It is to Canada’s shame that refugees who came here legally with an expectation of a safe harbour are instead cast up on the rocky shore of a tent city in Toronto. Perhaps I have a solution. Brian Lilley writes in the Sun: “It’s a different world at the corner of Peter and Richmond Sts. in...
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Refugees are not a Toronto responsibility.
They are a federal responsibility. This seems so familiar somehow though…?
Mayor Olivia Chow raised this issue Wednesday after she was sworn into the job, saying refugees are a federal — rather than municipal — responsibility, but the city has been stuck with the bill.
“We need at least $160 million from the federal government to help shelter them,” Chow said.
I would not count on that money coming any time soon. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got what he wanted when he showed up at the airport welcoming refugees to Canada.
He got his photo op and he has moved on.
He has admitted that his strategy is to bring in immigrants and refugees and dump them on Toronto.
In the U.S., Republican governors moved to transport migrants to liberal states to protest what they say are inadequate federal efforts on southern border security.
Toronto doesn’t have the space or the $160 million to deal with the refugees in a safe and humane way. It is a short bus ride to Ottawa, where the federal government can take charge of people for whom they are responsible.
Ottawa may or may not have the resources but Trudeau would have an issue on his hands if the tent city got moved to the front steps of Parliament Hill.
It might be an embarrassment he could not ignore.
So long as the issue can be characterized as a Toronto issue, Trudeau is in the clear.
You may say that we have no right to ship refugees to Ottawa and dump them on the street, but what right did Trudeau have to dump them in Toronto with no support?
It is inhumane, but the perpetrator is in Ottawa.
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