Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon everyone.
On behalf of Action Réfugiés Montréal, thank you for the opportunity to share our experiences with you today.
Action Réfugiés Montréal is a non-profit organization that has been funded by churches, individuals, and foundations for over 20 years.
We offer three programs, one of which is focused on private refugee sponsorship in the name of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal and also The Presbyterian Church in Canada. In that program, we work closely with people in the Montreal region to sponsor their own family members living in a refugee situation overseas, and we work closely with them after the arrival of their family members as well.
First I would like to commend the federal government for their commitment to resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees, a job, however, that we all know is not yet complete. These families and other resettled families will need different forms of support throughout the coming years. It is essential that organizations working with this population have the tools and resources necessary to do so. This is also an important learning opportunity for the country.
At ARM, we were overwhelmed by the positive response within the community to help refugees. Managing this goodwill proved to be challenging for small organizations like ours in attempting to mobilize the large influx of offers of support and donations while continuing to carry out our jobs. We continue to receive interesting offers of support from Canadian residents wanting to help refugees on a daily basis.
In Quebec, a large proportion of funding was allocated towards government-assisted refugees. However, the province received five times the number of privately sponsored refugees than it did of government-assisted refugees. Various families we work with were unexpectedly tasked with welcoming multiple family units over the holidays after submitting applications with various organizations. These are families who had, of course, expected to welcome family members over the course of one or two years instead of a few weeks. Such unexpected time frames were emotionally challenging for some and created obstacles in relation to housing, finding furniture, and access to certain language courses, for instance.
Proximity to family in Canada has not been a concern for our organization. However, we have seen cases of secondary migration, either into or out of Quebec, which have been problematic due to the different immigration systems and a lack of accurate information. Families are not fully informed of their rights and freedoms, and service providers receiving these families need to have more accessible information to better support these individuals, particularly in cases of potential sponsorship breakdown.
Sponsorship breakdowns, wherein the sponsor stops supporting or supports the refugee only partially, are a real concern for families who have been sponsored by family members or organizations that are not fully prepared to financially support them. Some were tasked to support many families at once. It is not enough to tell sponsored families to apply for welfare in cases of sponsorship breakdown.
Families often feel indebted to their sponsors and family members. They fear placing a bigger burden on them and often prefer to attempt to find other ways to be independent without signalling a breakdown, which could of course have consequences for the sponsor.
Many Syrian families that we have been working with are highly educated. We are working with many highly skilled professionals who are working evening or night shifts right now while taking French courses in order to one day be able to complete their equivalencies and work in their field. Community loan programs have been an interesting option for some individuals wanting to complete their equivalencies. However, we need to be considering other options as well.
Those trying to access employment counselling services in the Montreal region are often redirected to language training if they are not proficient enough in French. We need to think creatively to help those who are interested in finding employment right away.
Although the overall housing experience, from what we have seen, has been quite positive, some families have faced challenges when meeting with landlords or were left with no housing at the last minute after landlords signed multiple leases with families for the same housing unit. In one particular case, a family was asked to pay for a full year of rent up front. The family understood that this, of course, was illegal, but after a difficult housing search, they felt that it would offer them some security and stability to know that they would have housing for one year.
From our experience at ARM, access to educational programs has been done relatively smoothly within the school system, with short waiting periods to get appointments within the school board. Families have also received additional support within the school system. That said, seeing as we also work with non-Syrian families, we have been disappointed to hear that some non-Syrian families have been receiving less support within the school system due to reallocation of resources within schools to prioritize Syrian families.
From what we have seen, families have been able to receive adequate medical support and follow-up as needed. We are also relieved to know that all the families we serve, no matter their country of origin, will have access to supplemental health coverage through the IFH program.
In terms of travel loans, assuming the cost of transportation loans for resettlement Syrians eliminated a large burden on said families. However, the programs put in place involved some unjust technicalities for some. For example, some Syrian families who arrived in Canada after November 4 on non-chartered flights had their transportation costs covered if they came from Jordan, Lebanon, or Turkey, while Syrians arriving from other countries within those same time frames are tasked with repaying their transportation loans. We feel that these abstract circumstances create unfairness within the system.
At ARM, we have a few non-Syrian families who will be able to benefit from the one-year window program. That said, we have a significant number of Syrian families who have recently arrived who are hoping to sponsor additional family members of their own who are not eligible within the one-year window.
At ARM, our waiting list included 150 names at the end of 2014. In December 2015, it was over 600 names. It is clear that the need for private sponsorship is great. With this in mind, we are pleased that reflections such as these are happening on multiple levels in order to improve future responses. There is no doubt that the Syrian crisis has created an increased awareness of refugee populations and allowed us to bear witness to a truly incredible response and flexibility within the sponsorship system to facilitate the resettlement of Syrian families.
We hope that this desire to help continues to grow in order to promote greater fairness, compassion, and justice towards all refugees.
Thank you.