Canadian taxpayers coughed up nearly $88 million to pay for temporary quarantines for unvaccinated asylum claimants who arrived in Canada by illegally crossing Roxham Road.
The House of Commons committee on citizenship and immigration released data pertaining to November 2022 funding and expenditure details on Friday.
The webpage explains how Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has incurred expenses totaling $269.4 million from Apr. 1, 2017 to Sept. 30, 2022 to manage the illegal entry point at Roxham Road.
“Most significant expenditures relate to interim health services, leases for accommodation, security and transportation services,” wrote the committee.
A total of $149.2 million was spent by Canadians to temporarily house asylum and refugee claimants over that time period.
From 2021 to 2022, $87.8 million was put towards “temporary accommodations for unvaccinated asymptomatic asylum seekers without a suitable quarantine plan.”
As reported by True North last year in 2021, while unvaccinated Canadians were being barred from travelling via plane or train domestically and internationally, the federal government was accepting refugee and asylum claimants “regardless of their vaccination status” and getting Canadians to pay for their lodging.
Other expenditures detailed by the committee report includes security “guard services” at hotels – some of which cost taxpayers millions.
Canadians paid $1.79 million for “guard services at the Best Western Montreal” and $1.39 million for “guard services at Hotel St. Bernard in Quebec near the Canada-United States border.
Substantial sums were also expensed for healthcare services, transportation, rentals and other amenities.
In the report, the government also admits that its decision to exempt visas for Mexican citizens in favour of a simple Electronic Travel Authorization led to a spike in asylum claims.
“The number of asylum claims from Mexican citizens has increased, which puts additional strain on Canada’s asylum system and Canada is concerned about that,” claimed the report.
