Private refugee sponsorships stand as the best option

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s fairytale story of Syrian refugees is once again clashing with reality.

His government first had to admit that its election campaign promise to admit 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2015 was wildly unachievable. It turns out that resettling tens of thousands of refugees from the other side of the world takes more than just a few weeks.

Of course, this was plain to see all along, especially considering Syrian refugees who are plucked from a war zone and a hotbed for radical Islamic terrorism. It made no sense to slap an artificial timeline and rush this process.

But rather than changing course altogether, the Trudeau government simply doubled down and gave itself a two-month extension. Their new promise is to accept 25,000 refugees by February 29, 2016, and another 25,000 by December 31, 2016.

And so the problems continue.

This week, resettlement service providers in major cities across the country asked the government for a pause in accepting new refugees.

This is the polite way of saying the Trudeau plan is still not working.

The groups who work directly with newly arriving refuges – the people tasked with ensuring these refugees are housed, fed, and enrolled in language and integration courses – are completely overwhelmed. They are throwing up their hands and asking the government to slow down.

Therefore, while Trudeau was in Davos this week, delivering a braggadocio speech about Canada’s generosity vis-à-vis refugees, the professionals on the ground were left scrambling.

These service providers are at the mercy of the federal government and have been given an impossible task. Not only do they have to navigate the bureaucracy to receive funding that is limited and conditional, they have also been asked to expedite the process and triple their capacity.

No wonder they want a delay in accepting refugees.

Meanwhile, there is a parallel private sponsorship refugee program that is under-utilized and offering to do more.

In Canada, charities, churches, and families can raise funds and directly sponsor refugees. Instead of relying on the depleted resources of the government, these refugees rely on their hosts to teach them English, help them find a place to live, and get started in Canada. This direct social interaction has a very positive affect on privately sponsored refugees.

Statistics from the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada show that privately sponsored refugees perform much better economically than their government-sponsored counterparts. During their first year in Canada, private-sponsored refugees reported lower unemployment levels than the Canadian average. And after five years in Canada, only about 15% of private-sponsored refugees relied on social assistance, compared to 30% of government-sponsored refugees.

And yet, for political reasons, the Trudeau government refuses to utilize the private refugee program to its full capacity. The bulk of Syrian refugees will be admitted through the government-sponsored program. Less than one-third will be privately sponsored.

Canadians want to help, but the federal government is standing in their way.

Trudeau needs to break free from his government-knows-best mindset and look at the evidence in front of him. His government has done enough damage already. It is time for them to let everyday Canadians fix this mess through increased private refugee sponsorship.