Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the floor.
Welcome, Minister Kenney and our guests as well.
Minister Kenney, it is my understanding that the interim federal health program continues to provide temporary coverage of health care costs for government-sponsored refugees who have received refugee status from the UNHCR, for other eligible protected persons, and for asylum claimants from non-safe countries.
Obviously I'm on the immigration committee, but I have to tell you that a lot of what I do in my constituency is related to immigration. My constituents of Scarborough Centre were not only shocked but also upset and angry to find out that illegal immigrants and bogus asylum claimants were receiving better health care than were many of the constituents themselves. They were most upset about the fact that some of these bogus refugee claimants were receiving eyeglasses, and their kids were getting braces, and so on. I know the opposition is against the changes we made. It's very unfortunate.
I want to reference the supplementary estimates (B). I see there are several million dollars put aside for additional funding to support the interim federal health program, IFHP, which provides temporary health care for refugees.
I'm wondering if this is normally where we see this money coming from. Is this the normal process? Have we made changes to the support of bogus refugee claimants and illegal asylum claimants? Is this more money you've asked for, or is it less money than usual?