Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 24th, 2018

[A voice]

Well, they are.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

This is a response on the point of order, outside of my time.

The Prime Minister has appointed a minister to be in charge of this issue. This morning, Mr. Chair, he said he didn't know what his job is. Then we have a parliamentary secretary sitting here and saying he doesn't know how many people are coming in, and that we'd have to ask the Department of Immigration. This morning, the minister said that the CBSA and the RCMP don't report to him. What we're seeing here is completely relevant to the issue at hand, and that is that there is no plan from this government to manage the situation. There is no plan so that parliamentarians can look at the adequacy—

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

There is a plan.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

—of whether these budgetary expenses are adequate, whether they're compassionate, and on what projections they're being made. That is the data—

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

There is quite clearly a plan—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

—we were trying to get here today, and we've had minister after parliamentary secretary come woefully underprepared to provide this data to the committee.

It is in the scope, and I will continue these questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you. Please continue.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Vaughan, how many people, after crossing Roxham Road, do you project will need housing for the next 18 months?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

What we're seeing is a decline in the numbers, and therefore we believe, and hope, that the situation has peaked, which means—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? Fifteen thousand?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

That is the end of the time.

We now go to Mr. Fergus, for five minutes.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the parliamentary secretary for being with us today.

I'm going to continue with the same line of questioning as the member for Brossard-Saint-Lambert. My question is about Quebec and the triage system being used to deal with the claimants crossing the border there. That way, you can talk about what we should do and how Quebec could serve as a model for other provinces, Ontario, for instance, in terms of a system that works well.

Mr. Vaughan, could you take a moment to talk about Quebec and the system in place there?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

The Quebec system effectively maps out the social service and housing network across the entire province and brings relevant stakeholders together on an ongoing basis in a proactive way to manage homelessness, shelter use, and people in core housing need, but also other social dynamics. This is a very effective network that includes medical service as well, which is a critical part of what we're dealing with. This network allows the pressure points to be redistributed across a provincial network with federal support and with municipal local delivery models. It is worked as a triage system.

To the question that was asked about how much a bus costs, it depends whether it's going to Chicoutimi or to Gatineau. On a case-by-case basis, we look at what costs are incurred, and we support the province to mitigate those costs. What we rely on with the Province of Quebec is not the funding model but a systemic response, which we provide resources for and local municipalities deliver. This has proven to be exceptionally good at sustaining a population base in the shelter system below full capacity.

Currently in Canada there are 14,000 emergency shelter beds across the country on any given night. They are not always in the right city, for the right pressure point. Part of what the system has to do is try to get people to move to places where there is better housing to support them, as we build out the new national housing strategy and further reduce those numbers and that dependency. That's the systemic approach we're taking. Those are the numbers we're dealing with, and that's the investment we've made as a federal government.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I'm going to follow up on that, Mr. Chair.

A few months back, in the spring, the Quebec government publicly complained that it had still not reached an agreement with the federal government to address the needs and increased costs.

How long did it take for the federal government to sit down with Quebec and work out an agreement?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

It happened almost immediately. That's where the $50 million came from, in particular, as the cities and the province approached us. We put the first installment down. Then we said, “Show us the ongoing costs as this problem moves through the system and changes day to day at the border, and we will match our support to the data you provide us.”

The good news is that Quebec is providing that data. It's allowing us to have a good conversation with providing that support and fit that support into the larger context, which is eliminating the housing crisis in this country. That will give us the surge capacity when, from time to time, we need emergency housing, whether it's from a forest fire or a border issue.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Did Ontario's new government make the same request of the federal government?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Well, with the previous government we were in negotiation to set up exactly the same system. The current government has said they're not going to have that conversation with the federal government. They've said it's a federal responsibility. I contrast that with the former Prime Minister of Canada, who said that housing was a provincial responsibility.

As far as I'm concerned, if Canadians need housing, all orders of Canadian government have to work together to deliver results. That's the result we're seeing in British Columbia, where we have all levels of government working together to effectively build out the right kind of supportive housing that depopulates the shelter and gives municipalities the capacity they require when natural disasters inside Canada or circumstances outside Canada create a surge and a demand for emergency housing. We have to get away from running emergency housing at 100% in this country. It is not an effective, humane, or even cost-effective way to deal with these issues.

The Province of Quebec has been very focused on this, long before the border issue. The homeless counts in Montreal and Quebec are significantly lower than they are in other cities. Why? Because the provincial government has made it a priority to hold emergency housing in reserve instead of using it as full-time capacity. That surge capacity, now with federal resources, is starting to even out and return to a more manageable set of levels. Hopefully there isn't another significant population displacement. If a forest fire the size of Fort McMurray's, God forbid, happened in the province of Quebec, there would be a whole lot of people looking for emergency housing. We need to build for that and think about that going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.

I'll go to Mr. Tilson.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

What is the plan of the government to house asylum seekers in the future?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

The plan, as was true even under your government, is that emergency housing is provided upon immediate point of entry. Then there is a system in place to migrate them into housing supports in the community, whether that's public or private housing. For example, when I was up at the shelter in Toronto doing my due diligence and meeting with city officials on this issue just last week, we saw housing workers who were locating housing spots in the private and public sector markets, housing people to get them out of motels, with the priority on children.

That system has been in place—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

So you're relying on the municipalities.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

We are working in partnership with all orders of government and the private sector to provide housing. It's a housing system. It is a shared responsibility.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

The City of Toronto is predicting that illegal border crossers will be taking up to 53% of the city's space by November. What is the federal government planning on doing to rectify that situation? The City of Toronto says they don't have the funding.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

No, what they don't have is the housing. They have the—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

They don't have the funding.