Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 1st, 2026

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Alexis Deschênes]

I call this meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to meeting number 35 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. To begin, please allow me to make a few comments.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. I would like to make a few comments for the benefits of the witnesses and members.

First, as always, kindly wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those on Zoom, click the microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

Next, on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen, you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation, either floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I would like to remind witnesses that committee members may ask questions in either French or English. If you will need interpretation, please take a moment now to prepare your earpiece and select the listening channel you need in advance in order to take full advantage of the time allotted for questions and answers.

Of course, please ensure all your comments are addressed through the chair. Members, please raise your hand if you wish to speak. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. I will remind everyone to kindly not speak over each other, as it will be hard for our interpreters to interpret, and it makes their job difficult. I will let you know once you have only one minute left.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on April 27, 2026, the committee is resuming its study of provincial distribution of asylum seekers in Canada. Here is the text of the motion:

That, whereas Quebec and Ontario receive a disproportionate share of asylum seekers in Canada, while efforts to relocate them to other provinces remain minimal, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study specifically on: a. the impacts of this inequitable distribution on the provinces' public services and public finances; b. ways to make the system more equitable; c. on practices in other countries and groups of countries, such as the European Union, for distributing asylum seekers; that the committee invite experts, lawyers specializing in immigration and constitutional law, representatives of organizations working with asylum seekers, and any other witnesses deemed relevant to appear before it; that the committee formulate recommendations aimed at making the asylum seeker system more equitable; that the committee devote a minimum of three meetings to this study; and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a full response to its report.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses for today's meeting.

First, we have Landon Johnston, councillor in the City of Calgary, who is joining us today by video conference.

Next, we have Adam Bercovitch Sandinsky, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

Last, we have Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Good morning, and welcome to the committee.

You will each have five minutes for your opening remarks. Then we will proceed with questions from members.

To begin, I invite Mr. Johnston to make his opening statement.

[Landon Johnston, Councillor, City of Calgary, As an Individual]

Thank you for having me.

Good morning, Chair and honourable members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. My name is Landon Johnston. I'm the elected city councillor for Ward 14 in Calgary.

I appear today not as a representative of the City of Calgary but as a Canadian citizen, as an Albertan and as someone who has seen first-hand the pressure our communities face.

I'm here to speak to the budgetary and service impacts on municipalities and provinces of any forced redistribution of asylum seekers going from Quebec to Alberta and Calgary. I will also offer a brief comparison of supports for low-income residents and newcomers between our jurisdictions.

Calgary's fair entry program is a low-income subsidy that helps residents access essential services. Since 2018, applications have grown by 52%, while Calgary's population has grown by roughly 23%. Indications show that an increasing number of immigrants are using these services. Expanding the program to absorb significantly more users without additional revenue will strain transit operations and other services where subsidized costs already exceed revenues.

Provincially, Alberta's public schools are under severe pressure. Rapid population growth contributed to a damaging teacher strike in October 2025. The government invoked the notwithstanding clause to restore services and announced major new funding for complexity support teams in affected schools. A classroom audit revealed that 91,000 students in Alberta's public systems do not speak English at a level that supports reasonable expectations of academic success.

To address this, the province has raised its share of residential property taxes and borrowed to build and renovate schools. Forcibly adding more students who require intensive language and integration supports will inflame existing tensions and slow the integration of those already here.

Quebec, by contrast, has taken a different approach. In its 2025 budget process, the province implemented education cuts, including an initial $200-million reduction affecting the language and support programs, while school construction lagged. If Quebec's systems are truly at a breaking point and are requiring redistribution, why has there been so little domestic pressure on Quebec governments to expand capacity first?

My question for proponents of redistribution is straightforward: How can it be reasonable to ask Alberta and Calgary to absorb a greater share of asylum seekers when Quebec, at both provincial and municipal levels, has not matched the levels of investment and support that we provide to our own residents and newcomers?

Alberta has done and will continue to do its fair share for those already in our communities. Our clear ask is that other provinces meet the same standard. Build the schools, fund the transit subsidies, invest in language training and support integration at home. Do not expect Alberta to absorb the consequences of choices made elsewhere.

Thank you. I welcome your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Alexis Deschênes]

Thank you, Mr. Johnston.

Mr. Bercovitch Sadinsky, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Adam Bercovitch Sadinsky, Vice-President, Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I'm grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning on behalf of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, a national voice for refugees and migrants across Canada.

I'd like to acknowledge that we meet here on the historic unceded territory of the Anishinabe people, something we must hold in mind as we discuss the distribution of asylum seekers throughout this country.

At the outset, I want to emphasize that we have no opposition to equitably redistributing refugee claimants across Canada. However, as many speakers have already pointed out over the course of the study, this must be done first with consent and in a way that ensures that claimants remain supported and have access to the pillars of support that help them settle and thrive in their new communities.

One of those pillars is access to legal services in terms of availability of lawyers and legal aid funding for refugee law services. Despite refugee determination taking place in a federal tribunal and being a constitutionally federal responsibility, access to refugee legal aid services is a patchwork across the country. Two provinces, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, have no funding for legal aid for refugees at all. Others do not fund key aspects of the refugee process, while others have such limited funding that many lawyers cannot afford to take on legal aid files.

