Honest goods

As part of the collective known as the electorate, we rely on our politicians to deliver us the straight and honest goods.

But rarely does this happen anymore.

The  “honest politician” has become an oxymoron.

Last week, during the glare of Question Period, newly-minted Border Security Minister Bill Blair, once Toronto's top cop and later the lead politician on the marijuana-legalization file, told the House of Commons that Canada's refugee system was working.

Those watching with any knowledge of reality expected Blair's nose to start growing like Pinocchio's.

Blair was not exactly delivering Canadian taxpayers the straight and honest goods.

During the 2017-2018 fiscal year, for example, the Immigration and Refugee Board had the capacity to hear and adjudicate 24,000 refugee claims.

Yet, in “irregular border crossers” alone, there were 23,215 who had illegally jumped the queue since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put out his ill-advised #WelcomeToCanada tweet in order to trump Donald Trump's lashing out at illegal immigrants in his country.

The reality, therefore, is a lot grimmer than Blair's smiley-face assessment of a working refugee system.

A backlog of 64,929 cases does not come close to representing a smooth-running system, and shame on Bill Blair for trying to represent it as such.

He must think we are idiots, because here is the reality. The most-recent Parliamentary Budget Officer report has those 23,215 “illegal” migrants as already costing  taxpayers $340 million, which works out to a little over $14,000 per queue-jumper.

This does not include the cost to Ontario, which has been pegged at $200 million.

The PBO says the same amount applies to Quebec, although the feds have only reimbursed Ontario and Quebec some $50 million of that total.

There is only one taxpayer, of course, and that taxpayer, like it or not, is you.

Bill Blair, therefore, has some explaining to do, not that this will ever happen.

The truth is just too expensive, and therefore he would prefer you not know it.

But now you do.