Spike in gov’t spending as feds rushed to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by end of February
Posted April 18, 2016 10:51 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA (NEWS 1130) – It looks like the federal government spent a lot of money at the last minute, in order to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada before the end of February.
Spending spiked as the Liberals tried to meet their self-imposed deadline.
According to the CBC, $30 million was spent on airfare for refugees and $4 million was spent on other expenses over the five months the Liberals were planning out this major undertaking. But more than half of that money was spent in February alone.
Aaron Wudrick with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says it always costs more when you try to do something in a tighter time frame.
“If the government had simply brought these refugees over a week or two later and not met their own political deadline, would it have saved taxpayers money? If so, then that’s what they should have done,” he argues.
“Not that this isn’t a good use of money in and of itself, but that money is sort of being spent to meet the political deadline that was set by the government itself, rather than for the purpose of getting these people here on a reasonable timeline.”
The government also had to pay its workers $1.7 million in overtime.
Immigration officials say these numbers are not final figures, and they will have an update on the costs next month.
