We're paying how much in health costs for refugee claimants?
The Liberals have some explaining to do.
You may have missed it in the whole “how many Liberals are quitting now” saga of the first week of Parliament’s fall session, but the Conservatives have brought up an issue that’s serious and needs better answers than “we won the election and you guys are meanies.”
Health care for refugee claimants.
In a post on her Substack, Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner drew attention to an issue that, I suspect, will rally a large number of people, especially people who pay a lot in taxes, suffer from inflation and have to wait months for a doctor’s visit — assuming they have access to primary care at all.
The issue is the Interim Federal Health Program, or IFHP, which just doesn’t roll off the tongue no matter what official language you practice. It is, obviously, a federal program that covers basic health care for certain groups of people — primarily people seeking asylum in Canada.
So far, so ho-hum. Canadians are a caring and generous people. When someone reaches our shores, fleeing oppression or war or some other calamity, there is a process to evaluate their claims and some way for those people to access health care if their condition requires it.
But that consensus only holds if 1) there are clear eligibility rules that are enforced because no matter how awesome we are we can’t take everyone, certainly not cheaters; and 2) our bureaucracy tasked with running this system has to be honest, efficient and transparent, backed by a knowledgeable minister whose job it is to reassure everyone that rules are followed.
Rempel Garner brings up a question asked by her colleague Rachael Thomas about the cost of the program. According to information released September 15, the program’s costs have — ballooned, there’s no other word for it, between 2016-2017 and 2024-2025.
Clearly, someone on the inside tipped off the Conservatives to try and unearth these numbers. This is always the case when someone finds a way to ask exactly the right question to get exactly the right kind of shocking data. That’s the political game alright.
But nobody is saying the numbers aren’t accurate. And they are eye-popping.
In information obtained via an Order Paper Question posed by Conservative Member of Parliament Rachael Thomas, it was revealed that the total cost of the program ballooned from roughly $66 million in fiscal year (FY) 2016-2017 to over $800M in FY 2024-25 so far.
If you click on the Order Paper Question link, you’ll get access to the document that includes more numbers than you probably want. I have not reviewed them all in detail but it’s not necessary; a casual glance at the tables is enough to get the gist.
I can think of some reasons for the staggering cost increase: More people claiming refugee status (nearly 60,000 last year) and an ever-growing backlog in claims processing (nearly 300,000 people as of late June), and an expansion of services covered by the program to include things like prescriptions, counselling, physiotherapy and other health services most Canadians have to pay for either directly or through health insurance plans.
The big issue, of course, is whether those hundreds of thousands of people waiting to have their refugee claims processed are real refugees and not people playing the system. The Conservatives are heavily suggesting the bogus rate is high. I don’t know that anyone can make this claim truthfully, and that in itself is a problem.
For all I know, most of the people waiting for their claims to be processed are honest and meet the criteria for being in Canada as refugees. And they may all have very legitimate needs for those health services. If that’s the case, when asked about such a dramatic increase in costs, the Liberal government should take the time to explain — with numbers and data and charts and stuff — that the system is working as it should.
Rempel Garner asked Immigration Minister Lena Diab to explain why the IFHP costs have exploded and the answer Diab gave is the precise opposite of helpful.
The processing backlog is something that has been flagged by a lot of people for many long years. It’s not a new problem. It may be new and unfamiliar to Lena Diab, but not to the people in her department.
That there are hundreds of thousands of people in the country waiting for their claims to be processed is already a serious problem, especially if they are using publicly funded services to which they may not be entitled.
Most people understand that in every program there can be a little abuse here and there, because it’s really hard to run great public programs that are caring and compassionate without being open to abuse by people who know how to game the system. I could be wrong, but I believe most Canadians would prefer putting up with a small number of cheaters rather than shut the country’s door to legitimate refugees.
But an increase of 1200% in the costs of one program while backlogs keep growing is not, in anyone’s estimation except the hapless Lena Diab, evidence that the system is working.
That we should cover health care for refugee claimants is one thing, but nobody likes to pay for cheaters. And since the backlogs are out of control, there’s no way for the government to reassure Canadians that all is done to ensure the level of abuse is kept to a minimum.
That sort of thing is how politicians like Donald Trump get elected.
Canadians are a welcoming people. There are various paths for immigration, and there’s also a path for refugees. Nobody is saying we should make any of those paths cruel or more difficult than they should be. But the process should be efficient and timely so that legitimate applicants see their applications approved quickly and bogus claims get thrown out just as fast if not faster.
This should not be a partisan issue. It’s a governance and a trust issue. On this one, so far, the Conservatives are asking a critical question that needs to be asked — and that deserves an answer. The government needs to put its pants on, like we say where I’m from, and get a grip on this issue.