Ottawa Pledges $362 Million to Provinces, Cities to Temporarily House Asylum Seekers

The federal government is pledging a $362.4-million top-up to its interim housing assistance program for asylum seekers. Immigration Minister Marc Miller made the announcement on Jan. 31, citing what he called the need to provide support that reflects the impact of asylum claims across the country. Deeper changes are needed down the road, he added. “This program is important because it gets shelters over people’s heads, particularly with the temperature that it is outside. But it needs reform, and that’s something that will have to be worked on … in the coming months,” Mr. Miller said. “I think we owe it to Canadians to reform a system that has very much been a stopgap measure since 2017 to deal with large historic flows of migration.”...