The foundational document in every refugee claim is the basis of claim form. This is a claimant's first opportunity to tell their story and set out the persecution they would face back home. For context, a basis of claim form generally takes me about nine hours of work with the client. Alberta does not provide legal aid funding for the completion of this critical form. In Quebec, lawyers are paid a total of $300. In New Brunswick, there is currently a single articling student to represent refugee claimants who cannot otherwise afford a lawyer.

In 2023, the federal government transferred hundreds of refugee claimants from Roxham Road to New Brunswick with very little notice, sending service providers and the IRB scrambling. In New Brunswick, there were nearly no refugee lawyers and there was no legal aid funding, aside from that very small clinic. Legal service providers across the Maritimes struggled to accommodate the demand, and many claimants had to file their claims without counsel. Many eventually left for urban centres.

Access to legal services is a right. It also raises all boats. Claimants with counsel submit proper claims within required time periods, moving through the system smoothly and integrating more easily. A dollar amount can even be put on this. A Canadian Bar Association report cites studies from the U.K., Australia and the United States, saying that for every dollar spent on legal aid, the average social return on investment is six dollars. On the other hand, insufficient funding or insufficient access to services leads to higher numbers of appeals, creating backlogs and delay and ultimately costing taxpayers more money.

This is even more important now that Bill C-12 has become law, rendering tens of thousands of claimants ineligible to be referred to the IRB and shifting them to the PRRA, the pre-removal risk assessment process. PRRAs are decided almost entirely on paper. Imagine being a traumatized, newly ineligible refugee claimant speaking no English or French and being asked to put forward your entire claim for refugee protection and evidence within 30 days without the assistance of a professional who understands the process and the complex legal questions you're expected to address. If an officer makes a mistake—and they're human, after all, and they do—and you have to challenge that decision in court, having a lawyer for that is essential.

What's needed is a coordinated national legal aid strategy that makes it not matter where you live in the determination of the kinds of services you receive. Whether that's increased per capita funding from the federal government tied to national standards or coordination agreements allowing lawyers from one province to represent clients in another, such a strategy must be front and centre in a discussion of where to distribute claimants, and how.

Thank you for your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Alexis Deschênes]

Thank you very much.

We are continuing with Ms. Sreenivasan of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Gauri Sreenivasan, Co-Executive Director, Canadian Council for Refugees]

Good morning.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, or CCR, is the national voice of over 200 member organizations who work with and for refugee and immigrant communities across Canada.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about Canada's asylum system. It's an issue that needs a renewed national conversation, one that moves us from a place of blaming refugees and finger-pointing across all levels of government to a conversation about solutions.

People in Canada are increasingly being told that refugee claimants are causing a crisis, a situation Canada is unable to handle. This is simply not the case. Our country has the infrastructure, the know-how and the resources.

The good news is that across Canada, we have the skills, the experience and the solid foundation of infrastructure needed to greatly improve outcomes for refugee claimants and Canada. Remember, Canada is a global leader in resettling UN-designated refugees. We have an extensive national welcome system that, while not perfect, sets such refugees up for success by providing information, services and logistical support so they can find housing, work and community.

Sadly, no similar system exists for refugee claimants seeking protection at or within our borders. The right to claim asylum is a fundamental international right, and the vast majority of those making a claim in Canada are ultimately determined to be refugees fleeing persecution. The lack of a national plan to ensure a coordinated response from all three levels of government to such claimants fails those who have a right to asylum, puts local governments and community groups in expensive, short-term reaction mode and leaves people in Canada shocked and upset that so many claimants end up homeless in a country that prides itself on its openness to refugees.

We need not look to Europe for suggestions. We need only to scale up successful models in Canada and work in a more systematic, coordinated way across the country, building on what we already know and drawing on the significant experience of Canadian civil society groups that have been stepping up to fill the void for decades. CCR's proposal for a national system for asylum with dignity was launched with members three years ago, and it is still relevant today.

A national coordinated plan should ensure action in five key pillars.

First, we need to establish reception centres in cities with large numbers of claimants to provide orientation and referral services and to facilitate the movement of claimants within a city or to regions where capacity exists. We have a good precedent set in Peel, but these reception centres should be established in other centres and then connected in a national framework of information sharing with local governments and civil society to enable informed choice by claimants.

Second, we need sustained federal funding for transitional housing, scaling up the successful experiences of NGOs and diaspora community groups. This housing should not be in expensive hotels where claimants are isolated. There should be options for housing with wraparound services where refugees are integrated as part of the community and retain mobility rights.

As a step in the right direction, the federal government has renewed funding for the interim housing assistance program. There is an incredibly positive story we could all be telling Canadians together now about building solutions for refugees and the country. The previous round of IHAP funding was entirely oversubscribed. That means there are provinces, communities and groups across the country that are ready and willing to build dedicated housing with support services for refugee claimants, so IHAP funding needs to be scaled up. It needs to be locked in long-term so that it is predictable, and crucially, it needs to be open to civil society organizations directly. There are dozens of groups across the country that can move quickly and are ready to create housing solutions that will ease the pressure on homeless shelters and provide refugees with the support they need.

