Quebec seeking Ottawa's help in paying for costs of asylum seekers

Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Frechette is keeping up the pressure on Ottawa to help with the costs of asylum seekers in the province.

"That is crucial, really, because we do not have the luxury of saying yes or no," said Frechette.

Quebec asked for $1 billion to meet education, housing and health-care needs, which a working group between the two levels of government will look into, but Frechette is accusing the federal government of passing the buck.

"When I look at the position the federal [government] is taking, it's as if there was a possibility for them to pay or not to pay, depending on their mood - that's not the way it goes," she said. "They do have to assume the consequences of their policies, and their policies generate a lot of expenses for Quebec."

Premier Francois Legault also wants to speed up processing from a year and a half to six months.

"I cannot imagine why it takes 18 months to know if it's a real aslyum seeker or not," he said on Friday.

Immigration is a shared jurisdiction, but there is a lot of tension over how to handle it.

In a letter to Frechette earlier this month, Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Ottawa would bypass Quebec's immigration cap to speed up family reunification.

"I've given instructions to process the requests for permanent residency and family reunification, which totals around 20,500 cases," he said.

"Imagine you're married, you have kids, and your spouse is being kept from you, for a number of years for absolutely no reason other than quotas that are imposed by the government in Quebec," said immigration lawyer Patrice Brunet.

Brunet believes these kinds of cases should not be subject to quotas.

Legault said Quebec will now have to look at other options on how to get more powers, and Parti Quebecois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon suggested a referendum on immigration.

Legault and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are set to meet again by June 30.