We have learned that the Legault government is demanding Ottawa reimburse the remaining $460 million the country spent on hosting asylum seekers and Ukrainian nationals over the past two years The newspaper.
• Also read: Closing Roxham Road solved nothing: record number of asylum applications at Montreal airport
“Quebec has notably offered these newcomers temporary accommodation, social services, emergency financial assistance, housing assistance, franchising services and employment support. Quebec therefore expects the federal government to reimburse all costs incurred for the services offered,” says a September 15 letter to federal ministers, a copy of which was obtained by Le Journal.
In this letter, signed by Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard and his colleague Christine Fréchette, Minister of Immigration, Francisization and Integration, Quebec regrets that “less than 15%” of the total bill of $470 million was sent to the federal government for Benefits for asylum seekers for 2021 and 2022 have been reimbursed.
This is the first time Quebec has revealed the estimated cost of its services to asylum seekers since the pandemic.
We also learn that the provincial government paid an estimated $58.3 million to host Ukrainian nationals in 2022, an amount it is also claiming in full from Ottawa.
Demands that are becoming increasingly clear
The letter calls for meetings with the federal ministries involved to begin discussions, but according to our information, the Legault government has not received a response.
The office of Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and that of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller, to whom the letter is addressed, did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment at the time of publication of this text.
Prime Minister François Legault called for money for the first time related to asylum seekers arriving since the pandemic hit last February, speaking of “hundreds of millions of dollars” in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Roxham Road, where most asylum seekers entered, was permanently closed on March 25, 2023 as part of an agreement between Canada and the United States. But migrant arrivals have increased again since then, with a record set at Montreal-Trudeau Airport in September.
The letter states that the request regarding Ukrainian nationals will be “repeated” as it was already rejected for the first time by the Trudeau government.
Ms. Fréchette and Mr. Girard write that last July they were informed by Ottawa “with great surprise” of the lack of a provincial reimbursement program for Ukrainians.
“Nothing obligates” Ottawa to act
François Rocher, a political scientist at the University of Ottawa, emphasizes that social services, even those provided to asylum seekers, are the responsibility of the provinces.
Although Ottawa has “no obligation” from a power-sharing perspective to compensate the Legault government, he believes Quebec is in a good moral position to claim those amounts, given the disproportionate number of asylum seekers it has had to accept .
“We often defend federalism by saying that one of its virtues is solidarity between provinces. “This is a good example of how the federal government was able to show that the principle of federal solidarity has a certain meaning.”
The bill sent by Quebec to the federal government
- $135.9 million for asylum seekers in 2021
- $334.4 million for asylum seekers in 2022
- $58.3 million for Ukrainian citizens in 2022
- According to Quebec, Ottawa has only reimbursed less than 15% of the asylum seekers’ bill, or $66.9 million
- Quebec estimates that Ottawa owes it $461.7 million
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