This committee meeting studied the redistribution of asylum seekers across Canada. Witnesses included Dr. Christina Clark-Kazak, Professor at the University of Ottawa; Randy Donauer, City Councillor for Saskatoon; Kailee Brennan, Executive Director of Matthew House Ottawa; Lisa Kaida, Associate Professor at McMaster University; Karen Kobussen, CEO of the Saskatoon West Business Association; and Alina Murad, Director of Federal Government Relations at The Refugee Centre.
Dr. Christina Clark-Kazak urged the committee to ground any redistribution policy in rights and evidence, noting that freedom of movement is a basic human right under the Charter. She argued that past relocations to smaller municipalities were costly and ineffective, citing prolonged hotel stays and a lack of legal and settlement services. She recommended increased coordination of services, buy-in from provinces and municipalities, giving asylum seekers agency in matching skills to host communities, and learning from the UK's uneven dispersal policy.
Randy Donauer cautioned against redistribution, arguing the solution is to fix the asylum system's backlog rather than move people around. He stated Saskatoon is overwhelmed by a housing and homelessness crisis, with nearly 2,000 unhoused people and a 30% population growth in a decade, and cannot absorb a large influx of asylum seekers. He recommended faster processing of claims, tools to minimize false claims, and a focus on qualification-based immigration to support the tax base.
Kailee Brennan argued Canada does not have a capacity problem but a coordination problem, noting that experienced NGOs already operate reception homes across the country. She stated her organization operates 230 beds at $37 per day, far cheaper than emergency hotel responses, and recommended investing in a national coordination body among providers, shared referral systems, and dedicated funding for community-based reception models rather than hotel beds. She disagreed with the idea that redistribution is a transportation problem, treating it instead as a reception infrastructure problem.
Lisa Kaida distinguished between resettled refugees, who receive systematic support, and asylum seekers, who do not, and noted that over 70% of other refugees initially settled in Toronto or Montreal. She stated her research shows resettled refugees are more likely to leave initial destinations than economic immigrants, but over 50% stay even in small communities. She could not directly apply her findings to asylum seekers, as their experience in smaller communities may differ due to a lack of government or sponsor support.
Karen Kobussen urged the committee not to mistake redistribution for a solution, arguing it simply moves pressure from one place to another without fixing the broken system. She stated Saskatoon faces a serious housing crisis with a less than 2% rental vacancy rate, strained health care and education, and that businesses need orderly immigration, not an uncontrolled backlog. She recommended focusing on the root problem of system failure rather than spreading its consequences across the country.
Alina Murad argued that redistribution must be voluntary and consider whether regions have the infrastructure to support long-term retention, noting that people gravitate toward areas with sustained investment and opportunities. She highlighted a major policy gap where many NGOs cannot serve refugee claimants because funding is restricted to permanent residents, and recommended opening government funding streams to organizations serving claimants. She proposed a program modelled after the EMPP to match claimants with communities facing labour shortages, ensuring stable employment and integration.
AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.