Feds to pay for only 40% of refugees

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This article was published 12/01/2015 (4212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Groups that sponsor refugees welcome — and question — Canada’s latest commitment to resettle another 10,000 people forced to flee Syria and 3,000 from Iraq.

“The announcement was short on details,” said Brian Dyck, chairman of the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders Association.

“We want to get more clarity.”

He said they hope to get some answers during a teleconference Wednesday with officials from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

The federal government has agreed to assist 40 per cent of the refugees it has committed to take from Syria and Iraq. It will be up to private sponsors — individuals, faith groups and charitable organizations — to take responsibility for the other 60 per cent.

That means the federal government will pick up the tab for 4,000 of the 10,000 Syrians it’s pledged to resettle in the next three years.

“When you strip away the smoke and mirrors represented by talking big with that 10,000 number… you see that it’s really only 4,000 and the rest is ‘maybe,’ ” said Tom Denton, executive director of Hospitality House Refugee Ministry in Winnipeg.

Rev. Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd of Westworth United Church said she was happy to read about Canada stepping up to welcome another 10,000 Syrians but “disappointed” to learn private sponsors are expected to help most of them.

“We are glad to do whatever we can, but many of our own resources are already stretched,” said Shepherd, whose church helped organize Refuge Winnipeg, which is bringing together multi-faith and non-faith groups to sponsor three large Syrian families to come to Winnipeg.

They’re required to come up with $12,000 in sponsorship guarantees for an individual and $25,000 for a family they support, as well as cover cost-of-living expenses such as housing.

Shepherd said Refuge has only received one-fifth of the $120,000 it needs to raise to sponsor the three Syrian families.

“While donations are continuing to come in, due to the incredible generosity of individuals, faith communities and other organizations, we would be hard-pressed to raise additional funding to sponsor more Syrian refugees,” said Shepherd.

The government doesn’t appear to have allocated any more resources to the processing of refugee applications, she said.

Their application has been accepted as sponsorship agreement-holders but they’ve been told it will still take around 20 months to process them. Meanwhile, the three refugee families they’re sponsoring are living in difficult conditions in Lebanon.

“We have just seen a snowfall that has covered refugee camps in Beirut, in some cases, collapsing tents. We would greatly appreciate any means by which the government can quicken this processing of refugee applications,” said Shepherd.

The Yazidi community in Winnipeg is waiting to hear more about Canada’s pledge to accept 13,000 more Iraqi and Syrian refugees.

“I hope to God that we will get some of our people over,” said Nafiya Naso, one of close to 200 Yazidis in Winnipeg. The Yazidi religious minority — one of the oldest in the Middle East — has been under attack by Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq.

“I have my sister-in-law, who lost her daughter,” said Naso, who came to Canada in 1999.

The 14-year-old girl and her family were on the run from the Islamic State last year when she was shot.

“They had to leave her body where she was shot, otherwise they would’ve killed all of them.”

The girl’s mother, with seven children left, has not got over her grief, said Naso. “I told her ‘You just have to be strong and take care of the rest of the kids.’ “

Her father-in-law, who had a stroke, doesn’t have medication and he’s living in a tent near the Turkey-Syria border, said Naso.

She said all of her relatives are in Turkey and Iraq.

“It doesn’t matter where they come from or what nationality they are, these people need help.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca