Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 23rd, 2026

[Amandeep Sodhi, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Budget 2025 invests in attracting global talent to Canadian universities and research institutions. Are you able to briefly explain what role IRCC is playing in facilitating this strategy? How does it tie into, once again, the levels plan?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

You have 50 seconds.

[Amandeep Sodhi, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Answer very briefly.

[Scott Harris]

As I said earlier, we provided advice in terms of how the immigration system could work to support the objective of recruiting top talent to Canada in that space. For us, that involves fast-tracking processing where possible and ensuring that we're supporting a faster movement of people in that academic space.

[Amandeep Sodhi, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much, Ms. Sodhi.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

We have a bit of time remaining, so we're going to give two minutes to Mr. Menegakis and then two minutes to Ms. Zahid.

Mr. Menegakis, your two minutes start now.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Harris, how many more hotels have you helped to purchase with municipalities, other than the $40-million one you've already testified to?

[Scott Harris]

I can't speak to how each municipality has used those resources.

The Ottawa purchase is—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

It's not about how they use them. How many have you funded?

[Scott Harris]

We provided the funding to municipalities, which then made decisions to do that.

Whether they've purchased old buildings.... They're often hotels, but they've purchased other buildings and retrofitted them into shelter capacity.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

How did you budget for this? Did you just put a hotel line in your budget of $6 billion?

[Scott Harris]

We don't have a hotel line. We have an interim housing assistance program, which has been in place since 2017.

That goes to provinces, in most cases, but in Ontario it goes directly to municipalities.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

You basically shifted money from paying for hotels to giving money to municipalities so they can buy properties to house these people. It becomes less transparent.

[Scott Harris]

Those are two separate programs. As I said, IHAP, the interim housing assistance program, which goes to the provinces and municipalities, existed before the interim lodging strategy. It was in place for hotels that dealt with the postpandemic border reopening pressure we felt before we closed the ports part of the STCA.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

How did you prioritize Ottawa over, say, Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver? Why was Ottawa such a hotbed that it got a whopping $40 million?

[Scott Harris]

We didn't prioritize it. The municipalities self-identified and reported experiencing pressure due to the arrival of asylum claimants.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Will you share with the committee which municipalities and how much money they got for this?

[Scott Harris]

We can provide that.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Will you undertake to provide that, please? That's important information.

[Scott Harris]

Yes.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

I don't know how much time I have left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

You have nine seconds.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Well, thanks for coming, Mr. Harris.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Harris]

Thank you for having me.