Blaine Higgs reacted to the redistribution proposal in a post on social media on Sept. 11, signalling his opposition to what he called the “sudden and unilateral” federal plan.
He said it would send 4,600 asylum seekers to the province without “any financial assistance of any opportunity to build the resources and capability to manage it.”
Higgs said since the province currently has under 400 asylum seekers in the province, the federal plan would bring in 10 times that number, and that it would “stretch our healthcare and education systems far beyond what they can handle.”
In response to those comments, Miller told reporters that Higgs’ allegations were “largely fictitious,” as Ottawa had “at no time” said they would impose asylum seekers on provinces without providing compensation.
“There’s a responsibility for provinces to take on asylum seekers, to ease the pressure on their colleague provinces in Ontario and Quebec, and we expect provinces to follow suit,” he said in Nanaimo.
“But in no circumstances will we be doing this without compensation or without consent from the provinces.”
Miller said while it was “no surprise” that many provinces do not want to take in asylum seekers, the provinces need to coordinate to take pressure off Ontario and Quebec, and Ottawa is looking at “incentives” for provinces that accept asylum seekers.
Miller added the federal government had been moving asylum seekers into federally funded hotel rooms, but that model “doesn’t work very well.”
In July, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada said Ottawa was considering purchasing hotels to house asylum seekers, following an estimated $1.76 billion in direct subsidies for temporary shelter for asylum seekers since 2017.
