{"id":834,"date":"2017-03-20T08:21:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T08:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=834"},"modified":"2017-03-20T08:21:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T08:21:56","slug":"lllegals-syrians-the-gift-that-just-keeps-on-taking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=834","title":{"rendered":"lllegals & Syrians — the Gift that Just Keeps on Taking"},"content":{"rendered":"
lllegals & Syrians — the Gift that Just Keeps on Taking<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
Illegal Migrants Take a Toll on T.O. Shelters<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
by Sue-Ann Levy, Toronto Sun<\/span><\/div>\n
March 18, 2017<\/span><\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.torontosun.com\/2017\/03\/18\/illegal-migrants-take-toll-on-to-shelters<\/a><\/div>\n

It seems Canada\u2019s lax border policies toward illegal migrants are taking their toll on the city\u2019s emergency shelter system.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Figures provided to the Toronto Sun <\/span><\/b>from city shelter staff show that 810 refugees accessed the city\u2019s shelter system in January, jumping to 882 up until March 13.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, shelter, support and housing spokesman Pat Anderson says refugee clients are being referred from two non-city funded organizations that offer \u201ctemporary accommodation and services\u201d to refugees but \u201care full.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe numbers we are providing are those who identify as refugees on intake,\u201d she says.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Mario Calla, executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services, insists this increase is not from government-sponsored Syrian refugees but \u201casylum seekers.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they come over the border, they\u2019re not sponsored by government or private groups and so they have nowhere to go…some of them have ended up in shelters,\u201d he said this past week. \u201cAll government-sponsored (Syrian) refugees are in their own homes, not in city shelters.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Sun<\/span><\/b> columnist Anthony Furey recently revealed that a crisis is brewing with illegal migrants crossing the border in between official ports of entry and exploiting a loophole in our immigration laws that allows them to file a refugee claim once in Canada.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Anderson says the city has added 400 more shelter beds to meet the increased demand and they continue to look for \u201cmore motel beds for refugees.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Although motel beds operate more cheaply per night, at a $74.81 average per diem, those 400 extra beds are costing taxpayers roughly $900,000 per month.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Asked whether any extra money has been diverted from other shelter programs to accommodate the extra beds, Anderson said: \u201cNot so far.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

And the cost just keeps on soaring. Wading through a myriad of acronyms for various types of refugees, Sue Ann Levy of the Toronto Sun<\/span><\/b> estimates that the Syrians alone will have cost the taxpayers over $1-billion. That’s federal, provincial and municipal money. The exact threadbare pocket doesn’t really matter. It’s the same taxpayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

T.O. Struggles to Absorb Refugees<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
by Sue-Ann Levy, Toronto Sun<\/span><\/div>\n
March 18, 2017<\/span><\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.torontosun.com\/2017\/03\/18\/to-struggles-to-absorb-refugees<\/a><\/div>\n

The 2,200 government-sponsored Syrian refugees who have arrived on Toronto\u2019s doorstep since last February have permanent housing and are being integrated into the community.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Community service providers \u2014 contacted this past week \u2014 also say after the big influx of fully government-subsidized refugees of last February, the plan is to resettle just 700 this year.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"syrians\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe program continues but not with the same intensity as last year,\u201d says Mario Calla, executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services, the agency charged with resettling the 2,200 government-sponsored refugees (or GARs) who have arrived in Toronto since February 2016.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the good news.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Another 2,295 privately sponsored refugees (PSRs) have also come to Toronto in the past year, along with 431 known as Blended Visa Office-Referred (BOVR) refugees, part privately and part government-sponsored.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Based on the numbers posted on the Immigration and Citizenship Canada website (now three months old), Toronto has by far absorbed the most refugees in Canada, 10% of the GARs alone.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings me to the less than positive news.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Untold millions of dollars have been spent and a jaw-dropping myriad of helping agencies have been involved in getting them settled since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Kathleen Wynne greeted the first planeload in mid-December of 2015 with expensive winter coats.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The actual money the feds have turned over to the GARs themselves and to COSTI and other agencies to resettle them remains a mystery. I tried for two days to get a response from Immigration Canada only to be informed late\u00a0Friday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0they were still working on my request.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

However, based on news reports of one year ago, the Liberals could end up spending far more than $1 billion when all is said and done, more than $100-million of that to settle Toronto\u2019s 2,200 GARs alone.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t end there.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Manuel Alas-Sevillano of Ontario\u2019s citizenship and immigration ministry says they\u2019ve committed $15 million in new funding to \u201cenhance settlement and integration services\u201d for the 17,000 refugees (both GARs and PSRs) accepted in this province.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That does not include free dental and health care provided under the Interim Federal Health program and OHIP, he confirmed.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Once their first 12 months in Canada are up, the feds no longer provide income support to the GARs and they \u201ceither have a job or they go on social assistance until their English level gets better,\u201d says Calla.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely what is happening. Calla says only about two out of 10 of the GARs have come here able to speak English, compared to 80% of the PSRs.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

But even if a refugee is privately sponsored \u2014 and can speak English \u2014 government money has gone into easing their integration into the community with a fresh layer of bureaucrats created to do so.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

At City Hall, the Toronto Newcomer Office which has grown from three staff in 2015 to six staffers this year and from a budget of $361,000 to $785,000.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

City spokesman Jennifer Wing said the Newcomer office \u2014 which works \u201cstrategically\u201d to support the resettlement of refugees but does not help refugees directly \u2014 discovered early on that PSRs needed services too.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Wing says the office itself doles out money to agencies like Lifeline Syria, Catholic Crosscultural Services and COSTI to \u201chelp refugee families directly\u201d while managing an Interagency task force \u201cto facilitate coordination and information sharing,\u201d and organizing information fairs for private sponsors.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

COSTI got $92,000 from the city, over and above the undisclosed federal money, to help move refugees into permanent housing. Lifeline Syria, which received $65,000 from the city of Toronto this past year, also only works with privately sponsored cases.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Spokesman Krystal Thomson says they\u2019ve completed 384 cases involving 1,076 refugees while another 202 cases with 575 refugees are still in the pipeline waiting to be processed by the government.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, Mayor John Tory, his wife and his sister have spent $27,000 to sponsor a refugee family through Lifeline Syria that has yet to arrive.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

According to Tory, the family is \u201cwaiting in a refugee camp inside Turkey.\u201d He believes that the delay is because the feds are taking a pause to allow refugees already in Canada to be absorbed.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

lllegals & Syrians — the Gift that Just Keeps on Taking \u00a0 Illegal Migrants Take a Toll on T.O. Shelters by Sue-Ann Levy, Toronto Sun March 18, 2017 http:\/\/www.torontosun.com\/2017\/03\/18\/illegal-migrants-take-toll-on-to-shelters It seems Canada\u2019s lax border policies toward illegal migrants are taking their toll on the city\u2019s emergency shelter system. Figures provided to the Toronto Sun from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[612,610,609,611,110],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions\/836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}