Some policies cut through logjams. Canada, a nation known for its lumberjacks and log drivers, might have found one that would break New Zealand’s refugee policy logjam.
During last year’s Syrian refugee crisis – a crisis that has not yet ended – community groups, churches and Kiwis who care rallied to help. They raised funds to send abroad and prepared homes for the refugees who would come to New Zealand. But those groups had to spend time and effort lobbying the government to increase the quota. Even those prepared to provide a refugee with a home, and to support that refugee through the difficult first transition year, could do nothing to change the number of refugees that New Zealand would accept.
So refugee activists demanded the government increase the quota and were told doing so was too expensive. There seemed no good way of resolving things.
Looking up from the land of the Long White Cloud to the Great White North shows a different way of doing things. Whenever community groups raised the funds necessary to sponsor a refugee, Canada opened the door to let another one in.
From November last year through the end of March this year, Canada accepted not only 15,000 refugees on the government’s quota but also more than 10,000 more who were backed by private sponsors.
When people are willing to put their money where their hearts are, the government should not stand in the way. And so the Initiative invited the Canadian High Commission’s immigration counsellor, Dean Barrie, to tell us how the Canadian system works.
Canada’s refugee sponsorship regime began in the late 1970s when hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fled that country by boat. Canada’s strong Vietnamese community wanted to help but the government was not able to quickly scale up to provide the necessary assistance.
So the Canadians displayed a bit of pragmatism. Whenever the community demonstrated it was able to support another refugee, Canada would accept another refugee. Community groups quickly got together to provide housing and support, and Canada opened the doors. More than half of the 60,000 Vietnamese boat people given refuge in Canada were supported by private sponsors.
The programme proved successful. Over the 38 years of the sponsorship regime, Canada has accepted more than 250,000 sponsored refugees. Adjusting for population differences, that would be comparable to New Zealand accepting more than 1400 sponsored refugees a year, in addition to refugees supported through the quota.
New Zealand accepts 750 refugees a year with an additional 600 through the emergency Syrian quota. Canadian private sponsors support more refugees a year, on average, than New Zealand accepts in total during a crisis. In short, the sponsorship regime lets the Canadian government accommodate more refugees at lower cost by letting caring people help.
How the system works
The government vets sponsors to make sure that they are able to support a refugee through the refugee’s first year, not only with income but also with the emotional support that is crucial for successful integration into a new country. Many Canadian refugee sponsors come from migrant backgrounds and have links back to communities where they know there is need. Those sponsors can name a refugee that they want to help.
The government undertakes extensive security background checks to make sure the named person meets the refugee criteria and to make sure Canada does not accidentally accept terrorists. The government also provides health screening to make sure treatment for any communicable diseases starts before the refugee gets on the plane to Canada. Other sponsors who want to help but who do not have any particular person in mind can offer to support refugees through the blended visa programme. The Canadian government then simply matches people on the UN High Commission for Refugees’ list of those in need with the sponsors who can help.
In both cases, the Canadian government remains on the hook for healthcare and education costs for accepted refugees. Education costs for children are investments in future taxpayers. And Canada has found that privately sponsored refugees have better employment outcomes and lower reliance on social assistance than refugees accepted through the government’s quota. Sponsors link refugees to job markets and help them make the connections that lead to employment success.
New Zealand could learn from Canada’s example. A sponsorship channel lets those who want to help do so at lower cost to the government. Sponsorship would allow New Zealand to adjust the number of refugees it admits whenever people are willing to make the financial and emotional commitment necessary for successful integration.
In Canada, well-established organisations that help refugees become sponsorship agreement holders, making it easy for them to route applications through the system. New Zealand could accompany that kind of system with monitoring of sponsored refugees’ outcomes.
Lighter touch
Successful organisations could then have a lighter touch approach. Those sponsors whose refugees had worse employment and integration outcomes would find it harder to sponsor more refugees.
Canadian-sponsored refugees are not without cost to the government. Some will take longer than a year to find employment, and so could find themselves on income support. But by relying on sponsors with skin in the game to help vet refugees and to support them both financially and emotionally during their first transition year, Canada is able to accommodate more refugees at lower costs to the government – and with better outcomes for refugees as well.
This Great White North solution could work well in the land of the Long White Cloud. Add some Kiwi ingenuity, and next time we could have the New Zealand High Commission telling the Canadians how we improved on their model.