Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced $362.4 million in funding for the Temporary Housing Assistance Program (TIAP). Of this envelope, 100 million is reserved for Quebec – which instead requested a sum of 470 million.
This amount enhances the PALP, a program whose objective is to provide funding to provinces and municipalities for accommodation solutions for asylum seekers.
Asked what happened to Quebec’s other requests, the minister admitted that “money alone will not be enough. »
“We have made significant efforts in recent months and years to put people in hotels outside Quebec. It is clear that Quebec and Ontario, among others, are doing more than their share in proportion to their respective populations. […] It is clear that other measures are necessary,” said Mr. Miller.
The latter specified that other discussions with Quebec would follow this year.
On January 18, Quebec Premier François Legault urged Justin Trudeau to curb the influx of asylum seekers or else Quebec would reach its “breaking point.”
The Legault government demanded a reimbursement of $470 million incurred for the reception of asylum seekers in 2021 and 2022, and that the federal government do the same for subsequent years.
“We are very close to the breaking point due to the excessive number of asylum seekers arriving in Quebec month after month. The situation has become unbearable,” the Quebec Prime Minister wrote to his counterpart.
Earlier that day, the Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, had urged the federal government to tighten the granting of visas and better distribute migrants across Canada.
Recent data shows that a record number of migrants came to seek refuge in the country last year, almost half of them in Quebec.
Minister Miller did not want to specify where the government’s thoughts were on the question of visas for Mexican nationals.
The number of asylum seekers from Mexico has exploded in recent years. Data obtained by Le Devoir shows that it increased from 260 in 2016 to 22,405 in 2023 (as of November). Canada welcomed an average of 2,037 Mexican asylum seekers monthly between January and November last year.
More details will follow.