OTTAWA – The Liberal commitment to Syrian refugee resettlement could end up costing taxpayers close to $1 billion.
Today’s federal budget includes an additional $245 million over five years to bring in the remaining 10,000 people needed to meet the Liberal promise to resettle 25,000 government assisted Syrian refugees by the end of 2016.
That’s on top of $678 million over six years already set aside to resettle 25,000 Syrians in total by the end of last month.
READ MORE: Liberals project $29.4 billion deficit in 2016 federal budget
As of March 20, 26,202 Syrians have arrived in Canada since the Liberals took power.
The budget also meets a campaign commitment to nearly double the budget for so-called family-class immigration, which is designed to reunite families in Canada.
The Liberals are adding $25 million to help bring down wait times in concert with their effort to bring more families together in Canada in 2016.
After the budget’s release Tuesday, leader of the Official Opposition Rona Ambrose slammed the Liberal’s projected $29.4 billion deficit for 2016 as “a nightmare scenario” from a tax-payers point of view.
With a file from Global News
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