It is hard to put a number on some things – like how many refugees the government should admit.

If you asked how many software engineers the government should let into the country per year, I would have a hard time coming up with an answer. There is no ‘right’ number without context: how many people want to come here, how many firms want to hire software engineers, and how many would start up their own firms, for example. The government guesses at all these things when setting skilled migrant categories, but nobody really knows.

A lot of economic numbers, like the correct price for oranges or the right number of accountants, are not really known in the way that the atomic weight of carbon is known. Instead, the figures emerge as people interact with each other through markets, revealing how different people value different things.

So is there a right number of refugees? It will depend, among other things, on how much help New Zealanders can provide. The current system couples financial support from the government with strong community support for those refugees the government does accept, with the Red Cross and others doing fantastic work in helping refugees learn their way around their new homes.

But how much people are willing to help can depend on whether they think that their help really matters. When there is need, and a crowd of people already around who could help, the bystander effect can kick in: somebody else will help. But suppose your pledge to help were what opened the door to let somebody come to New Zealand and enjoy a far better life?

The Canadian government lets civil society help decide how many refugees Canada accepts. Whenever sponsors pledge to support another refugee through that refugee’s first year in the country, Canada admits one more refugee. Private sponsors have helped bring almost 9,000 Syrian refugees to Canada since last November.

This Canadian initiative has merit. And so, on April 5th, The New Zealand Initiative is proud to host Dean Barry, Immigration Counsellor with the Canadian High Commission in Canberra. He will explain how the Canadian system works.

You should join us. I do not know what the right number of refugees is. But when civil society groups are prepared to help more refugees than the government will admit, the country can do better.