Ottawa will seek to settle more Syrians in French communities, says McCallum, Overall settlement challenges

2016/01/20 Leave a comment

Challenge has shifted to bring refugees here to settling them:

Immigration Minister John McCallum says the federal government is looking to settle newly arrived Syrian refugees in more French-speaking communities across the country.

McCallum says more than 90 per cent of refugees that have arrived in Canada speak neither English or French.

That creates what he calls a blank slate for refugees and provinces to teach newly arrived Syrians either of Canada’s two official languages.

McCallum says where refugees end up living will depend on which communities have the resources to resettle the 10,000 that have arrived since November — and 15,000 more that are scheduled to arrive by the end of February.

The Liberals promised during the election campaign to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of 2015.

Once in office, they changed that goal, citing the realities of moving all those people in a short period of time, including inclement weather that didn’t always make flights possible.

The last of the first 10,000 Syrians arrived about a week ago; McCallum says the government will “easily” hit its deadline of bringing a further 15,000 refugees into the country by the end of February.

“We can deliver one, two, three, four, even five flights per day so the challenge is no longer to get the refugees here,” McCallum said.

The new issue facing the government is to resettle those Syrians into Canadian communities, he added.

“The challenge today going forward is to receive them well, to help them find a place to live, a job, language training, all of those things and that involves working with provincial governments and municipalities on the settlement side.”

Further indications of the shifting nature of the challenge:

As Ottawa places thousands of Syrian refugees in hotels and shelters while they hunt for permanent housing, private sponsorship groups are clamouring for families to help.

The disconnect, say critics, is a disservice to the government-assisted families cramped inside the not-so-welcoming temporary accommodation and to the eager community volunteers who have raised the money and have everything ready to receive the newcomers for a new life in Canada.

“The sponsorship group I chair has been ready since mid-December, but there had been no offers. My group is one of 18 affiliated with the Rosedale United Church. No one is getting any referrals,” said former Toronto Mayor John Sewell.

“I suspect there are three or four hundred sponsorship groups in Toronto who are ready to take families, if the government will only refer them to these groups.”

On Tuesday, two cities — Vancouver and Ottawa — said they are halting their reception of government-assisted Syrian refugees as settlement agencies there try to work through housing bottlenecks.

Syrian refugees eligible for resettlement to Canada must first be vetted by the United Nations refugee agency before being referred to Canadian officials abroad and assigned to the three different streams: fully supported by the federal government, private sponsors and the blended class with responsibilities shared between the two.

The government gets the first dip into selecting the eligible refugees recommended by its visa posts and the leftovers are then put into a pool of profiles for the selection of the 100 faith and community groups that hold refugee sponsorship agreements with Ottawa.

Local sponsorship groups that were formed after the Liberal government launched the massive Syrian resettlement plan in November, must partner with the sponsorship agreement holders.

According to Brian Dyck, chair of the Sponsorship Agreement Holders’ Association, some 300 Syrian refugee profiles have been posted since the beginning of January and they were quickly snapped up by his members.

“The matching system was designed for small-scale sponsorship interest. To adapt it to the current public interest is a big challenge,” Dyck explained.

Refugees wait in hotels while sponsorship groups clamour for families to help

Filed under Refugees Tagged with ,

What the 10,000th Syrian refugee can expect from life in Canada

2016/01/14 Leave a comment

Good account of the welcoming process:

By the time 10,000 Syrian refugees have arrived in the country, Canadians will have fine-tuned their welcome act into a national ritual.

Tuesday was expected to be the day that the 10,000th Syrian refugee arrives in Canada. Two planes carrying 465 refugees were scheduled to arrive at Toronto Pearson International Airport sometime Tuesday, although it’s not known when they will land. Pearson reported some flight cancellations and delays due to snowy weather conditions earlier in the day.

A plane carrying 155 was also bound for Montreal.

When they land, hundreds of volunteers and aid workers will have already arranged shelter, food and clothing for their first night in Canada. Most refugees who land in Toronto will stay at a hotel such as the Toronto Plaza Hotel in North York, where they will find a hot meal and even winter coats.

From there, many will be picked up by volunteer private sponsors who have helped set them up with an apartment and guarantee their financial security for at least one year.

About half of the refugees who have arrived so far have been privately sponsored by groups such as the Armenian Community Centre of Toronto. Since Dec. 10, when the first plane arrived, the centre has accepted more than 700 refugees, says one of the refugee sponsorship organizers, Apkar Mirakian.

