Here in Battle River—Crowfoot, you already know how the Liberals’ reckless open borders policies have let more people into our country than we had homes and opportunities for.
This has left Canadians with disjointed job and housing markets, and hundreds of thousands of temporary residents with no long-term prospects.
Now—with no credible plan to ensure these visa holders leave when their permits expire—Canadians can see how the government’s policies fail to undo the damage, and how new problems arise in turn.
In Ottawa this week, the Liberals voted down a Conservative motion that would have ended the unacceptable practice of rejected asylum claimants getting better taxpayer-funded health care than Canadian citizens.
Some background information: our recent efforts have shed light on the money wasted on deluxe benefits for fake refugees.
We now know that the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) will cost Canadians over $1.5 billion annually by 2030, due to sheer mismanagement and the expansion of the program to include supplementary benefits not typically covered by public health plans.
This includes services like vision care, physical therapy, and home care, that even those of us who have paid into the system our entire lives don’t even receive.
Among the IFHP’s users are asylum claimants who had their claims rejected, taking advantage of the current 44-month backlog at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and a lenient system that only cuts these benefits when the claimant has exhausted all avenues of appeal—typically many months later.
Last year, IFHP usage was up an astounding 377 per cent from 2016, all while 6 million Canadians cannot find a family doctor and are stuck waiting an average of 30 weeks to see a specialist.
In rural communities these problems can be bad, with doctors already scarce and patients travelling long distances to receive care.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent IFHP announcement means that Canadian taxpayers are still footing the rest of the bill for 70 per cent of asylum seekers’ “supplemental health benefits”— including those appealing rejected claims.
Another case of this government’s half-measures that fail to deliver results.
To make matters worse, Canadians recently learned that nearly 25,000 refugees were accepted by Canada’s immigration bureaucrats without ever meeting an official face-to-face, reaching an astounding 80 per cent acceptance rate that far exceeds that of many other countries.
This is not compassion; this is system failure.
It’s simple: rejected “refugees” who had their claims denied should not get better healthcare than Canadians.
That’s why our Conservative motion called on the government to:
- Review federal benefits provided to asylum claimants into order to find savings for taxpayers;
- Restrict federal benefits received by rejected asylum claimants to emergency lifesaving healthcare only;
- Provide transparency on federal spending on the IFHP by providing an annual report to Parliament, particularly regarding supplemental benefits which Canadian citizens do not have access to; and
- Pass policies to immediately expel foreign nationals convicted of serious crime in Canada.
Years of bad policy motivated by extreme agendas has left our immigration system ripe for abuse.
Yet, when the government had the chance to join with Conservatives to close just some of these unacceptable and costly loopholes, the Prime Minister chose instead to defend the status quo – saying the Liberals “have the immigration system under control”.
In Battle River—Crowfoot, and across the country, Canadians know that that is far from the truth.
That’s why, as your Member of Parliament and Conservative leader, I’ll continue fighting for immigration policies that are truly responsible and fair.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this column, or if you require assistance regarding a Federal Government program, you are encouraged to send an email to pierre.poilievre@parl.gc.ca or call 1-800-665-4358.
