Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Senator Gold, Quebec is currently experiencing an explosion in asylum applications. We welcomed 49,000 of the country’s 90,000 asylum seekers between November 2022 and June 2023, or 55% of the Canadian total.

I visited The Refugee Centre in Montreal last Wednesday. The organization offers various types of assistance and integration supports for people waiting for their status to be determined. The place was packed. Clients were sitting on the floor in the hallway. According to this centre, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is paying for thousands of hotel rooms to house asylum seekers when they arrive, but this non-profit organization, which helps them find a real home and deal with all kinds of formalities, is not eligible for federal funding.

Can you tell me whether the current legislation effectively prevents Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada from funding these services offered to asylum seekers by non-profit organizations?

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you. I’d still like to add one thing to the question you’re going to ask: Can the law be changed?

It seems rather absurd to spend millions of dollars on hotel rooms for up to a year, I’m told, rather than to ask and fund non‑profits capable of rehousing them for less in society, and helping them. This seems like an inconsistency that needs to be corrected.

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. Closing Roxham Road was undoubtedly inevitable. Like many others, however, I’m concerned about what happens next. One can’t help but notice the difference between how the 133,000 Ukrainian refugees have been treated and how the asylum seekers who arrive on foot at our borders are treated. Some have crossed a dozen countries to reach Canada.

Will closing the Roxham Road loophole cause more human misery or make it even worse? What means will desperate people use to enter Canada? It’s entirely understandable that the government would want to redirect migrants to institutional processes, but what are we going to do to ensure that these actions do not result in even greater tragedies?

Senator Miville-Dechêne: Precisely, for this return to the United States, the Americans are grappling with an even bigger wave of migrants than we are. Some of the asylum seekers trying to enter Canada have already been turned back to the United States since Sunday.

Senator Gold, does the government know how the U.S. authorities are going to deal with these people and what will happen to them in this country that is already overflowing with migrants?