An outreach organization that supports asylum seekers and immigrants in Alberta believes the systems helping all newcomers need to be modernized in order to better support those coming to Canada.
“I think the issue has always been, from time immemorial, that we don’t have our levels of government necessarily speaking to each other when it comes to immigration issues,” said Anila Umar, the CEO and president of the Centre For Newcomers in Calgary.
On Thursday, Premier Danielle Smith released a statement saying the province can’t afford to take in any more asylum seekers as Alberta is already dealing with an influx of newcomers.
Smith also stated Alberta “has always welcomed newcomers who possess our shared values — and we will continue to do so.”
“I would suggest to you that this is not an ethnic or racial issue,” said University of Alberta political scientist and immigration expert Reza Hasmath.
“This is really an immigration issue and it’s an issue of bad policymaking, more politicking rather than policy making.”
Smith’s statement was in response to the federal Liberal government’s proposal to alleviate immigration pressure on Quebec and Ontario by resettling asylum seekers more equitably across the country.
“The problem, I think, becomes when we start talking about what type of newcomers and how and what supports we’re getting,” Umar said, explaining while Alberta has a labour shortage and migrants who move here for economic or family reasons can help fill that void — asylum seekers fleeing their homeland to the safety of Canada are a completely different thing.
“They’re trying to become refugees and permanent residents here. They actually don’t have access to funding. And us as agencies that work with newcomers, as settlement agencies — don’t receive funding to help asylum seekers until they are actually accepted as a refugee,” Umar said.
As it stands right now, when asylum seekers come to Canada, the province they arrive in receives funding in order to support them.
“If those people first chose to come to Alberta, then the money goes to Alberta. But what often happens and what we’re seeing is the secondary migration is very high,” Umar said.
Both Umar and Hasmath noted, asylum seekers typically arrive in major urban centres or at land border crossings in Eastern Canada, mostly Ontario and Quebec.
However, due to a host of reasons — cost of living, family elsewhere, job opportunities — those seeking refugee status may move elsewhere in Canada, as is their human right.
“People start Toronto, they start in Montreal, they start in Vancouver somewhere else, and then they see the cost of living is too high,” Umar said.
“They see that we still have land, we still have space, we have jobs, we have openings. And the cost of living is lower in Calgary or in Edmonton. And so they choose to come to Alberta, but the funding is not following.”
Umar said that’s where the problem lies — during that so-called “secondary migration.”
“So this is where the big issue comes from and this is where the pushback that the premier is giving in terms of saying that, ‘Wait, you know, we can’t accept more asylum seekers if they are naturally coming to Ontario and coming to Quebec. You can’t just ship them over to Alberta when there’s no dollars attached to that.'”
“We are disproportionately under-represented in our funding, which is why the system is so taxed.”
The federal government has been under immense pressure from Quebec to reduce the number of temporary immigrants in the province, especially asylum seekers.
The Quebec premier has said that in the last two years, the number of temporary immigrants in Quebec has doubled to 600,000 from 300,000. Ontario has also called on the federal government for help, citing the disproportionate number of would-be refugees in that province.
Reza said Canadians are being impacted by the influx of new residents.
“There’s a stress on housing infrastructure, on social services, on transport,” he said, adding that leads to more traffic and competition for housing, driving up the cost of living at a time when the economy isn’t necessarily keeping pace.
“So people see this and immigration is seen as misguided — at least the levels of immigration seen as misguided — in this climate.”
Reza said while Canadians as a whole are not against immigration — that is what build the nation to what it is today — the volume of people being allowed in has gone unchecked.
“This is not an asylum issue. I mean, we’ve taken 9,000 asylum seekers in Alberta. It’s a very small drop in the bucket when you consider we’ve taken half a million (immigrants) a year in Canada over the last three years,” he said.
“The bigger issue here is about immigration and the levels of immigration.”
Umar has been the head of the Centre For Newcomers for the better part of a decade and is well-versed in all things immigration, both when it comes to policy and the social climate.
