Photo credit: CBC
A report that found Toronto discriminated against refugee claimants by refusing them access to homeless shelters was denied a full hearing at council Wednesday after an ally of Mayor Olivia Chow used a procedural maneuver to prevent it from going to debate.
Toronto Star reports that the investigation released last Thursday by Toronto Ombudsman Kwame Addo determined the city’s decision to turn asylum seekers away from its main shelter system in 2022 and 2023 was poorly planned, harmful and amounted to anti-Black racism.
However, in a rare rejection of an accountability officer’s findings City Manager Paul Johnson disagreed with the report’s recommendations. He argued that shelter staff had been forced to make tough decisions as the number of asylum seekers arriving in Toronto surged and the federal government cut funding for refugee support.
He also said the right to adequate housing that Addo asserted was enshrined in the city policy was”aspirational,” not a legal obligation.
The report should have gone before the council on Wednesday afternoon, which could have forced the mayor and councillors into the thorny position of picking sides between the ombudsman and the city’s top civil servant. But in a surprise development, as the council was about to break for lunch, Councillor Paula Fletcher (Ward 14, Toronto Danforth) moved to “receive” the report, meaning the council wouldn’t debate it or vote on its 14 recommendations. her motion passed with a vote of hands. Chow was in the chamber and didn’t appear to cast a vote.
When the council reconvened, Councillor Michael Thompson (Waed 21, Scarborough Centre), who wasn’t in the room for Fletcher’s motion, excoriated his colleagues for not debating the ombudsman’s findings.
Thompson requested the council to reopen the issue, but it opted not to in a 9-to-14 decision that didn’t fall neatly along ideological lines. The mayor didn’t vote.
Migrants from Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia and elsewhere were forced to sleep outside the city shelter referral centre downtown in the summer of 2023 due to an influx of refugee claimants and a bitter funding dispute between Toronto and the federal government.
Addo’s investigation found that while the city announced in May 2023 it would stop allowing asylum seekers into the base shelter system and instead refer them to federal programs, it actually implemented the policy months earlier, in November 2022, without publicizing it.
The ombudsman concluded that some asylum seekers were turned away from shelters even when beds were available and directed to federal supports the city knew weren’t available. The practice went against city policies guaranteeing services for everyone regardless of immigration status.
In a statement Wednesday evening, Chow said she welcomed the report but didn’t comment directly on the council not adopting its recommendations.
In another statement, Addo said, “My mandate is to identify unfairness when I see it and make recommendations to help the city improve its services to the public. That is exactly what I have done here.”
