Mr. Speaker, rejected asylum seekers quickly realize they can create near-endless extensions for years with access to specialty medical care they do not have in their home countries. It swiftly adds to the backlog, which in turn adds to the cost. By the end of this fiscal year, the annual cost will be $986 million. By the end of this decade, the annual cost will be $1.5 billion. Those are not my figures; they are the Parliamentary Budget Officer's figures. Anyone who doubts these can ask him in person.
His report also shows that in the early days of the Trudeau government, the number of interim federal health program beneficiaries was around 100,000 and was split evenly between asylum claims and refugee cases. Today, it stands at around 600,000 beneficiaries, more than two-thirds of whom are asylum claimants, with a much smaller number than before being refugees. It is important to note that when these are refugee cases, approval does not mean staying on this program indefinitely but seeing only to some temporary medical issues. At the same time, they are transferred into provincial health programs so they can then potentially work and pay back into our system. Asylum claimants remain on the program entirely through the long and winding Liberal backlog.
Another reason this federal program has increased in cost from the tens of millions to the soon-to-be billions is the recurring issue we heard about at the committee from witnesses of specialist doctors who are providing these services overcharging the immigration department due to a lack of oversight of billing. According to Dr. Arun Anand, physicians who provide services to claimants are charging the federal government more. He said, “because it is uninsured and there's less accountability, physicians are more aggressive with their billing practices. They charge premiums on these programs and services” and “because services are not covered by provincial plans, physicians can bill up to five times more for their physician fees in these programs”.
I know what the members opposite will tell me. First, it is that I oppose assisting people in need, and that is completely false. I want our nation to be the welcoming nation it has always been, one that welcomes someone like me and the many of us in this room who came from all across the world. What I oppose is people who file false asylum claims being rewarded with specialty health care, benefits like physiotherapy, which too many Canadians cannot access. I am not opposed to someone being saved in an ER. I am opposed to them getting free eyeglasses after they commit extortion.
If the members opposite would like the policies they say will fix this mess to be studied thoroughly by our Parliamentary Budget Officer, might I suggest they join me at the health committee when I am done here this afternoon to tell their own Liberal colleagues to end the filibustering they have been up to for the last couple of weeks so that we can look into this, find out the truth and make our health system and our immigration system better.