Growing Canada's Population : Reducing General Quality of Life

"Everyone deserves a safe place to call home ... And Canada is stepping up: In 2022, for the fourth year in a row, we were the top country in the world to resettle refugees."

"Today, we come together as Canadians to keep our country a welcoming place and help build a safer world for everyone."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, World Refugee Day

"Only ten people are allowed to shower each day and washroom access is one at a time."

"Menstruating women told us how difficult it was for them to stay clean under these conditions."

"Washroom/shower access is also only between 8:am and 8:pm."

Diana Chan McNally, homelessness advocate, Toronto

Asylum seekers line up as volunteers from the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention hand out food, water and supplies. (Patrick Swadden/CBC)

Canada has taken in -- and allegedly absorbed -- a whopping huge one million immigrants, students on study visas, refugees and illegal migrants in the year before this. Vastly in excess of any G7 country. A measure of the current Liberal government's commitment to grow the Canadian population as befitting a huge geographic area that is Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic. Canada's population has swelled to 40 million people. 

Some of whom are fortunate and prosper in the country north of the United States with its population ten times that of Canada's on a slightly smaller territory. Many of whom live in poverty or close to it, in an economy hit hard like all others around the world during the years of desperately coping with a world coronavirus pandemic. Now, the country is short of labourers and workers of all kinds, from construction sites to hospitals.

The cost of living has strained peoples' budgets, and those who can no longer cope have joined the legion of the homeless, living in shelters or on the streets. The once-vaunted universal hospitalization/medical-care system that Canadians were so proud of is being strained beyond its ability to cope with an ageing population, one that is growing even while facilities to look after their health problems are diminishing. Many Canadians cannot find a primary health-care physician.

Housing has become enormously expensive as the national housing stock cannot keep up with demand and building costs rise. Rental rates have expanded even as the number of rentals available to meet the demand have declined proportionally. Food Bank use has skyrocketed; more people than ever before using the Food Banks as stop-gaps between paycheques, while others cannot afford nutrition at the best of times.

 

Some asylum seekers outside the city’s shelter intake office at Peter and Richmond streets downtown have been sleeping on the street for over a month waiting for shelter. (Patrick Swadden/CBC)

 

Into this sorry mess steps economic migrants from Central America, Haiti and Africa, lured to a First World country advertising itself as open to refugees. Illegal border crossers from the United States into Canada have been welcomed in the sense that if they declare themselves as refugees seeking haven, they are permitted to fill out application forms and to enter the country to await a formal decision by the Canada Immigration and Refugee board. A decision that could take up to several years.

The illegal migrants gravitate to the country's cities where the social welfare system is expected to care for their needs; housing, schooling, medical care. While waiting for decisions on a refugee claim, the claimant may apply for a work permit, allowing them to take employment. In the interim, they become wards of the municipality where they settle. Toronto, Canada's largest, most populous city, takes the brunt of the migrants' presence.

Many are temporarily housed in hotels and motels, and when none are available, directed to a City of Toronto assessment and referral centre for the homeless. Toronto's homeless shelters are full, housing mostly Canadians who have fallen on ill times, but fully a third are represented by migrants, some of them entire families. Since there is no room at the city shelters, they wait indefinitely in the open, unsheltered until such time their need can be addressed.

They sleep in the outdoors regardless of weather, and many are unable to access sufficient food and water. They have started to set up urban encampments with the use of tarps, sleeping bags and blankets brought along by charitable volunteers. The situation is so fraught with discomfort of rough living that some are taken to hospital emergencies suffering physical and psychological afflictions reflecting their plight. They are in essence, abandoned by any level of government.

 

Municipalities have asked the federal government for funding and assistance, but to no avail. Those considered refugees are the responsibility of the federal government, under Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The same federal government that allows record numbers of refugee claimants to enter Canada, but which has failed to distribute funding to municipalities, or to build additional shelters for refugees. 

 

Momodou Sumbumdu, left, Prosscovia Namusisi of Uganda, centre, and Asuman Najib Ssali, have been sleeping on the street in front of a Toronto shelter for weeks. (Patrick Swadden/CBC)

"That system [dedicated refugee system] has 2,000 spaces and is currently full. Up until June 1, to address the persistent demand, refugee claimants were also being admitted into the base shelter system. There are currently an additional 1,000 refugees in the base system."

"The City had hoped not to have to make this change, [to no longer house refugees in non-refugee shelters] but after more than a year of requesting urgent funding assistance and logistical support, we had to make difficult decisions."

"The City has been meeting with the Federal government for over a year, stressing the need for urgent funding and asking for a long-term strategy and logistical support for the current surge of new arrivals. The Federal government need to allocate the appropriate resources to ensure people have support when they arrive."

"Hundreds of millions [are required to support the surge of new arrivals accessing the city’s shelter system]."

"Currently, the City has funding to support 500 individuals but is using reserve resources to support over 3,000 refugees who are using the system per day. Operating these 2,500 unfunded spaces requires $157 million."

Toronto’s Shelter, Support and Housing Administration