Canada's refugee effort hailed as model for world by head of UN agency

[Tennis]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/un-r...nsor-1.3501400

Canada's use of both government and private sponsors to help Syrian refugees resettle is a model that should be exported around the world, the head of the United Nations refugee agency said Monday.

Canada was the first of what's still only a handful of states which allow private groups to take on the costs and obligations associated with refugee resettlement and it's an approach that ought to be tried elsewhere as the flow of displaced people from the Syrian civil war and other conflicts continues, Filippo Grandi said.

"It adds more places for resettlement, but it also contributes to create this sense in civil society that it is a positive thing to do," Grandi said of the private sponsorship program in an interview with The Canadian Press.

He spoke ahead of a day of meetings with senior government officials, including Immigration Minister John McCallum, who will be a keynote speaker at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' summit on the Syrian crisis in Geneva next week.

Grandi is asking states to take in about 10 per cent of the estimated 4.2 million people who've become refugees from the Syrian civil war.

The Liberal government had committed to taking in 25,000 government-assisted refugees by the end of this year and have about 8,000 more to go towards that goal. But they have not set a firm number for how many Syrians they will admit through the private system. The total refugee settlement target for this year — from all countries — is 44,800.

Exporting policy

McCallum had previously said Canada could absorb between 35,000 and 50,000 Syrians, but wouldn't say Monday whether those numbers will resurface in his speech next week.

"You won't hear a number from me today," he said. "As our behaviour suggests, we are committed to the idea of refugees."

McCallum said he agrees the private sponsor program is worth looking at for other countries, noting it would help take some of the pressure off European states teeming with asylum-seekers. Canada is already working with Brazil to set up a program there.

Under the Liberal program to resettle 25,000 Syrians by the end of last month, about 8,976 were privately sponsored and a further 2,225 were sponsored by a program that blends private and government support.

Leadership

The private sponsorship program largely began with the intake of refugees from Vietnam in 1979. In order to admit more people, the government committed to matching numbers sponsored by private groups, mostly churches. By the end of 1980, Canada had accepted 60,000 refugees.

Studies suggest long-term outcomes for privately sponsored refugees are often better than government-assisted ones, in part because of the strong community support. But there are also demographic differences. Early analysis of Syrians who have arrived in Canada show, for example, that 70 per cent of government-assisted refugees don't speak English or French, compared to only 37 per cent of the privately sponsored.

Grandi said Canada has a leadership role to play in encouraging other countries to increase their resettlement efforts, as it was mostly leadership that set the tone in Canada for such a swift response to the Syrian crisis last fall.

Leadership created not fear, but solidarity, he said.

"This is what I am saying to European leaders," he said.

News like this really makes us Canadians proud!

The next step is getting more and more countries to buy in to the politics of hope and inclusiveness!

[Independent voter]

Canada is truly a great country.

[xChurch]

I'm Canadian and this doesn't really make me proud, just sayin'.

[bladeXcrasher]

Help the Syrian's, screw your native poor. Exceptional, I hope The USA can adopts this.

[Tennis]

Help the Syrian's, screw your native poor. Exceptional, I hope The USA can adopts this.

Because we can't do both right? Proof that both can't be accomplished please?

[bladeXcrasher]

Because we can't do both right? Proof that both can't be accomplished please?

Prove that Canada IS doing that please.

[Tennis]

Prove that Canada IS doing that please.

The Federal budget that was delivered yesterday.
Next question!

[Rukh]

Prove that Canada IS doing that please.

It was kind of your assertion that it has to be either/or.

[xChurch]

The Federal budget that was delivered yesterday.
Next question!

Poor example, have any better ones?

[bladeXcrasher]

Indigenous Children in Canada[edit]
According to a left-wing think tank, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, "Based on data from the 2006 census, this study found that the average child poverty rate for all children in Canada is 17%, while the average child poverty rate for all Indigenous children is more than twice that figure, at 40%." "50% — of status First Nations children live below the poverty line. This number grows to 62% in Manitoba and 64% in Saskatchewan."[45] The study referred to used the Low Income Measure as their definition for poverty, which always shows a high rate. Nonetheless, the much higher LIM statistics for indigenous families indicates a much higher level of poverty among that demographic.

