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Feds spent $25.6M in hotels, transportation and furnishings for Syrian refugees

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[The Liberal government spent $25.6 million in hotels, transportation and furnishings on Syrian refugees. THE CANADIAN PRESS]

The federal government spent more than $15 million on hotels alone to house Syrian refugees after announcing last December its ambitious plan to resettle 25,000 displaced Syrians.

The total sum disclosed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada this week comes to $25.6 million in external contracts from mid-December to the end of March.

From Dec. 21 to the end of March, the immigration department housed refugees in at least 17 different hotels in major cities across the country.

The largest bill was from the Quality Hotel and Suites Toronto Airport East, which received $2.96 million, followed by the $2.53 million paid to the Quality Hotel Dorval.

The Sheraton Guildford Hotel received $1.995 million; the Travelodge $2.147 million; and Travelodge Aeroport de Dorval, $1.945 million.

With critics suggesting the federal government simply did not have the capability to undertake the massive resettlement, the department engaged defence contractor Logistik Unicorp Inc. on Dec. 7 – a contract worth $5.274 million.

The department spent a total of $7 million on transportation, including flights, taxis and bus service, and $3 million on furniture for the refugees – for a total of $25.6 million.

The department was not able to immediately respond to a request for comment from Yahoo Canada News.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel says she’s frustrated with the way the plan has unfolded so far.

“I think they went into this without a real plan,” she tells Yahoo Canada News.

“I feel like this government took a lot of nice, glossy photos on the front end of this and they really haven’t thought about the transition of these refugees, their lives in Canada, over the long term.”

Rempel is part of a parliamentary committee studying the refugee response, with a report likely next fall.

“We’ve had refugees come into committee and talk about how they’re living in bug-infested apartments. We know that many refugees spent an extended amount of time in hotels,” she says.

Refugees have testified that they’ve had trouble accessing language training and finding jobs.

Committee members asked officials and the minister last week for a tally on hotel spending and were told they didn’t have the information, Rempel says.

Meanwhile, private sponsor groups have told the committee that they had apartments available that they’ve now released because they did not have families to put in them.

“So there’s absolutely no co-ordination,” Rempel says.

The Liberals originally estimated the entire initiative would cost $250 million.

“It’s significantly more than $250 million. It’s nearing a billion with no end in sight,” she says.

Last week, Immigration Minister John McCallum defended the expenses under questioning in the House of Commons.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan pointed out that the federal government spent more than $2.3 million to renovate Canadian military bases, which were to serve as temporary lodging for the Syrian refugees.

“They were never used, because at the last minute, the government changed course and decided to house the refugees in hotels at the cost of over $14 million,” Kwan said during question period on Friday.

“Mr. Speaker, I am afraid the honourable member is missing the forest for the trees,” McCallum replied.

“The good news is that those military bases were set up as a contingency. The fact that we did not need them meant that the government saved tens of millions of dollars. We were scheduled to spend $319 million, but we actually spent $136 million less than was predicted. Therefore, we saved a lot of money.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a campaign promise to bring 25,000 government-sponsored refugees to Canada by the end of 2015.

Logistical challenges forced the government to postpone that date to the end of February and expand the target to all Syrian refugees, including those sponsored privately.

Based on internal government documents, CBC has previously reported that the actual sum of commercial flights to bring refugees to Canada tallied $30 million in the same period.

The Liberal government initially earmarked $678 million over six years for the resettlement of 25,000 Syrians. Another $245 million was promised in the spring budget to bring an additional 10,000 displaced Syrians to Canada this year.