THE CONVERSATION
This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit source of news, analysis, and observation from education experts. Disclosure data is located on the source site.
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Authors: Geoffrey Cameron, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, McMaster University and Shauna Labman, Associate Professor of Human Rights, Global College, University of Winnipeg
Every November, Canada’s Minister of Immigration submits an annual report to Parliament with immigration goals for the next 3 years. This year, those immigration goals made headlines for their purpose of admitting 500,000 permanent immigrants through 2025.
While most of the news has focused on the significant increase in the number of economic migrants, refugee targets are breaking records.
If Canada sticks to its plan, it will resettle more refugees in 2023 than in any year since before 1979. Next year, the aim is to resettle more than 50,000 refugees.
That’s more than the number of refugees Canada admitted in 2016, when the Liberals introduced an ambitious and prominent program for Syrian refugees.
That’s more than Canada accepted in 1991 after the end of the Cold War.
And he came to Canada in 1979 or 1980 in the midst of the Indochina refugee crisis, prompting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to award Canadians the Nansen Award for Outstanding Service to the Cause of Refugees.
Canada dominates the world
Despite restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has been the world leader in refugee resettlement for the past three years. However, the goals set by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser will require significant development in the state’s capacity.
In 2021, approximately 20,000 refugees were resettled in Canada, which the 2023 targets will constitute a 150% increase.
But it is less difficult to establish a political purpose than to put it into practice. Slow processing times have already prevented the government from crafting its resettlement targets. And achieving those ambitious goals will require corresponding investments in other people and more effective processes.
Canada’s refugee goals also demonstrate the importance of the sponsorship program for the implementation of the Government’s objectives.
Registered privately sponsored organizations (known as sponsorship deal holders) and occasional teams to sponsor express refugees if they pay a portion of the costs of the first-year deal, which can amount to tens of thousands of dollars per family.
During the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, personal sponsorship accounted for less than a portion of the government’s annual commitment to resettlement. By 2025, this will be almost double the number of government-assisted refugees.
Lessons for nations
In our ebook Strangers to Neighbours: Refugee Sponsorship in Context, we look at Canada’s refugee sponsorship program and the classes it has for other countries.
Many refugee advocates point to the precept of so-called “additionality” as a vital component of the program: they argue that personal sponsorship complements, not replaces, government commitments to refugees.
While the number of government-assisted refugees will traditionally remain higher over the next 3 years, this commitment is expected to be minimized by more than 30% between 2023 and 2025. Meanwhile, personal sponsorship will continue to increase.
Advocates will be vigilant that the government’s humanitarian tasks abroad are not unduly transferred to the citizens themselves.
Another key detail of Canada’s personal sponsorship program is known as “denomination,” which allows sponsors to identify refugees they would like to resettle in Canada. The merit of this provision is that it allows family members and networking teams in Canada to sponsor refugees who arrive with a prepared social network.
In fact, personal sponsorship functions as a de facto circle of the family reunification program, even if it imposes particularly higher monetary costs on sponsors than the established circle of family migration pathways.
Priority given to certain refugees
The Canadian government has sought to diminish the role of designation in its refugee systems in favor of allowing its visa offices to refer those most in need of coverage to sponsorship groups.
The Blended Visa Office-Referred (BVOR) programme was introduced in 2013 as a form for refugee sponsors that the government had decided through UNHCR recommendations.
Sponsors’ monetary obligations have been reduced particularly for teams wishing to give up the name. However, BVOR has had very limited appeal to sponsors, apart from the public mobilization of Syrian refugees, and has declined every year since 2016.
Fewer than 150 refugees arrived in Canada under the BVOR program in 2020 and 2021, combined, and targets for long-term arrivals (250 per year) are now a quarter of what was announced earlier this year.
The decline of the BVOR program is significant because Canada’s very public foreign effort to export its personal sponsorship program has focused on elements of the BVOR model, which does not give sponsoring teams the strength to “name” refugees.
Other governments are reluctant to delegate their authority over the variety of refugees to teams of citizens; prefer to work exclusively with UNHCR for case referrals.
While other countries besides the United Kingdom and the United States have been receptive to Canada’s resettlement policies, they will likely put in place a style that has limited long-term public appeal. The call for personal sponsorship in Canada, mainly because it allows Canadians to be explicit about their humanitarian efforts.
If the government sticks to its new refugee resettlement plans, the next three years may have a significant effect on refugees and refugee policy beyond Canada’s borders.
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The authors paint for, consult, own stocks, or obtain investments from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed any applicable affiliations beyond their educational designation.
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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Disclosure data is located on the source site. Read the original article: https://theconversation. com/how-canada-plans-to-break-records-with -i https://theconversation. com/h
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