The fight over jurisdictional responsibility, funding commitments and care for thousands of refugees in city shelters and church buildings saw the federal minister in charge of the file meeting with Toronto’s mayor, where he said he hadn’t come with the intention of writing a cheque.
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller, met with Mayor Olivia Chow in her city hall office for a little over an hour on Tuesday. The meeting comes on the heels of fresh city council resolutions, which once again called on the Trudeau government to increase funding for refugees, who continue to arrive in the city where shelters are at capacity.
“I didn’t walk in there with a cheque,” said Miller, speaking to reporters following the meeting. “I walked in there to look at how Canada’s largest city can welcome in a humane fashion a bunch of people who have in some cases, are risking their lives to be here.”
But Miller conceded the response to refugees has indeed not been a humane so far and he won’t be satisfied until improvements are made. “Ask anyone on the street, ‘who is responsible?’ they just want a shelter over their head and they want to be treated in a decent way,” he said.
Ottawa committed $200 million in July to help support the influx of refugees to Canadian cities. While Toronto received $97 million of that funding, the new request for additional funding to cover mounting costs and address at-capacity shelters, is growing.
Following her meeting with Miller, Chow again addressed the issue but this time to a luncheon audience at the Empire Club. In a fireside chat with former Conservative Party cabinet minister John Baird, Chow repeatedly pressed the need for the federal government to meet its financial commitments on the refugee front.
Speaking to reporters afterward, the mayor indicated the city needs to know by next Monday whether the federal government will respond, otherwise Toronto will be forced to pick up a $750,000 tab for costs several Black-led churches have incurred caring for hundreds of asylum seekers.
“Is it fair for Toronto residents? No, it’s not,” said Chow, “but can we go and ask the church to bankrupt itself? No, we can’t do that, either.”
In conversations of jurisdictional responsibility, Minister Miller pointed out there wasn’t a member of the Ford government at the meeting with Chow and said the province has a role to play as well.
“They’re sitting on billions of dollars, that is just a fact, and they can certainly deploy that to the city of Toronto and the surrounding areas,” he said when asked whether Ontario’s government could be doing more.
Miller also said the province has the ability to establish welcome centres for refugees, a key ask the city has requested to ensure there is a point of contact at Pearson airport to avoid someone being left on the street to fend for themselves following their arrival. Miller said the federal and provincial governments could work together to establish those, adding he wasn’t in Toronto to pick a fight.
The premier’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment in response to Miller’s comments.
Toronto’s mayor also appeared unwilling to wade into the issue, but indicated she had no interest in being caught in the middle of a fight and would be satisfied as long as the resolution to the jurisdictional battle resulted in funding for the city.
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