OTTAWA — Tuesday’s federal budget is expected to detail how the Liberal government will financially manage their planned increase in immigration to Canada over the next three years.
The Liberals announced the move to a three-year planning cycle for admissions late last fall and set a goal of welcoming nearly a million people in total between 2018 and 2020.
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The cost of the increase has been pegged around $440 million over that time, but the government hasn’t provided a breakdown of those costs.
The Liberals, however, also have yet to say how much it’s costing to manage one unplanned increase in new arrivals – a surge of asylum seekers coming over the border.
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Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada recently estimated some of their share is $10.4 million, but repeated requests to federal departments for the full price tag have so far gone unanswered.
Statistics released by the government late last week show the RCMP stopped 1,517 people coming illegally across the border last month, down slightly from the number of apprehensions in December.