It was during that first arrival, Mirakian said, that the refugees started what became a kind of welcome tradition. Instead of bee-lining for the community centre, where they would meet their sponsor family, they headed straight to the adjacent church.

“They wanted to go to the church, because they had to thank God and Canada. God because he gave them an opportunity for living now, and Canada because it gave them an opportunity to live in Canada,” Mirakian said.

Source: What the 10,000th Syrian refugee can expect from life in Canada | Toronto Star

Filed under Refugees Tagged with ,

Why some Syrian #refugees decline Canada’s resettlement offer

2016/01/05 Leave a comment

Not totally surprising that some prefer the known versus the unknown, and this applies more to less well-educated. The upshot is that the self-selection process will likely favour those better able to integrate:

“We are afraid of the unknown,” said Mr. al-Khlef. If the family went to Canada, he reasoned, they’d lose their UN food aid and cash assistance worth about $290 each month. The poverty and isolation he knew was preferable to the unknown elsewhere.

Other families from comparable socio-economic backgrounds said they had similar reasons for saying no. Omar Shahadeh, an illiterate construction worker living in Jerash, said it was “better to be among Arabs like us” than to wade into a new and uncertain culture. He said his decision was reinforced by the opinions of friends who doubted Canada’s commitment to the resettled refugees.

“People said the government of Canada would only care for us for one month, and then they would leave us. Lots of people are refusing for this reason,” said Mr. Shahadeh.

Despite having four children who have scant chance of attending university and beginning careers in Jordan, Mr. Shahadeh, like Mr. al-Khlef, admitted he was afraid of change.

The fathers have become part of a broader trend, where more informed families are taking up offers to resettle in Canada, and those with less access to information are saying no.

For many who do go, the fear of the unknown is overridden by a desire to give their children the chance of a better life, said UNHCR’s Ms. McDonnell.

“Many of those who are accepting this chance at a new life tell our team they are doing it for their children, to ensure they have a promising future.”

Source: Why some Syrian refugees decline Canada’s resettlement offer – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Refugees Tagged with

#WelcomeRefugees: Milestones and key figures

2016/01/04 Leave a comment

_WelcomeRefugees__Key_figures_1To the government’s credit, it is providing regular updates on the number of Syrian refugees, even if these show that the degree to which it has failed to meet its revised commitments.

_WelcomeRefugees__Key_figures_2Contrast this with the previous government’s repeated refusal to provide specific numbers until forced to.

On the less positive side, the regular CIC operational statistics for citizenship and immigration have not been updated since March 2015.

These should be released as automatically, and without political interference, as regular Statistics Canada data releases.

Source: #WelcomeRefugees: Milestones and key figures

Filed under Refugees Tagged with , ,

ICYMI: How does Canada compare when it comes to resettling refugees? Ibbitson

2016/01/04 Leave a comment

Good survey article, and noting correctly the advantages of relative geographic isolation:

So Canada’s contribution stacks up well in comparison to some of our closest allies. But our effort pales in comparison with that of Germany, which has taken an estimated one million Middle Eastern refugees this year. “We can do this,” Chancellor Angela Merkel repeats over and over, and she appears to be right.

Sweden has also been exceptionally generous. The nation of 9.6 million people took in 150,000 Syrian refugees in the past year, although authorities have started to crack down in the wake of increasing public resistance.

The absence of any similar backlash here to high intakes of refugees and immigrants – not only during this crisis, but year after year – is Canada’s special blessing. Part of the reason is that most of us are either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. Our settler culture welcomes settlers.

But the real secret to Canada’s generosity may be its oceans. It is very difficult for a refugee to reach Canada uninvited, making it easier to screen applicants for criminal, security or health risks, and to choose refugees who have a good chance of integrating successfully into Canadian society.

European nations pushing back against the daily tide of desperate humanity flooding north out of the Middle East have no such luxury. Authorities must either admit people about whom they know little or seal their borders.

Mr. McCallum is right. History will not record what targets were missed by how many weeks. It will, instead, note Canada’s impressive humanitarian achievement in rescuing Middle Eastern refugees, even as it looks upon what Germany accomplished with awe.

