Canada spent $722M on health care for asylum seekers in 2024-25: PBO

Canada spent more than $722 million providing extensive health care to tens of thousands of asylum seekers in the last fiscal year, including a considerable portion on “failed refugee claimants” who are either languishing in the system or avoiding removal orders, according to a new report from the Parliamentary Budget Office.

The review of the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) also found that its costs continue to climb because of “backlogs” in Canada’s asylum system that keep claimants waiting, in some cases for up to three years.

The IFHP was created to provide limited and temporary health-care coverage to foreign nationals deemed vulnerable and disadvantaged.

Conservative health critic Dan Mazier and immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said the report shows that the Liberals’ temporary program “has turned into a multi-year, taxpayer-funded entitlement where tens of thousands of bogus asylum claimants are provided health benefits that Canadians are not eligible for.

“The Liberals must explain to Canadians why asylum seekers who have had their refugee claims rejected, are facing enforceable removal orders, and in some cases fail to appear for removal, continue to receive deluxe, taxpayer-funded health benefits while they avoid leaving Canada,” they said in a statement.

The total spending across all health-care categories and beneficiary groups for 2024-25 was closer to $822 million when resettled refugees are accounted for. Unlike those seeking asylum, they “are selected and assessed abroad, with admission targets set in the Government’s Immigration Levels Plan , resulting in relatively predictable intake and processing timelines.”

The PBO noted that whereas asylum seekers claimed an average of $724 per beneficiary per year on basic care — doctor visits, hospital care, ambulances, labs, diagnostic testing and immigration medical examinations — resettled refugees averaged $97. They’re also typically off IFHP within three months and no longer than a year.

Per-person spending on basic care has increased consistently, PBO found, but spending on supplementary health products and services — urgent dental treatment, prescription drug coverage, vision care, counselling services, assistive devices and others — has grown at a much faster rate.

In 2019-20, Canada spent $94 million on supplementary benefits across all groups. By 2023-24, expenses nearly tripled to $285 million and they reached $457 million in 2024-25.

Two categories in particular accounted for 80 per cent of the spending: prescription drugs and urgent dental care. The latter represents 56 per cent of program expenses.

According to PBO, the number of dental claims exploded by 43 per cent between 2019 and 2025 (240,000 to 1.4 million). Combined with a higher average cost per claim, it drove dental costs from $30 million to $257 million over that time.

PBO also found that spending on counselling services increased from less than one per cent of total supplementary spending in 2016 to 11 per cent in 2025. In 2024-25, the bill came in at $38.7 million.

“These are benefits that Canadians who have paid into the system their entire lives can’t access,” Mazier said on X.

BREAKINGThe Parliamentary Budget Officer has revealed that nearly 74,000 REJECTED asylum claimants are entitled to deluxe health benefits through the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP).Deluxe supplemental health benefits like vision care, home care, and physiotherapy now… pic.twitter.com/Sq9wMDNABx

— Dan Mazier (@DanMazierMP) May 26, 2026

And while those rising expenses are increasing the overall cost of the IFHP, “elevated intakes” and the resulting “persistent backlogs” are also major drivers.

Officials who managed 64,150 asylum claims in 2019 had more than 173,000 in 2024. In line with the new Liberal government’s immigration policies, that number decreased to just over 100,000 in 2025.

“As of December 2025, over 300,000 asylum claims were pending adjudication and roughly 65 per cent of these pending claims have been in the system for longer than a year,” PBO wrote.

“This represents a five-fold increase since 2021 and is anticipated to increase in the near-term due to an influx of claims made between 2023 and 2025.”

At present, almost half (47 per cent) of the claimants have been in the system between one and two years, but the PBO estimates that the number waiting between two and three years “will notably rise by 2026-27, reflecting elevated past intake and constrained exit rates.”

And considering the backlog, PBO calculates that each additional month in processing time could drive the program costs up by $72 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

To attain asylum refugee status in Canada, applicants must pass through several layers of review and have several avenues to appeal if rejected. For instance, 79 per cent of claimants rejected by the Immigration Refugee Board filed at least one appeal, during which time they are still eligible for IFHP.

So, too, are the “nearly 74,000 failed refugee claimants” among the CBSA’s removals inventory, which consists of 23,429 people whose removals are in process and 27,797 who failed to show up for removal and are being sought by border authorities.

“It is undeniable that as the backlog grows, rejected asylum claimants continue adding pressure to a health care system where Canadians are already facing long wait times for care,” Mazier wrote on X.

It should be noted that CBSA removals have increased, climbing from 5,714 in 2021 to 19,579 last year.

With IFHP beneficiaries required as of May 1 “to contribute a fixed-fee per prescription and a percentage of the cost of supplemental services,” the PBO predicts savings of $217 million annually by 2029-30.

Under the co-pay, asylum seekers and resettled refugees now have to pay $4 for each eligible prescription and 30 per cent of the cost of all other eligible supplemental health products and services.

The PBO also highlighted Bill C-12, which, if enacted, will reduce the number of claimants eligible for IFHP coverage and shorten the duration of benefits and also alter “intake and processing timelines.

“Taken together, these changes may reduce the number of individuals eligible for IFHP coverage, shorten the period during which benefits are provided, and shift when and how claimants access the program.”

In their statement, Mazier and Rempel Garner said the collection of co-pay fees “isn’t likely to happen” and that experts suggest C-12 could be “challenged in court.”

• Canadians now spending $1 billion per year to cover health-care costs of refugee claimants
• 'Massive boondoggle': Conservatives take aim at health coverage for rejected refugee claimants

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