Jason Silver

Monday, January 10th, 2005

Refugee Money from Government

My dad sent me this. Can anyone out there confirm this is true? If it is, then something seems wrong here.

From the hard copy of the Toronto Star, April 18 2004.

It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890.00 and each can also get an additional $580.00 in social assistance for a total of $2,470.00.
This compares very well to a single pensioner who after contributing to the growth and development of Canada for 40 to 50 years can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012.00 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.
Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees!
Lets send this to all Canadians, so we can all be pissed off and maybe we can get the refugees cut back to $1,012.00 and the pensioners up to $2,470 00 and enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 years.

Who knows how to fact check something like this? This is almost $30,000 a year per refugee. If someone is escaping persecution and possible death, then I don't have a problem with welcoming them, and helping them to get on their feet here-- but it seems like a whopping amount of cash to me, especially if there's no requirement to work. The way I see it, if the government is going to pay you, you should be mopping floors somewhere, or licking envelopes, washing dishes, filling potholes...

~Jason

UPDATE: I'm glad someone checked into this and found it to be false. Thanks for the fact-checking! The blogosphere is at work!