Ford government reverses short-lived plan to give asylum seekers work permits
At the close of the Council of the Federation, Ford led the charge on behalf of the country's premiers, lambasting the federal government for delays in processing asylum seekers.
Ford claimed at the time it 'takes over two years' for asylum seekers to be granted a work permit. He said the province would not be 'waiting any longer' and would give out work permits.
The federal government said the wait is actually less than two months.
On Monday, Ford reversed course and appeared to concede his figures were based on anecdotes.
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'I just go out there and I'm hearing it on the street,' Ford said, explaining where he came up with his two-year wait time statistic.
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'Go up Airport Road, pull over at the Tim Hortons by the Congress Centre, ask them how long they've been there, ask them if they want to work. They all want to work, but instead we're paying them to sit in a hotel room.'
A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada originally said the average processing time is 45 days between applying for asylum and receiving a work permit, if requested.
That figure is a national average based on eight weeks of data from May and June this year, while the Ontario average is 48 days, they said.
Ford's original plan, as explained by his office last week, relied on Section 95 of the Canadian Constitution. It allows provinces to make immigration decisions, 'as long and as far only as it is not repugnant' to any federal law.
'We have authority in that area,' Ford said previously. 'No one understands the sectors and their labour needs better than the premiers.'
On Monday, however, the premier appeared to have abandoned his plan.
'We want to work with the federal government,' Ford said at Queen's Park. 'We don't want to take over the immigration system per se and take the burden on … but I do want to see these work permits, we aren't getting the data.'
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Labour Minister David Piccini also confirmed the provincial government no longer planned to issue its own work permits.
'The premier said we need more autonomy,' Piccini said. 'And we all agree on that, we want more autonomy.'
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Ford was 'flipping and flopping' by walking back his work permit plan.
'Here we are again, he's changing tack completely,' Stiles said.
'Meanwhile, people who want to be able to work here in the province are facing major backlogs, paperwork is not getting done and employers who need them to be working are also not winning here.'
She added Ford should focus on 'what he is responsible for,' pointing to layoffs in the Ontario steel industry as a result of tariffs from the United States.
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