Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
My name is Lisa Kaida. I'm an associate professor of sociology at McMaster University. As a sociologist and social demographer who has been studying the integration of immigrants and refugees for over 20 years, I'm honoured to be here.
In this opening statement, I will make three points based on my research on the secondary migration of refugees, in which I analyzed Statistics Canada's data on permanent residents.
First, it will be helpful to carefully distinguish between resettled refugees and asylum seekers. Resettled refugees are approved for admission before arriving in Canada, and they are granted permanent resident status upon arrival. In contrast, asylum seekers are initially temporary residents. If their asylum claims are accepted, they are approved as refugees and therefore become permanent residents. This process may take a few years. My past research focused on the integration of resettled refugees.
I will now turn to my three points.
First, the main take-away from my research is that resettled refugees are more likely to leave their initial destinations than economic immigrants, mostly because resettled refugees are more likely to settle in smaller communities first, but more than 50% of resettled refugees do stay in their initial destinations even if they are small, remote communities.
Second, will this apply to asylum seekers? I cannot directly answer this question, because asylum seekers' experience in smaller communities may be different from that of resettled refugees. Resettled refugees are mostly government-assisted refugees or privately sponsored refugees. Government-assisted refugees are assigned to designated communities upon arrival. Through the resettlement assistance program, they receive income support for up to 12 months, as well as immediate resettlement services. Privately sponsored refugees are sponsored by groups of individuals or religious or ethnic organizations. Their sponsors are spread across Canada. They provide financial support, accommodation and social support to privately sponsored refugees during their first year in Canada. Asylum seekers are not entitled to such social and economic support from the government or sponsors.
Third, my research does not provide statistics on the secondary migration of asylum seekers. I defined the initial destinations of resettled refugees and other categories of immigrants as the places where they landed as permanent residents. If they move out of the initial destination later, that movement is treated as secondary migration. In my research, if asylum seekers are successful in their applications and given permanent resident status, then their statistics are recorded as “other refugees”, along with other categories of refugees, such as those admitted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
My research shows that more than 70% of other refugees initially settled in either Toronto or Montreal, but it is possible that asylum seekers arrived elsewhere first. When they became permanent residents, they might have moved to Toronto or Montreal. To precisely identify where asylum seekers initially settled, we would have to look at where they filed asylum claims or where their intended destinations were, as recorded in Statistics Canada's data on non-permanent residents.
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I look forward to your questions.