I hope that canada has improved their situation since 2006.

Guess not

http://www.cwp-csp.ca/poverty/just-the-facts/

Basic statistics about the realities of poverty faced by Canadians
1 in 7 (or 4.9 million) people in Canada live in poverty.
In Edmonton, 1 in 8 individuals are currently living in poverty.
Poverty costs Canada as a whole between $72 billion and $84 billion annually; Ontarians pay $2,299 – $2,895 per year, while British Columbians pay over $2,100 per year.
Precarious employment has increased by nearly 50% over the past two decades.
Between 1980 and 2005 the average earnings among the least wealthy Canadians fell by 20%.
Over the past 25 years, Canada’s population has increased
by 30% and yet annual national investment in housing has decreased by 46%.

[Venaliter]

The UN richly deserves it's reputation as being hilariously hypocritical and incompetent. If the UN endorses something, it's probably a good idea to oppose it, just a general principles.

Inviting 400,000 Syrians, of which 15-25% are probably Islamic fundamentalists (depending on how you define "fundamentalist") to the west is surely a great idea.

And yes, I am Canadian.

[Wells]

Inviting 400,000 Syrians, of which 15-25% are probably Islamic fundamentalists (depending on how you define "fundamentalist") to the west is surely a great idea.

You're getting this number from where?

[Daedius]

All well and good till there's trouble within the next 10-20 years... then you'd be kicking all them PC politicians dead for screwing their countries over.

Actually I'm rather looking forward to seeing that happen, especially for Sweden and Germany... just to shove it down all them SJW/PC morons' throats, where their self inflated "feel good" ego is more important than anything else.

[Venaliter]

You can't see it, because it's thin air.

You're getting this number from where?

I invite you both to read the original post. If you still don't understand, I can highlight the OP for you. Not exactly hard to see, it's one of the sections highlighted already.

[bladeXcrasher]

That has to be one of the single most stupid reasons I've heard as a reason not to help from someone. Why? Because those very same people will also fight any regulation to raise the minimum wage, provide health care to the poor, or any kind of government assistance to help the disadvantaged. It's a cop out, and a very poor one at that.

Cop out? You deny that Canada has poverty issues?

http://www.povertyfreeontario.ca/pov...ty-in-ontario/

In the last 35 years, except for a short period in the mid- 1980s to 1991, the poverty rate in Ontario has hovered between 9% to just over 12%, using the Ontario Government’s official poverty measure (Low Income Measure – After Tax) and the latest Statistics Canada low income figures.

Whether in good or bad economic times, since the recession of 1992, Ontario has struggled to stay below a double-digit poverty rate of 10% or higher.

This tells us that reducing the poverty rate to 4% or lower will require structural approaches that address the basic material living conditions of low income Ontarians.

Further, the worrying trend is the upward slope of the Ontario poverty rate when tracked by decade since the beginning of the 1990s.

[Wells]

I invite you both to read the original post. If you still don't understand, I can highlight the OP for you.

If you're claiming those are UN numbers I'd like to see a citation.

[Super Kami Dende]

I give zero fucks about what the UN thinks these days, between the whole Anita Sarkeesian "HALP US THE INTERWEB IS SCARI!" and appointing Saudi Arabia as Human rights leaders, they've shown they are full of nothing but backwards fuckups.

[Venaliter]

If you're claiming those are UN numbers I'd like to see a citation.

...to take in about 10 per cent of the estimated 4.2 million people who've become refugees from the Syrian civil war.

That's roughly 400k. If you're asking about the 15-25% number, it's from a study somewhere that stuck with me. I could try to find it for you, but it doesn't interest me. Google it.

[Rukh]

Yeah well Rob Ford.

[Mormolyce]

Because we can't do both right? Proof that both can't be accomplished please?

Silence! Everything is a dichotomy! Agree with me or perish!