It's a bit risky to speak in general terms because the difference between the cohorts in the Syrian situation was more marked, more distinct, than might be the general case, and there are specific reasons for that. There is a large community of ethnic Syrians in Lebanon who have family or community ties with multiple generations of Syrian Canadians. This community tended to be more highly educated, middle-class. It was suffering just as much, displaced by war, but it had education and some level of English and French skills.
The government-assisted refugees who were referred to Canada during that very compressed timeline when Canada was standing up this program tended to come from rural areas of southern Syria. They'd flowed into Jordan and Lebanon in large numbers, where we had set up our processing centres. They were highly vulnerable, and met the vulnerability criteria that we used with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This population generally had very low levels of education and language skills, and was often from rural communities. In this movement the difference was quite stark. However, we're speaking in general terms. There were lots of privately sponsored who did not have English skills, and there were some government-assisted who did.
More generally in the programs, there is a tendency for private sponsorship groups to bring in people who are both refugees and relatives of someone already living in their communities. That socio-economic strata tends to have somewhat higher education and language skills. This is a tendency. It's not black or white.
