CIMM – Question No. Q-31 – October 21, 2025

Inquiry of Ministry

By: Arnold Viersen (Peace River-Westlock)
Date: May 27 , 2025

Question

With regard to the government’s provision of goods and services to irregular border crossers seeking asylum, since 2015: how many claimants have been provided accommodations in Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada operated hotels or similar types of accommodations, broken down by month and province?

Reply

Insofar as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is concerned:

IRCC does not systematically track the methods by which asylum claimants in temporary accommodations entered Canada.

The table below provides the total average number of asylum claimants in IRCC accommodations by month and province, since April 2020, when IRCC started providing temporary accommodations to claimants arriving in Canada with no suitable quarantine plan during the COVID-19 pandemic. From November 2021 to March 2023, temporary accommodations were primarily provided for asylum claimants arriving irregularly in Quebec through Roxham Road. Irregular arrivals represent the vast majority of claimants accommodated during that time period. Following the expansion of the application of the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement in March 2023 and the dramatic decrease in irregular arrivals, the majority of new arrivals could be linked to official border crossings at ports of entry.

Source: IRCC—Situational Reports on Temporary Accommodations

Note: The table above represents averages based on distributed situation reports. All data is based on a manual count, therefore making it preliminary and subject to change.