Chatham-Kent wants to grow municipality by housing Toronto's refugees

Chatham-Kent has space for the asylum seekers who are overwhelming Toronto's shelter system, and has reached out to Toronto to look at who may be interested in relocating southwest.

Toronto has been in touch with other Ontario municipalities for help on this issue and has asked the provincial and federal government for help.

Windsor has already said there isn't enough space in the city's temporary shelters for the refugees.

"It's not simply a question of saying we will take X number of people," said Chatham-Kent CAO Don Shropshire in a news release.

"Ideally, we want to bring people here who can obtain employment, relocate and make this their new home." 

There is no target number for how many they want to relocate to the southwestern Ontario municipality.

Growing Chatham-Kent

Part of the reason for the municipality's willingness to bring in refugees is because Chatham-Kent employers are looking to expand their operations, but have little access to people with the skills they need.

Mayor Randy Hope said there was a decline in Chatham-Kent's population and they are trying to grow their numbers.

"We're able to take that step because there is employment opportunities, but we're also trying to attract more residents in our area," he said. "We're still out there trying to attract more investment into our communities."

Staff are now working to identify the skills among the group that Toronto wants to relocate, to see if any of them could find employment in Chatham-Kent and settle down in southwestern Ontario.

However, in order to keep bringing in more refugees, Hope said the federal government needs to step it up and help the cities identify people who can find "gainful employment" in the smaller municipalities. 

"Seems to be the tendency that everybody wants to go to the big cities. Rural Ontario is hurting just like others are," Hope said.