Source: How does Canada compare when it comes to resettling refugees? – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Refugees Tagged with , ,

True test of Canadian citizenship is in how we welcome Syria’s refugees: Charles Foran

2015/12/21 Leave a comment

Charlie Foran of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship on the test for all Canadians:

In most regards, Syrians are like every other refugee group. We’ve been reminding ourselves lately of how well we managed with the Vietnamese in the late 1970s, and the Hungarians in the late 1950s. There is a certain degree of false comfort in this. Surrounding these good-news stories, of course, have been numerous other arrivals, many of whose rights we violated. Japanese internment camps shouldn’t be forgotten. Nor the turning away of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, or Sikhs aboard the Komagata Maru in Vancouver harbour.

To explain Canada’s often begrudging acceptance of immigrants, some of us insist on arcing all the way back to a foundational narrative to make the point. In the spring and summer of 1847, the sleepy colonial outpost of Toronto had its population involuntarily tripled by boatloads of Irish escaping the great famine. “A calamity upon the Province,” is how one emigration agent described the hasty influx of 40,000 impoverished Celts.

Locals, then largely of British extraction, felt much put upon, and didn’t like the Irish showing up in such large numbers, and in such a woeful state. They treated the newcomers badly. But things turned out okay for sleepy Toronto, now the astounding GTA, and the province, and, for that matter, Irish-Canadians. They’ve turned out okay for most everyone else, as well.

With the Syrians, however, there are, unfortunately, uneasy circumstances. None emanates from the refugees themselves, it must be stressed – all are projections upon them. Some people try to draw dark links between a global religion and a virulent extremist movement. Suspicions of guilt are being raised, based on ethnicity and geography alone. Most of the accusers are scared and ignorant, but some are craven and cynical, intent on havoc.

Little in reality confirms these anxieties – terrorists don’t huddle in camps for years and then apply to immigrate; terrorists are usually homegrown – but they exist. In Europe, especially, the sane political centre may be at temporary risk. In the United States, there is Donald Trump, among other worries.

“Alienness,” the author Pico Iyer writes, “inheres not in a place or object, but in our relation to it. Our fears – of course – are as irrational as our dreams.” In the 21st-century Canada I’ve been outlining, it isn’t easy to hold on to those irrational fears of the proverbial alien or “other.” There is just too rapid and ongoing a dissolve of us-and-them divisions for such narrow, dismal thinking to survive scrutiny.

Even so, we’ve already had the election niqab controversy and the Peterborough mosque attack, and it is naïve to assume 2016 will pass without further attacks and signs of strain. Whatever they are, we’ll need to remain calm and assured, and stand our values’ ground. Those values can be, must be, expressed through gestures of welcome, large and small.

For example, I work at the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), a not-for-profit based in downtown Toronto. One of our programs is the Cultural Access Pass (CAP). It provides new citizens a year of free admission to more than 1,200 cultural attractions, parks and historic sites across the country, and is a modest way of issuing a welcome, and encouraging a sense of belonging. For 2016 we’re going to extend a version of the pass to the Syrians, to say the same, and in case others might be sending them different messages.

Passing our collective citizenship test in 2016 will involve making many such gestures, along with a real thoughtfulness and self-awareness about the “defining moment” the Governor-General has described.

It isn’t just about the year ahead, either. It is about the years, decades, to come.

It is also about 2017, and the 150th anniversary of Confederation. Celebrate the sesquicentennial, we all surely will. But the anniversary should also serve as the next platform to engage in honest exchanges about the kind of country we once were and the kind of country we’re in the process – always the process – of becoming.

Accepting, embracing, the present and future Canada may compel a still greater appetite for the necessary self-examination around issues concerning our complex history with immigrants and First Nations, Métis and Inuit. We sure do need to make a few things right.

If we can keep working on this while celebrating, in 2017, then the next Syrians – whoever they prove to be – will be likewise welcomed, and the next group again after that. The statistical destination of 2030 may soon cease to have any real meaning: By then, we’ll probably already be that bold post-nation-state Canada, with its plurality of minorities and advanced citizenship.

Source: True test of Canadian citizenship is in how we welcome Syria’s refugees – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Refugees Tagged with , ,

Refugees and the long political journey: Martin Patriquin

2015/12/15 Leave a comment

A reminder, as if needed, just how much can change with new political direction, and the ideology and values of the previous government’s restrictive approach. Must read:

Given all this, I asked Vassallo, a 27-year CIC veteran, why the Canadian government took so long to get comparatively few suffering souls to this country. “I can’t answer that, it’s a political question,” he said, with a hint of a smile.

