Canada has spent $115M on deportations since 2022

Advocates say rate is 'shocking and unjustifiable,' contradicts Ottawa's goals

- GHADA ALSHARIF

Elizabeth Emanuel, left, joins in a recent rally in Toronto calling for regularization and status for migrant workers. The 58-year-old refugee worked two jobs to make ends meet, but is now facing imminent deportation after fleeing Nigeria in 2017.

Canada has spent more than $115 million deporting nearly 29,000 migrants since 2022, an unprecedented rate that flies in the face of the federal government's promise to regularize the status of undocumented workers, advocates say.

In 2023, Ottawa spent more than $62 million on deportations, the highest amount spent in a year in over a decade, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) dating back to 2011.

The deportation rate in 2023 was the highest since 2012, when more than 19,000 people were deported under Stephen Harper's Conservative government. The deportations include "all removals enforced in each fiscal year," the CBSA said, including refugee claimants, and migrants residing, working or studying in Canada who have overstayed their legal status.

When asked about the growth in deportations, the agency said "the number of removals enforced in any given year will fluctuate," adding that the March 2023 expansion of the Safe Third Country Agreement, aimed at limiting asylum seekers entering Canada through unofficial entry points, has contributed to this year's increase.

About 90 per cent of the total deportations since 2005 are due to "non-compliance," the CBSA added, referring to migrants living in Canada without authorization.

"Criminality," the second most common reason for deportation, accounts for just over seven per cent of removals.