Most Syrian refugees not keen to move to Canada immediately, Ottawa says
STEVEN CHASE AND DANIEL LEBLANC
Ottawa — The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Dec. 02, 2015 12:41PM EST
Last updated Wednesday, Dec. 02, 2015 3:43PM EST
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Initial efforts in November by the United Nations to find Syrian refugees keen on immediately migrating to Canada yielded relatively little fruit, figures released by Ottawa show.
Only about one in 20 refugees indicated an interest when the UN contacted them in the latter half of November, numbers published by the federal government Wednesday indicate.
The Canadian government insists refugee interest has since picked up substantially but could provide no numbers to back that up. They said a number of refugees in camps are still hoping they might return to Syria or want to remain in the region.
Between November 18 and 26, about 6 per cent of refugees contacted, chiefly in Jordan, but also in Lebanon, indicated they were interested, Ottawa says.
The United Nations refugee agency sent text messages to more than 41,000 Syrians in Jordan and Lebanon asking if they wanted to come to Canada by the end of February, 2016. They followed up by phone and found that only about 28,500 of the phone numbers worked.
More than 3,000 showed up for interviews with the UN and ultimately only about 1,800 indicated they were interested in coming to Canada within weeks.
Canadian government officials released these numbers Wednesday in a briefing but said more recent efforts to find Syrians willing to come to Canada quickly are finding more takers.
A senior Canadian official said it’s normal that potential refugee numbers are whittled down as the UN contacts people.
“This is a new process we’ve put in place so we’ve had a fairly significant drop-out rate, but we’re seeing the numbers hopefully increasing over the next little while,†she told reporters.
“I think it’s just a reality that as much as we are eager to welcome the 25,000 people and want them to come to Canada, some of them want to stay close to home. Some of them still want to be able to return to Syria and are hopeful there will be a resolution to the conflict there.â€
The official recalled a meeting she had with Syrians this past January who have lived in a refugee camp in Turkey for nearly three years and wanted to stay close to Syria. “They were still saying their first hope was to remain in that location and to return to Syria. They did not want to be resettled.â€
Another issue that came up at the briefing was the government’s inability to state precisely where the refugees will be settling in Canada.
Mayors and provincial ministers across the country have been seeking firm details on the geographic distribution of the 15,000 government-sponsored refugees, both to get ready for their arrival but also try to get as many of them as possible to settle in their communities.
Federal and provincial officials have asked the federal bureaucrats for details as soon as possible, in order to ease concerns that a large majority of the refugees will choose to settle in Canada’s biggest cities.
But bureaucrats said that they are not used to determining in advance where refugees will be settling, and refused to create firm targets to be met in coming months.
A senior federal public servant told reporters that a clear challenge is that there is now a thirst for “degrees of information in advance for this movement [of people] that never exists for other movements.â€
The official added that in normal situations, “communities didn’t know normally exactly how many refugees would be arriving in the next calendar year.†He added that bureaucrats will create “notional targets†by city, but added that the targets will be continuously adjusted to accommodate the needs of the newcomers.
Another federal official said that “destination matching†can only occur after government workers have interviewed refugees, pointing out that they are most likely to stay in an area if they have family members who are already present.
“We like to see people settle and not move out two weeks later,†the official said. “If they have family members in a particular community, that is a strong indicator of where they should be settled as government-assisted refugees.â€
The bureaucrats also try to gauge whether the refugees have particular needs, such as mental-health care, when determining where they should settle.
Follow us on Twitter: Daniel Leblanc @danlebla, Steven Chase @stevenchase
