When Mayor Olivia Chow recently revealed that the federal government is preparing to shortchange Toronto on funding to provide shelter for refugees — to the tune of more than $100 million this year — many of us likely felt a sense of déjà vu.
Didn’t we go through this with the last guy? As the number of refugees in the shelter system ballooned under former prime minister Justin Trudeau (from 530 per night in 2021 to more than 5,000 per night in 2025), the feds hemmed and hawed and tried to pass the buck while refugees slept on sidewalks and Toronto’s established homeless population was squeezed into tent cities. Chow’s budget chief, Shelley Carroll, even threatened a civic Trudeau Tax Levy. Finally, in 2024, Trudeau came around.
