Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally greeted Syrian refugees at the airport
As reported by BBC, it all began with the fall of Saigon. The government of South Vietnam fell under the onslaught of northern forces, and the country was reunified under communist rule: arrests, ethnic cleansing, "re-education" camps, and other repressions began in the captured territory. Many residents of southern Vietnam disliked the new regime and began fleeing the country, mostly by sea.
Thus appeared the "boat people": between 1975 and 1995, about two million people fled Vietnam on overloaded, flimsy boats. Boats sank in the open sea, pirates attacked them, and surviving migrants settled in refugee camps in Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Horrifying scenes of mass exodus were constantly on television screens.
It is worth recalling that this happened in those years when many politicians and voters still vividly remembered World War II, the Holocaust, and the mass refugee flows from Europe. And the world was horrified. Vietnamese emigrants began to be accepted in almost all countries of the world—from America to Argentina, from Iceland to Israel, from China to Canada.
The Canadian government committed to accepting 60,000 Vietnamese refugees. And suddenly faced a problem. The fact is that the existing Canadian refugee reception infrastructure at that time was designed for a maximum of a few thousand people per year—and certainly not tens of thousands. The country was unable to fulfill its own promise. So the government in Ottawa turned to citizens for help.
Thus was created the private sponsorship of refugees program, which still operates today. Any group of five people (including any associations, cultural centers, church parishes, etc.) could raise the amount of money needed to provide immigrants with assistance during their first year in the country and ask the government to find them a suitable refugee or even an entire family.
Canadian authorities select refugees abroad: asylum seekers are thoroughly checked by the immigration service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and other special services. The entire process takes about a year—only after that can migrants enter Canada.
Citizens acting as sponsors can express their preferences: some want to bring relatives or former neighbors, others prefer people from the same ethnic or religious group.
Thus, among the Syrian refugees who have already arrived in Canada, there are many ethnic Armenians—they are sponsored by local Armenian communities (whose ancestors, by the way, mostly came from Lebanon and Syria themselves). LGBT associations sponsor gay refugees from countries such as Iran, where they face the death penalty. Of the 60,000 Vietnamese refugees accepted by Canada 40 years ago, about half were sponsored by private citizens from different parts of the country.
Having seen that the program works, the federal government of Canada kept it in place, and since then, private citizens alone have brought more than 200,000 forced migrants from all possible countries to the country. Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the program has expanded significantly, and now the problem is a shortage of refugees. The process of screening refugees abroad takes time, government agencies and special services work slowly, and now hundreds and hundreds of groups of people eager to help refugees are sitting and waiting until they can finally do so.
That is why voices in Canada are growing louder, calling for accepting migrants from Syria whom Donald Trump has banned from entering the US. The refugee screening process used by America is one of the strictest and takes an average of two years. Canadian voters, churches, synagogues, and mosques point out that thousands of these refugees have already been thoroughly screened and ask the authorities to allow them to sponsor these people.
Such "privatization" has several advantages. First, the country can accept more refugees—while voters feel personally involved in controlling the migration process. Second, refugees integrate into local society faster and easier because they have extensive and close ties from day one. And third, the government saves budget money.
To sponsor reception, a group of citizens must raise enough money to help newcomers for a whole year. On average, this is about 10 thousand dollars per refugee (or 20 thousand for a family of four). Sponsors find housing for newcomers, meet them at the airport, bring them to their new home, find them furniture, utensils, clothes, help them enroll in English or French language courses, help them find work, and so on.
The result is evident: after three years in the country, unemployment among "private" refugees is significantly lower than among those who received similar assistance from the government. In addition, "private" refugees have better language skills and are more integrated into the local community.
This partly reflects a purely local approach to immigrants: both the country's government and the majority of ordinary Canadians treat newcomers not as incomprehensible aliens, but as future citizens and already present neighbors.
Moreover, Canada, like many other Western countries, is experiencing a demographic crisis: the population continues to age, and many sectors of the economy are already beginning to feel a labor shortage. Almost everyone in Canada recognizes the close link between migration and economic growth, and provinces compete with each other, trying to attract as many immigrants as possible, including refugees. The federal government only sets an annual quota on the number of people arriving in the country.
During the 2015 election campaign, all three major political parties also competed over who would promise to accept more refugees. The then-ruling Conservative Party pledged to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over three years. The New Democratic Party intended to accept 10,000 in one year. The Liberal Party, in turn, vowed to accept 25,000 by the end of the year.
Upon coming to power, the Liberal Party fulfilled its promise – just not by January 1, but by mid-February. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally welcomed Syrian refugees at the airport.
Canada's private refugee sponsorship program will soon be 40 years old. Now, as the number of refugees worldwide continues to grow, other countries have taken an interest. The governments of Australia, the United Kingdom, and even Argentina have expressed interest, but have not yet taken any concrete steps.
Many in the United States have also noticed the Canadian program. Congregations of many churches, mosques, and synagogues that wanted to help refugees, realizing that it would be difficult to do so in America, are now raising money and sending it to their fellow believers in Canada – so that they can save human lives by inviting refugees to their country.
And Canada remains an example of how to mobilize civil society to help those in need, how to better integrate refugees themselves, and how to save budget money in the process. And at the same time, it feels a sense of moral superiority.