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It’s hard to imagine a motion more ill-considered than the one passed Monday by city council to make Montreal a sanctuary city. Welcoming illegal immigrants to take advantage of municipal and, the city hopes, provincial services will create added pressures on existing resources, and result in increased taxes or deteriorating quality of life for all Montrealers. No doubt Mayor Denis Coderre and his supporters’ hearts are in the right place, but Montrealers need to know that welcoming large numbers of illegal immigrants will cost. A lot.

One need only look at the United States, which has struggled for decades now with uncontrolled immigration over its southern border, a border far more secure than Canada’s own. While it is fashionable for Canadians of all stripes to sneer at what they perceive to be American xenophobia and racism, most Canadians have no idea of the financial and social costs that large-scale illegal immigration brings.