Niagara sees ‘surge’ in demand for services as Quebec migrants transferred to Ontario

"It was an unexpected surge. It's hundreds in Niagara right now."

A community group in Ontario’s Niagara region says it was already dealing with a tripling of requests for assistance from asylum seekers before Ottawa recently began transferring more migrants to the province from Quebec.

Deanna D’Elia, the general manager of employment and immigrant services at the YMCA of Niagara, said her organization provides language assessments and helps new arrivals register their children in school and access other community resources. It began seeing a rise in demand around seven months ago.

“It was an unexpected surge. It’s hundreds in Niagara right now,” she said.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says it began transferring migrants arriving in Quebec to Ottawa and Niagara Falls in July as Quebec’s shelter system — and hotels rented by IRCC — reached capacity.

Since the weekend, the transfers have increased. Quebec’s immigration minister said this week that of the 505 migrants who entered the country through an unofficial border crossing at Roxham Road on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 475 had been transferred to other provinces.

The Regional Municipality of Niagara says the federal government is doubling the number of hotel rooms for asylum seekers in the region, which has officials worried about their ability to provide services.

Adrienne Jugley, the commissioner of community services for the region, said the number of asylum seekers staying in hotels rented by the federal government increased progressively toward the end of the year.

Before Christmas, IRCC was renting more than 600 rooms in the region and she said last weekend, she was notified that the federal agency plans to increase that to more than 1,500 rooms “imminently.”