Madam Chair and committee members, thank you for allowing me to present to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration today.
My name is Randy Donauer. I'm a city councillor in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, but today I'm speaking to you as an individual. However, I would like to note that I did discuss my presentation with the mayor of Saskatoon, Mayor Cynthia Block, and she's in full support.
It's my understanding that you are debating whether to redistribute potentially large numbers of asylum seekers across Canada, and I would urge caution.
Saskatoon welcomes newcomers to Canada, and we support Canada's long-standing tradition of supporting and protecting refugees. Clearly, Canada's asylum system is under pressure. There is a large backlog, and communities are left managing the consequences. The solution is not in moving people around; it is to improve the system and the processing of legitimate refugee claims faster and in a more efficient manner.
Saskatoon is facing a serious housing and homelessness crisis, and we thank the federal and provincial governments for partnering with us to find housing solutions. My city has grown by almost 80,000 people in the past decade—a 30% growth in 10 years. That may not sound like a lot for Montreal and Toronto, but it is overwhelming for us. Despite our best efforts, we have not built enough homes to keep up with the growth in our region. This causes housing prices to rise artificially, increasing the cost of living and putting more people on the street.
The Saskatoon 2025 point-in-time count identified 1,931 unhoused people in Saskatoon, and we know this figure is growing every week. Statistics show that many of these unhoused come from the north in the hope of finding a better life in the city. Saskatoon is also a common destination for those evacuated from northern communities due to forest fires and flood. Last year we accepted over 8,000 evacuees and provided safety and shelter for them. We did not ship them all over Canada.
To be clear, we are overwhelmed, and our systems are beyond maximum capacity. We need help caring for those we have, and we do not have the capacity to take on a large influx of newcomers in need of a safe place to live. The citizenship and immigration system has a problem. There is a large backlog, and it's growing. The solution is not to move that problem around the country; it is to solve the problem. Instead of using resources to move large numbers of people across the country, I recommend that we use these resources to simply process their cases more efficiently and bring them to an expeditious conclusion.
Canada would benefit from the use of tools to minimize false claims or to restrict access to our borders. This can be done by imposing visa requirements and/or a safe third country policy. A robust screening and processing system for asylum seekers would be more fair to genuine refugees and more accountable to taxpayers. Accelerating removals would eliminate the cost of supporting false claimants for years on end, and a fast decision is best for everyone. Genuine refugees should not wait years to know their future.
Saskatoon is a beautiful city, full of compassionate and welcoming people. We are becoming more diverse every day, and we are proud of it. It is our honour to welcome newcomers to Canada, including refugees. However, as there is a shortage of skilled labour, we would encourage the continuation of qualification-based selection criteria, which would attract immigrants who are able to stand on their own two feet and support our tax base rather than adding pressure to our housing situation and our social support network. If there's a problem with Citizenship and Immigration's ability to process asylum seekers, we recommend you fix the problem.
Thank you for your time.