Third, we need to end the restrictions that prevent refugee claimants from accessing the settlement support services that are offered to other newcomers and that we know will improve short- and long-term outcomes.

Fourth, as we've just heard, we must ensure that adequate legal aid coverage is available for refugee claimants in all parts of the country, supported by multi-year funding.

Fifth, we need to continue to do work to ensure a fair, streamlined and effective claims process. Recent reforms under Bill C-12 have made the system a lot less fair and have created new inefficiencies and backlogs. I'm happy to answer questions about some immediate steps that can be taken to improve outcomes, including in the regulations.

In conclusion, this committee should recommend the development and funding of a national coordinated plan for asylum with dignity that will meet the public's expectations for a fair refugee claim system that upholds human rights and the strong tradition of refugee welcome that Canadians are rightly proud of. It is entirely doable and is long past time, and CCR members are ready to help.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Alexis Deschênes]

Thank you, Ms. Sreenivasan.

We will begin with the first round of questions.

Mr. Davies, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Johnston, I wonder if I can start with you, please.

This is the first time I've seen the committee take the opportunity to look at cities out west on this issue. I want to ask if you could list the top three changes in the federal government system that would benefit the city of Calgary. What would help the municipality most to support genuine refugees, while reducing the strain on local taxpayers? Can you give me those three top priorities?

[Landon Johnston]

A priority would be the reduction in the number of refugees. Net migration to Alberta would be the first thing. The second thing would obviously be funding, and then the third thing would probably be language support.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

You indicated that there's a gap in funding to deal with the pressures that are being placed on the city of Calgary. Is the city absorbing the net impact of the cost overruns for the financial requirements for these claimants now?

[Landon Johnston]

It's the same taxpayer, whether funding comes from the federal government or the municipal government, but yes, we are subsidizing.

Beyond the subsidization that the city offers, a lot of these claimants are receiving multiple levels of funding from multiple levels of government. There's no real determination of whether they can receive all of them or just one of them, but the city is subsidizing quite a bit of.... I mean, to get the total number, we've been working on a notice of motion within the city to see exactly how much is being divvied out from Calgary taxpayers to these claimants.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

You're not aware of the actual numbers for the gap between what you're receiving from the federal and provincial governments and what you need to ante up to level the field.

[Landon Johnston]

Exactly. We don't track it from a municipal standpoint, but we're going to start tracking it. There are lots of indications of who's using it and how much, but at some point it's going to be unsustainable.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Has the City of Calgary used IHAP either for the acquisition of real estate or for significant capital investments to house asylum claimants?

[Landon Johnston]

I'm sorry. I'm not sure. I know that government grants have to go through our province, so that might be a better question for them.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Okay.

I have a question for Ms. Sreenivasan.

Lately I've been hearing that some municipalities have purchased real estate to house asylum claimants. Last week, the minister rebranded it into “reception centres”. Can you tell me the difference between a reception centre and a hotel purchased for the purpose of housing refugee claimants?

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

I can, absolutely. Thank you for the question.

When we identify the five key pillars that we think are needed, we distinguish between reception centres and interim housing—

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I'm sorry. What is a reception centre?

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

A reception centre would be the first stop for a refugee claimant, a stop where they would be oriented to what services are available and where the vacancies are for housing, for example. Some refugee claimants already have an identified home. Some don't. A reception centre could provide immediate, very short-term shelter, if needed, for a short period of time, but usually claimants then need to move to interim housing before they find long-term housing.

A reception centre has a triage function. It could identify where there's capacity and connect refugee claimants with service providers, whereas interim housing usually means homes with wraparound services where refugee claimants may stay three months. You heard someone from Matthew House testify earlier that claimants are often there for about three months. In B.C., it could be longer, up to six months.

They are housed in community and receive support on how to connect with a refugee aid lawyer, what their employment opportunities are and how they get a work permit. It's more of an interim stage.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I'm sorry. I have limited time. I understand that.

In your presentation, you mentioned the need to increase the level of services on a wraparound basis to make the system work better, but being that I'm fixated on the appropriate use of tax dollars, I have a philosophical problem with the federal government providing funding to purchase real estate.

In the city of Ottawa, two facilities have been purchased through IHAP funds. In Pickering, a motel was purchased for asylum claimants.

What is your view on this? Is purchasing real estate a good use of taxpayers' money?

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

It is absolutely essential that we set up permanent reception centres where refugee claimants—

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Wait a minute. I'm not talking—

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

Oh, you're talking about housing.

In both cases, it seems to me that the need for interim housing is key. Either we can decide that we live in a world where we don't have refugee claimants, which is not the real world, or we can recognize that we have a system—

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

With great respect, that's not what I asked. I'm asking if you think it's a good idea for federal taxpayers' dollars to be used by municipalities to purchase real estate for the purpose of housing asylum claimants.

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

I think it's an excellent and reasonable use of public dollars—