Unfortunately, Vassallo is right, and his non-answer is a reminder of what happens when a life-or-death issue of refugees gets fed into the cauldron of partisan politics, then further distilled by an at times ugly election campaign. In a sense, the machinations by which potential refugees are sorted and selected should be as apolitical as, say, getting one’s license renewed. Yet as the previous Conservative government demonstrated, there was a distinct attempt to shape and direct the work of its civil servants here and overseas when it came to the victims of the crisis in Syria.

Last January, Stephen Harper’s government announced plans to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees over three years. Yet several months later, only about 10 per cent of this number had been admitted—in part, it seems, because of a directive from Harper’s office itself that attempted to halt the screening process. At the time, it was presented as a security measure “to ensure the integrity of our refugee referral system,” as Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander put it at the time.

Numerous sources, including one with first-hand knowledge of the processing of refugees, said the directive was less about security than about ensuring that Christian minorities took precedence over Muslims. “You got the feeling they were trying to cherry pick religious minorities,” one source said. (Syria, which is majority Sunni Muslim, has a sizeable Christian minority.)

It took the picture of Alan Kurdi, whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach, for the government to slacken the reigns somewhat. Because Kurdi’s family was trying to reach Canada, the political intonations on the Harper election campaign were profound. On Sept 10, eight days after the picture made headlines worldwide, the government waived the stipulation that “resettlement candidates” must provide information regarding why they fled their country of origin.

“Going forward, unless there is evidence to the contrary, visa officers will be able to presume those fleeing the conflict meet the definition of a refugee, which will make processing faster,” reads a CIC briefing document.

There is a certain irony in this. The  government to first make a significant security-related change to the processing of refugees—arguably making it easier for Syrians and Iraqis to make it to these shores—was that of the ostensibly security-first, tough-on-terror Stephen Harper. And he did so as a political calculation, out of fear of losing an election.

Meanwhile, the “security concerns” that supposedly prevented the Harper government from increasing the numbers of refugees brought to Canada were seemingly a partisan mirage. “There have been no shortcuts to the process. They’ve accelerated it in the sense that they’ve sent over additional personnel,” Tim Bowen, chief of operations for Canadian Border Services Agency, told me. According to CIC staff, this includes the addition of some 500 officials deployed overseas to help with the effort, including between 50 and 70 visa officers.

Thankfully, there is a happy ending. First and foremost, refugees are finally arriving. Secondly, the Conservatives are critiquing the effort exactly as they should: on purely financial grounds. The refugee resettlement program will cost $671 million. It is a huge amount of money, and Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel promised to hold the government to account. “It is one thing to inspire Canadians, it’s another thing to be accountable to them,” she said.

That Rempel said as much without a fear-mongering whisper about “security concerns” shows how far the party has come in two months.

Source: Refugees and the long political journey – Macleans.ca

Filed under Refugees Tagged with , , , , ,

Canada’s refugee program draws praise around the world

2015/12/15 Leave a comment

Not surprising that the contrast in language and action noted.

Reinforces the branding strategy of “Canada’s back”:

Only a small fraction of Canada’s expected Syrian refugees arrived last week, but the fanfare around their welcome prompted a slew of headlines – and policy comparisons – around the world.

To New York Times editors, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “spoke unmistakably to a broader audience” when he personally greeted refugees stepping off Canada’s first government-organized flight, which landed in Toronto late Thursday night.

“Canada’s generosity – and Mr. Trudeau’s personal warmth and leadership – can serve as a beacon for others,” said a Saturday editorial in the newspaper.

“In the meantime, it puts to shame the callous and irresponsible behaviour of the American governors and presidential candidates who have argued that the United States, for the sake of its security, must shut its doors to all Syrian refugees.”

The Thursday plane load to Pearson International Airport, along with a second flight that arrived in Montreal on Saturday, brought just 324 of the 25,000 refugees the Trudeau government has promised to help resettle, including 10,000 by the new year.

But video of their arrival drew hundreds of thousands of views in Canada and elsewhere. The flights coincided with controversy in the United States after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump announced a proposal to ban entry of all Muslims to the country.

With many state governors opposing refugee resettlement, several American news organizations noted the widespread support among Canadian leaders for the federal plan.

The Los Angeles Times spoke to Perrin Beatty, the chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a former Tory defence minister, who is working with Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff to support the government’s effort.

Mr. Beatty was quoted as saying that Mr. Trump’s “rancid” comments would “drive Canadians in the other direction,” increasing their support for the refugees.

Britain’s Daily Mail wrote that all of Canada’s premiers support the refugee plan, and that members of the opposition, including Conservatives, attended the airport welcome, along with the ministers of Immigration, Health and Defence.

