Trudeau’s inaction on the border crisis costs you plenty

The federal government announced late last week that they will give $50 million to the provinces in order to defray the costs of the illegal border crossers.

It’s a pure Justin Trudeau answer, don’t act, just spend money. Other people’s money.

In the end I think this experiment will cost us billions. But veterans are asking for more than we can give as Trudeau famously said.

From the $50 million, Quebec will take $36 million since they have the overwhelming majority of the people pouring across at Roxham Road. Ontario will get $11 million and Manitoba $3 million.

The money just keeps adding up.

Let’s add this to the money spent building a refugee camp at the border. We can add it to the $173 million that was allocated in the budget for better processing times. Also the unknown cost of relocating some 800 Canada Border Services Agents from the Toronto area to the Quebec-New York border.

Justin Trudeau’s tweet sure is expensive.

Last fall the cost of each failed asylum claimant was estimated at $15-20,000. Michael MacDonald, Director General at Citizenship and Immigration gave that figure to the House of Commons Public Safety Committee.

“It varies with the individual case, but overall, as a general estimate, one can look at anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000. I think we’ll give you a more precise response, but it very much does vary,” MacDonald told the committee last September.

That figure includes social services but was also an estimate drawn up before we realized it would take years for each border crosser to get a hearing.

The backlog is huge, the costs are getting huger!

After Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen made the announcement last Friday it was dismissed as not enough. Toronto Mayor John Tory said his city will spend more than that total this year.

“Toronto alone expects to incur $64.5 million by the end of 2018 in direct costs related to providing motel accommodation to refugee claimants,” Tory said in a statement.

There is another $6.3 million in additional costs the city expects to incur.

And of course Quebec asked for $146 million to compensate them for increased costs last year.

Can we expect more money to be spent?

This will cost more. Minister Hussen made that clear at his announcement.

“This is an initial help for immediate needs,” Minister Hussen said while making the announcement. He said he will keep talking to other levels of government about what they need.

He spoke of Ontario setting up a welcome centre in Cornwall for people who want to settle outside of Quebec. Once they arrive in Cornwall they would be dispersed to parts of the province, other than Toronto.

“We do ask people where their final destination is,” Hussen said.

Isn’t that sweet.

I’m really not sure why our government is paying to settle people that are breaking the law in the location of their choice.

And for those that don’t think this is illegal, take it from Minister Hussen. He said so himself.

Support for legal immigration requires that the government run a fair and competent system. They aren’t doing that right now.

What they are doing is rewarding people that their own stats show are, for the most part, not actual refugees but rather economic migrants. And we are spending billions to do so.

Take that $15-20,000 per person figure that the department put out. That means last year’s 20,000 plus illegal border crossers cost between $300,000,000 and $400,000,000.

This year that figure will be between $1.2 and $1.6 billion. That doesn’t include building the refugee camp or establishing the “welcome centre” in Cornwall. It doesn’t include the cost of sending 800 plus border agents from Toronto to the Quebec region to deal with this.

The costs go up and up.

Trudeau’s inaction on this issue has a cost, a very real cost.