MPs Seek Audit of $800 Million Health Program for Refugees, Immigration Detainees

Conservative MP Dan Mazier speaks at a House of Commons health committee meeting on Nov. 20, 2025. House of Commons/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

The House of Commons health committee has requested an audit of the federal government’s interim federal health program, which cost nearly $800 million last year to cover medical claims by refugee claimants and immigration detainees.

Conservative MP Dan Mazier sponsored the motion at a Nov. 20 health committee meeting asking the auditor general to conduct the audit. He said the purpose of the audit is to examine the “significant increase in cost, usage, and impacts on provincial health care systems,” and he asked that it be completed by Feb. 7, 2026.

MPs also motioned to ask the parliamentary budget officer to conduct a fiscal analysis of the interim federal health program and assess the drivers behind the recent increases in the program’s cost and usage by Jan. 30, 2026. The motion also requested that the auditor general and parliamentary budget officer appear before the health committee separately to discuss their respective findings.

MPs voted 5–4 in favour of the motion, with the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois voting for the motion and the Liberals voting against it.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) says the interim federal health program provides short-term health care coverage in Canada for refugee claimants, “protected” persons, re-settled refugees, temporary residents who are victims of human trafficking or family violence, immigration detainees, individuals under specific temporary public policies, and individuals who have been granted eligibility by the immigration minister.

The cost of the program increased from $66.3 million in the 2016–17 fiscal year to $797.2 million in fiscal 2024–25. This represents “an increase of more than 1,100 percent in less than 10 years,” Mazier noted, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

Additionally, the number of program users that incurred claims rose from 84,967 users in fiscal 2016–17 to 426,750 in fiscal 2024–25—“an increase of more than 400 percent in less than 10 years,” Mazier said.

Conservative MP Burton Bailey said refugee claimants and illegal immigrants were “receiving potentially better health care than the Canadians who are funding the program.”

“I’m not sure I would describe it as better health care,” Assistant Deputy Immigration Minister Soyoung Park, who testified before the committee on Nov. 20, responded. Bailey said he thinks “the system is being abused.”

He said that people are coming into Canada on “bogus asylum claims” and are “receiving health care funded by Canadian tax dollars, including supplementary care like dental, vision, medical devices, and mental health services that many Canadians don’t even receive.”

The program covers medical services like hospital, ambulance, and lab services, psychologists, physiotherapists, speech language therapists, prosthetics, mobility aids, hearing aids, home care, long-term care, urgent dental care, limited vision care, and prescription drugs, the IRCC says.

The department says the program covers the cost of “most medical care” for recipients until they are eligible for provincial or territorial health insurance.

Park said that those whose refugee claims have been rejected are still able to receive health care benefits under the program until they are deported from Canada. She noted that around 17 percent of refugee claims were rejected last year.

The Conservatives plan to table legislation that would “remove the eligibility of migrants with failed asylum claims to claim any federal social benefits beyond emergency health care,” Mazier said in a Nov. 20 statement.

“We are compassionate people, but with 6.5 million Canadians lacking access to a family doctor, many are left wondering why rejected and bogus asylum claimants receive better health benefits than our own citizens,” Mazier added.

Meanwhile, Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski said he disagreed with the committee spending money and time on the issue.

“There’s a lot of health issues we could be addressing, and instead we’re going after this Conservative notion that we’re wasting money on these foreigners who are coming in here and using our health services,” Powlowski said.