Ottawa Spent $100M on Hotels for Asylum Seekers in Niagara Falls Over Past Year

Travelers arrive at the Canadian port of entry on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario on Nov. 8, 2021. Geoff Robbins/AFP via Getty Images

Ottawa spent more than $100 million on hotel rooms for asylum seekers in Niagara Falls over a year, after nearly 5,000 individuals were transferred to the city between February 2023 and February 2024.

The information was disclosed by the government in response to an Inquiry of Ministry filed by Conservative MP Tony Baldinelli, who represents Niagara Falls.

A total of 4,896 asylum claimants were transferred to Niagara Falls hotels within the one-year period, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said.

The IRCC leased a total of 2,787 beds in hotels in the city, with 2,018 of them being in use as of Feb. 1, 2024. Rooms are said to house between one individual asylum seeker and families of up to six people.

While exact total costs were not provided, IRCC said the average cost for each asylum seeker is $208 per day, which includes “rooms, meals, services and security.”

The IRCC notes that those who have resided in the hotels and later left had stayed in the hotels for 113 days on average. The total bill for the year is estimated to be around $115 million based on the averages provided.

IRCC also broke down the nationalities of those staying in Niagara Falls, with Nigerians making up the largest share of asylum seekers at 12 percent overall followed by people from Venezuela, Kenya and Turkey who made up 10 percent of the share of those housed in hotels each.

It is unknown, according to IRCC, how many asylum claimants have moved into private housing as the agency does not track the whereabouts of asylum seekers after they leave the government-funded hotels. It did not provide the details on which specific hotels were being used to house asylum seekers, citing privacy and safety issues.

Last year the federal government spent approximately $769 million on housing asylum seekers across different parts of Canada, with the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) receiving at least $100 million in funds.

At the Roxham Road unofficial border crossing in Quebec, over 105,000 illegal immigrants crossed into Canada over a period of five years.

Following an agreement with the United States in March of last year that updated the Safe Third Country agreement between Canada and the U.S., the number of illegal immigrants arriving at Roxham Road has diminished, but asylum seeker numbers have since increased at Canadian airports in Ontario and Quebec, according to federal data.

Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) statistics show that despite the Roxham Road crossing being closed in March of 2023, the number of “irregular border crossings” between ports of entry in the second and third quarters of last year was higher than the same period in 2022.