On Parliament Hill

On Tuesday, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration held emergency meetings to review the Trudeau government’s response to the tens of thousands of illegal migrants crossing into Canada from the United States. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, Border Security Minister Bill Blair and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen were in attendance.

We already knew that the massive influx of asylum seekers was putting a serious strain on homeless shelters in cities like Montreal and Toronto. As a result, the Trudeau government decided to start housing migrants in University dorms that were empty for the summer.

The problem with that strategy was fairly self-evident; students would eventually be returning during the month of August and the migrants would have to be moved again.

That brings us to one of the revelations from this week’s meeting. Newly appointed Border Security Minister, Bill Blair, confirmed that more than 800 migrants will soon be moved from the University dorms to hotel rooms. How long will they be housed in hotel rooms? The Minister didn’t know. Who will pay for all this? He didn’t know that either.

What we all do know is that it won’t be the Minister footing this bill himself. So that leaves, as always, you, the Canadian taxpayer to pay for it.

Another revelation during the meeting occurred when the new Minister was asked which government agencies would be reporting to him. Would either the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) or perhaps the RCMP? Shockingly, he said no. So how then is the new Minister supposed to do his job if none of the border agencies or law enforcement bodies charged with securing our border actually report to him? This of course only further reinforces the speculation that this new position is nothing more than another attempt by Prime Minister Trudeau to make it appear as if he is actually doing something to solve the problem.

The Prime Minister, with no plan of action, has created a situation where those waiting in refugee camps and facing persecution in dangerous places around the world must wait longer, as more and more resources are spent processing and housing people crossing into Canada from the U.S.

To date, his only solution – as it is with so many issues – has been to throw more money at the problem. Unfortunately this does nothing to address the problem he has created; it just means more tax dollars are being spent to manage the crisis, instead of resolving the issue.

What was once a balanced, orderly and fair immigration system has become one giant mess under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And day by day, that mess continues to grow.