“This is the first time ever that Canadians across the board are saying there’s too many newcomers. There’s too many immigrants,” Umar said, adding the influx of people from Ukraine seeking refugee status also added strain to the newcomer system.
“We had 250,000 Ukrainians come in to Canada and 22 per cent of them ended up in Alberta. And we use the same dollars that were set aside for newcomers from the federal government to help them without an extra infusion of more money coming in,” she said.
Smith said that worked out to over 70,000 Ukrainian evacuees.
“We are informing the Government of Canada that until further notice, Alberta is not open to having these additional asylum seekers settled in our province,” Smith said.
The message is inconsistent with previous communications from Smith, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller asserts.
Miller posted a letter on social media from Smith late Thursday, where the Alberta premier expressed concern at the low number of immigrants allocated for the province for the year. The province requested 14,000 immigrants in 2024 but only got 9,750, she said in the letter.
“Additionally, Alberta is welcoming a substantive number of Ukrainian evacuees, with more than 57,000 evacuees currently in Alberta. It is anticipated that upwards of 93 per cent of Ukrainian evacuees will stay in Alberta and seek permanent residency,” she said in the letter, adding that figure represents about 24,000 families.
More of the temporary Ukrainian immigrants should be given opportunities to become permanent residents, she added.
The decision by the federal government to reduce the immigrant numbers shows that the province has to advocate for itself for more involvement in decisions regarding immigration policy, she said in the undated letter: “Should the federal government continue to not be responsive to our requests, Alberta will assess areas where we can push for larger role in immigration and settlement services to better our provinces interests.”
Smith’s executive director, Rob Anderson, responded to Miller on social media, accusing the federal immigration minister of not understanding the “difference between asylum seekers and economic migrants.”
In her statement issued Thursday afternoon, Smith said “excessive levels of immigration to this province are increasing the cost of living and strains public services for everyone.”
Miller said the Alberta premier is politicking.
“A healthy economic immigrant and a healthy asylum seeker have the same strain on the health-care system,” Miller said when speaking on QR Calgary on Friday morning. “So, you know, there’s an inconsistency in what the premier is advancing.”
“I’m not going to speculate on the state of Alberta politics right now, but it certainly has no basis in reality.”
Miller said federal and provincial immigration officials met during the summer to discuss federal funding and responsibilities for distributing asylum seekers across the country so they could integrate into the labour market.
“Alberta hasn’t been participating in our working group, so they wouldn’t have any direct knowledge of the discussions have been going on. But we’ve been looking at provinces assuming their responsibility and doing their fair share for asylum seekers,” he said on Friday.
The minister said the numbers in question were based on models reflecting each province’s population. He said smaller provinces have a responsibility to take in more asylum seekers to lower the pressure on Ontario and Quebec.
That said, Miller insisted the federal government won’t be imposing them on the provinces, and there will be financial support for provinces that choose to accept additional asylum seekers.
“This isn’t theoretical money. There’s real money on the table for those provinces that are going to step up and say, ‘Hey, these people do contribute to our province, we’re willing to do our fair share and help.'”
The head of the Centre For Newcomers said government policy has not kept pace and could do with an overhaul.
“Perhaps we need to to reassess the entire asylum seeking process in order to not tax the general population and the public and everything,” Umar said.
She noted while the United States is known to bus and move around asylum seekers, Canada does not do that.
“We can’t forcefully move anybody… regardless of who they are, whether they’re Canadian citizens or or asylum seekers,” she said. “We can’t forcefully make people go places they don’t want to go.”
She said we also can’t turn away those desperately seeking help.
“We cannot close our borders. We’re Canadians. We’re peacekeepers. We can’t do that. It’s not a part of our of our values, regardless of whether you’re conservative or liberal or NDP.”
Canada has a reputation as champion of human rights to uphold, Umar noted.
“We’re very proud of the fact that people can escape from awful regimes, from persecution, from religious persecution, from persecution for who they choose to love for, you know, any of those different types of things and be safe here.
“I think that those are the values that we really need to uphold the most.”
— with files from Hina Alam, The Canadian Press