Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 9th, 2016

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

What were the wait-lists prior to this government's coming into place?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

I'm sorry, the time is up. Perhaps in the next round we could follow up on that.

Mr. Saroya, you have five minutes, please.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for coming. My first question is for the officials.

How much money has been spent on housing Syrian refugees at hotels since November 4, 2015?

[Tony Matson]

I'll have to get back to you with the specific figure on how much was specifically spent on housing.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

The minister announced another 10,000 GARs coming soon. What is the total projected cost for the hotel rooms for these additional 10,000 refugees coming? Are there any projected costs for it?

[Tony Matson]

I'll have to get back to you with that specific number.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Minister, it says here that IRCC spent $188 million and had savings of $110.7 million. How did this happen? It's almost a 40% saving. Either the budget was not done carefully and properly, or something was cut drastically to save 40% in money from the budget.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

The reason we spent dramatically less than we said we would is that we were dramatically efficient.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Forty per cent?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I gave the reasons in my speech, and there were three. There were lower than anticipated costs for transportation and overseas processing. The costs of the transport and processing were lower than had been projected. There were some contingency funds that were unused. Contingency funds are put there just in case things go wrong, but they didn't, and so we didn't have to spend them. Then there was the decision, which was discussed earlier, not to use the interim refugee lodging sites. Those are three reasons why the costs came in significantly lower than had been projected.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I understand, but 40% is hard to believe, especially when it comes to government funding.

There are another 10,000 refugees coming. You say that you need $39.4 million under operating expenditures for another 10,000 refugees.

Are there any other costs you expect, any hidden costs that should be added to this, which are not included in the $39.4 million?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Look, first of all, you're saying how surprising it is we save so much money, but you should be—

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

It's hard to believe 40%.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I think you should be happy.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I am happy, but—

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Conservatives usually like to save money and we saved a lot.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I am happy.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

In terms of your question on the $39.4 million, there are two parts of the money for the 10,000 additional government-assisted refugees. The part you identified is $39.4 million to identify and process them, but then there's the larger component of almost $100 million—$99.6 million—which is to provide income support and other supports once they get here. The total cost, if you add up the two parts, is $139 million.

My colleague has something to add.

[Dawn Edlund]

In that $99.6 million, there's $31.6 million tagged for reception and hotels, to provide initial accommodations for Syrian refugees, to address a question that was just asked.

[Richard Wex]

Mr. Chair, with respect to the $110 million that was not spent, 40% of that was the contingency. The minister mentioned contingency, but 40% of the money that wasn't spent was associated with that.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Is that $99.6 million a realistic budget for 10,000 people? We don't want to go through what we heard from the previous witnesses, people waiting for 13 or 15 months.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Maybe if we're as efficient as we have been, which you found hard to believe, we might end up saving and not spending all of that money. However, that is the amount we think will be required to support the new government-assisted refugees.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Minister, with all due respect, I'd rather spend the $99.6 million and not have people wait 13 months for ESL classes. As you know, if there are no ESL classes, there are no jobs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Saroya, unfortunately, your time is up.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I agree with you. That's why we put additional money in for the ESL.