Trudeau Government Finally Gave Toronto $45 Million For Their Refugee Crisis After Doug Ford Refused

With Toronto being the heart of the province, it is also the key city that has been helping an influx of asylum seekers find temporary housing. While Toronto has needed additional funds to continue housing asylum seekers, they have struggled to receive this funding from the provincial government. Finally, this week, the federal government has granted Toronto $45 million to help continue to create and support temporary housing for those who may need it within the city. 

For some time, Toronto has been dealing with the pressures of sheltering an ever-growing population of asylum seekers and refugee claimants. According to the National Post , Toronto has been in a housing crisis for over a couple of years. Last June, Mayor John Tory admitted that the city's shelter system was overflowing due to the two-year migrant influx. He stated that the city of Toronto could not take any more asylum seekers into the city due to the lack of housing. 

That summer, there were so many asylum seekers throughout the city that some seekers were sleeping in hotels and college dorm rooms in the city's attempts to find room for all of those who needed shelter. 

Since this overflow of migrants into the city, Toronto has been calling for more funding for temporary housing so they are able to help locate all of those who come into the city. However, it has been hard to get this funding. 

According to CBC News,  when Toronto went to the provincial government for more money for temporary housing, Ford's government refused. Ford stated that he would not be providing any financial assistance to deal with the city's "illegal border crossers" as he calls them. 

Ford blames the influx of migrants on Trudeau's government and states that it should not be Ontario's responsibility to deal with the lack of money that has been set aside for this issue. Ford also stated that it should be the federal government who needs to deal with this issue since they are the ones that started it. 

This week, the federal government finally decided to step in on the shortage issue that has been around for the past few years. Trudeau has agreed to give the city of Toronto $45 million to help create temporary housing and take asylum seekers into the city. This adds to $26 million of funds that had already been given to the city in June 2018. 

Mayor John Tory, who has been attempting to get this situation resolved for the past year, reached out about how thankful he was for the federal government to finally help with this issue. 

He told CBC that he wants to "thank the Government of Canada for listening to our concerns about these costs and acting on our city's requests. It shows the importance of the partnership between governments and how we can address issues in the spirit of cooperation."