The Trudeau government is injecting an additional $100 million for Quebec in a program to house asylum seekers.
The sum is part of a $362.4 million envelope for the Interim Housing Assistance Program announced Wednesday by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller.
The funds will be distributed across the country, meaning that Quebec will receive 27.6 per cent of the sum. The amount is well below what the province asked for in the form of a refund. Two weeks ago, Premier François Legault asked Ottawa to write a cheque for $470 million to cover the costs of receiving asylum seekers in 2021 and 2022, and to do the same for subsequent years.
Legault stated that the number of asylum seekers arriving in Quebec is "excessive" and that the situation has become "unsustainable," so much so that the province is on the verge of reaching its "breaking point."
Recent data published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada confirmed that Quebec registered 45.5 per cent of all asylum claims in the country in 2023. Questioned on the subject, Minister Miller argued that the proportion of the money going to Quebec is greater than its demographic weight in the federation, which is 22.1 per cent, and that "there are other sums of money going to Quebec that are the envy of other provinces".
"So there are other adjustments to be made when we do this calculation," he insisted. Miller declined to say whether he thought Quebec's demands were reasonable.
"We also have demands of Quebec, but they're not necessarily made in the public arena," he said. However, he promised that Ottawa would have "further discussions" with the province about the remainder of the amounts claimed.
And while Quebec called for a more "equitable" distribution of asylum seekers across Canada, for example, by moving them to other provinces "by bus," Miller retorted that Ottawa has no intention of treating these people "like cattle, then putting them anywhere."
Quebec's Minister responsible for Canadian Relations, Jean-François Roberge, spoke Wednesday of a "first instalment."
"We'll take this first installment, but there will have to be a full repayment, because the hundreds of millions we paid out to welcome asylum seekers -- and it's important to do so -- were committed by Quebecers, by the Quebec government to take care of thousands, thousands, thousands of people. An incredible influx of people, as a result of federal policies," said Roberge in an interview with CPAC.
"It wouldn't be right to get a partial refund that way, and stop there," he added.
In a press scrum, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet said the funds announced Wednesday had "nothing to do" with the request, which concerns the past, not the future.
Above all, he felt that the federal government was behaving "like a bad payer, unreliable and untrustworthy."
"You owe me $470 million, give me $470 million. I'll do what I want with it," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Jan. 31, 2024.
