Eastern Ont. mayor wants more help from feds to manage influx of asylum seekers, supports STCA renegotiation

As the federal government looks to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S., an eastern Ontario mayor says his city needs more help from Ottawa to deal with the influx of asylum seekers arriving through irregular crossings like Roxham Road.

As the federal government looks to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S., an eastern Ontario mayor says his city needs more help from Ottawa to deal with the influx of asylum seekers arriving through irregular crossings like Roxham Road.

Cornwall Ont. mayor Justin Towndale tells CTV National News Chief News Anchor and Senior Editor Omar Sachedina his city is "not anti-immigration" and wants to help asylum seekers. However, for a city of under 50,000 people, he says local services are being stretched to capacity.

"Our major concerns and challenges relate to the services we need to provide and are expected to provide in addition to the services we provide to our residents on an ongoing basis," the eastern Ontario mayor said on Thursday.

The federal government has sent 900 migrants to Cornwall, who are being housed in hotels in the city. As migrants get bused into Cornwall, the burden of administering social services has fallen to the municipality.

Towndale says the city's Human Services Department has had to bring back retirees in order to fill the gaps. In addition, the city is also losing revenue from tourism taxes, given that housing migrants has taken up half of the city's hotel room inventory.

"Eventually we're going to reach our limit in terms of resources and tap out. So we're asking for help in that regard and … ongoing sustainable funding that can help us cover our costs," he said.

Many of these migrants crossed into Canada from the U.S. and arrived in Quebec through Roxham Road, an unofficial border crossing between Quebec and New York. But the feds began sending migrants to Ontario cities like Cornwall, Windsor and Niagara Falls after concerns from the Quebec government that the province was seeing a disproportionate number of asylum seekers, strained its resources.