York Region is facing pressure from a surge of asylum seekers and council authorized $4.3 million Sept. 28 to support them until March 2024.
The region is providing wraparound services to the latest influx, which involves about 100 hotel rooms. This comes with municipalities in the GTHA facing a high number of asylum seekers. Canada has had 69,090 asylum claims in the first half of the year, a 62 per cent increase over the same time period last year.
With reports of many asylum seekers unable to find housing and forced to alternatives like sleeping on buses, Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said the funding is the right thing to do.
“At this moment, I think we have a responsibility, at least in the Canada I want to live in, in the York Region I want to live in,” Taylor said.
The issue in York Region is concentrated in its southern end. Groups from Vaughan, including Miracle Arena for All Nations and ANCHOR Canada, have asked for help as they have tried to serve dozens of refugees, staging a protest inside the council chambers two weeks ago. Since then, staff have been providing support, opening up a hotel to offer rooms and working with those organizations, as well a Red Cross to support asylum seekers, similar to the hotel offered to Ukrainian refugees last year.
But commissioner of community and health services Katherine Chislett described a more difficult situation on the ground, without the same organization through upper levels of government as when Ukrainian refugees came in. The underlying cause of asylum seekers is war and natural disasters. But Chislett said there also seems to be higher processing of temporary visas making up for a pandemic backlog, with many making an asylum claim once they arrive in Canada.
Chislett said it creates a challenge, with 51 people already using the hotel York Region is serving asylum seekers and dozens more suddenly turning up as word of mouth spreads.
“We’re part of a system with the GTHA. Our colleagues are getting tapped out. People will go where they need to go to take care of themselves,” Chislett said, adding if they cannot access services, they will use other means. “They will be coming in any event to live in parks, to live in our emergency housing. Putting a burden on emergency shelters is a very real possibility."
Delegates from Miracle Arena for All Nations and ANCHOR Canada described the challenges and called for more housing and better planning. With many asylum seekers coming from African countries, Shernett Martin of ANCHOR Canada said there have been difficulties with other service providers lacking sensitivity training. She added that there have also been issues with the co-ordination of providing necessities to people.
“There is no plan,” Martin said. “You have the right people. They have the heart for this work … We need a memorandum of understanding, we need an agreement. We need a plan. We’d like to be included.”
Chislett spoke to the need for federal and provincial intervention to help, with these services not being within the region’s mandate.
But with word of the mouth causing more people to attempt to access York Region services, councillors expressed some concern. Newmarket Deputy Mayor Tom Vegh was one of two to vote against the funding.
“We all know it’s the federal government’s responsibility to control our borders,” Vegh said. “I’m quite worried the federal government is taking actions or inactions, and it is falling on municipalities, far out of our mandate, to fund the fallout.”
Still, council voted 17-2 in favour of providing the funding. Richmond Hill Deputy Mayor Joe DiPaola also voted against the motion.
Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca said it is vital to address the need there right now.
“The $4.3 million is to deal with an urgent situation in York Region, in the City of Vaughan today and I would urge us to support it and help these people get to proper, suitable, safe accommodation,” Del Duca said. “As we prepare for the challenge that may be ahead of us.”