The British government has said it plans to resettle as many as 20,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2020, and the U.S. government plans to take in at least 10,000 next year.

More coverage followed at Newsweek, the BBC, NBC, Paris Match, CNN, and the Guardian and Independent newspapers in Britain. The American magazine GQ called Mr. Trudeau a “sparklepile of progressive sunshine” at a time when U.S. politics is “a clown show of ventriloquized garbage bags.”

However, The Washington Post noted that recent polls show a similar level of public support in Canada and the United States for welcoming refugees, despite a drastically different tone of public debate south of the border.

A Forum Research poll conducted this month found that 48 per cent of Canadians approve of Mr. Trudeau’s refugee plan and 44 per cent are opposed. The Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute found late last week that 53 per cent of Americans support refugee resettlement, while 41 per cent are opposed, the Post wrote.

News organizations in other countries that have opened their borders to a flood of refugees, particularly in the Middle East, also published articles exploring the significance of Canada’s fledgling program.

“Canada’s programs are an expression of support to Syrian refugees, but importantly for us they are a demonstration, too, of solidarity to countries in the region hosting more than four million Syrian refugees,” Adrian Edwards, a United Nations spokesman, said in a Reuters article published in the Arab News, an English outlet in Saudi Arabia.

Source: Canada’s refugee program draws praise around the world – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Refugees Tagged with ,

First large group of Syrian refugees on government plane arrive in Canada: Diversity and Inclusion language

2015/12/12 Leave a comment

Consistent welcoming and inclusive language:

The first large group of Syrian refugees coming to Canada by government aircraft arrived in Toronto late Thursday night, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on hand to welcome them at a temporary processing centre at Pearson International Airport.

Trudeau was joined by the ministers of immigration, health and defence, as well as Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, local mayors and opposition immigration critics.

“They step off the plane as refugees, but they walk out of this terminal as permanent residents of Canada with social insurance numbers, with health cards and with an opportunity to become full Canadians,” Trudeau said.

“This is something that we are able to do in this country because we define a Canadian not by a skin colour or a language or a religion or a background, but by a shared set of values, aspirations, hopes and dreams that not just Canadians but people around the world share.”

All of the Syrians on board are sponsored by private groups, many of whom had filed the necessary paperwork months ago in order to bring in some of the estimated 4.3 million Syrians displaced by the ongoing civil war in that country.

More than 400 refugees have already arrived on commercial flights since the Liberals took office on Nov. 4.

Just before the aircraft arrived, the prime minister thanked the staff and volunteers helping to process and welcome the 163 refugees.

“How you will receive these people tonight will be something they will remember for the rest of their lives, but also I know something that you will remember for the rest of your lives,” Trudeau said.

“So I thank you deeply for being a part of this because this matters. Tonight matters, not just for Canada but for the world.”

Source: First large group of Syrian refugees on government plane arrive in Canada – Macleans.ca

Filed under Refugees Tagged with ,

ICYMI: Ex-immigration minister Atkey urges Canada to double intake of Syrian refugees

2015/12/04 Leave a comment

A historical reminder and it appears the Government is listening:

As Canada braces for the arrival of 25,000 Syrian refugees, the man who served as immigration minister during the Vietnamese boat people crisis says Ottawa should be doing much more.

Ron Atkey believes the 25,000 Syrians Ottawa is promising to re-settle initially is a “noble objective” but he wants Canada to up the ante.

“If Canada can do another 25,000 — that would make a significant contribution in line with Canada’s contribution with the Vietnamese boat people in 1979 to 1980. It will demonstrate to the Americans that they have to do more. We’ll shame them into it, similarly the Australians,” says Atkey, who was immigration minister in the Joe Clark government in 1979 when 50,000 Vietnamese refugees were granted asylum in Canada. By the end of 1980, that number had risen to 60,000.

Canada admitted 60,000 Vietnamese refugees in 1979 and 1980.

Canada admitted 60,000 Vietnamese refugees in 1979 and 1980.

“For us to take a dramatic position on the world stage is important. We won a medal from the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. We gained a lot of prestige as a humanitarian country. I think that’s consistent with Canadian tradition.”

Atkey, who is also a lawyer, professor and national security expert, is chair of Humanity Wins, a group of prominent Canadians who came together earlier this year to advocate for re-settlement of Syrian refugees to Canada.

Source: Ex-immigration minister urges Canada to double intake of Syrian refugees | Toronto Star

Filed under Refugees Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →