Federal report calls for special treatment of immigrants

[Rob_Zepp]

3 hours ago, HerrDrFunk said:

I didn’t say that but I’m starting to wonder if you read the articles that you post.

I can’t read

[HerrDrFunk]

20 hours ago, Rob_Zepp said:

I can’t read

 

[Toews]

2 minutes ago, HerrDrFunk said:

 

Actually I think Rob should be commended for a rare moment of self-awareness. 

 

Take your previous post for instance,

 

According to the story that you posted, people are indeed calling the comments racist. So I’m not sure why you’re trying to claim double standards are being applied.

 

It was just a couple of sentences but he managed to translate that to, 

 

The Dalai Lama is racist?

 

Some serious issues with reading comprehension there.

[Rob_Zepp]

trudeau-government-goes-silent-on-syrian-refugees

 

Quote

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election promise to welcome ­25,000 refugees from Syria was aimed at showing voters his compassion. The followup photo opportunities he arranged in 2015 with smiling Syrian refugees, such as doctors, drew international headlines.

 

Once in power, Trudeau’s Liberals switched the name of the Immigration Department to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, to highlight their concern for those forced to leave chaotic home countries, especially Syria.

 

Given the grand gestures, you would be forgiven for believing the federal Liberals and the department responsible for refugees would be tracking the fate of the tens of the thousands of struggling Syrians that Canada has recently taken in.

 

But, after more than two weeks of inquiries by Postmedia, a media relations officer acknowledged the department has not produced any report in almost two years on the about 50,000 Syrian refugees now in Canada.

 

Canada’s auditor general is among the unamused. The Liberals had a plan to monitor whether the mostly Arabic-speaking refugees were learning English or French, working, receiving social assistance and going to school, but the government has failed to follow through, said auditor general Michael Ferguson. It is Ottawa’s responsibility, he said, to make sure Syrians refugees “integrate into Canadian society.”

 

The federal Liberals are not following the more transparent approach of Sweden and Germany, which took in the largest numbers of the 2.6 million mostly-Syrian asylum seekers who arrived in Europe in 2015 and 2016. The governments of those countries are providing extensive data on refugee outcomes, in addition to launching waves of job-training programs.

 

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did, to be fair, release a one-year-after report on Syrian refugees in December, 2016. It was moderately helpful, since it showed half the privately sponsored refugees had jobs in Canada. But employment fell to 10 per cent among the larger cohort of “government-assisted” refugees, who are typically less educated and often illiterate.

 

The early Ottawa report also touched on how, after refugees’ first year in Canada, they are cut off from direct stipends from the federal government.

How have things gone for Syrian refugees in Canada in the almost two years since that lone departmental report? No one really knows. That’s unlike in Sweden and Germany, where refugee programs are increasingly thorny electoral issues.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war, at Pearson airport.

Sweden has discovered, for instance, that, despite creating hundreds of “fast-track” job-training programs for recent refugees, only one third of those who completed a two-year full-time integration program in 2017 were working or studying three months later.

 

Refugees in Germany have done a bit better, but three-quarters are working in jobs needing few skills and with poor prospects. Unemployment is exceedingly high.

How is integration going in Canada?

 

When Postmedia sought answers from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, a media official provided the website of another public-relations official at another department, who recommended contacting Canadian academics, who either didn’t respond, had nothing to say or suggested contacting yet other academics. It’s known as “getting the runaround.” It may eventually bear fruit, but who knows?

 

One non-governmental source in B.C., however, did have some helpful informal insights about what’s happening in this  province, the destination of about one in 10 Syrian refugees. Maggie Hosgood, who has helped coordinate more than 100 B.C. United Church congregations that have privately sponsored 65 Syrian families, said most refugees “are doing all right,” with good outcomes for children, especially girls, who attend public schools.

 

But most refugees, many of whom end up in Burnaby, are struggling to afford housing in hyper-costly Metro Vancouver. In addition, Hosgood estimated roughly one in four Syrian adults are on welfare.

 

Unlike the highly educated refugees who Trudeau mingles with for photo opportunities, most Syrian refugees have jobs that require few skills, such as cleaners or jobs in shops where they don’t have to speak English.

 

Many Syrians are struggling to learn English in the classroom, Hosgood said, regretting that the former federal Conservative government did away with a program in which refugees could, at the same time, learn both English or French and a trade.

 

There are positive exceptions. Some male refugees are bakers, candy makers or mechanics. One carpenter, Hosgood said, has developed a thriving business, learning English while he works. “He’s got plans.”

 

As German and Swedish government officials are discovering, Hosgood also confirmed many Middle Eastern “husbands don’t want their wives to work.” They think, she said, the woman should stay at home and the husband should provide for the family.

 

“The Canada Child Benefit has been a godsend for most families,” Hosgood said, echoing a study suggesting most Syrian parents come with three to four children, sometimes eight or 10. “Big families would be doing very well.”

 

Syrian mothers and fathers with four children can get about $50,000 a year in various taxpayer-funded social-service benefits. The Canada Child Benefit provides $6,400 a year for each child under six and $5,400 for children between six and 17, while provincial welfare programs can provide $7,000 to $12,000 a year to each adult.

 

Hosgood said many of the grateful Syrian refugees, who know how to stretch their money,  are now starting to sponsor relatives to come to Canada.

Integrating refugees into the well-off West requires playing the long game. European countries have found that refugees’ full entry into the taxpaying workforce often doesn’t approach the national average for a couple of decades.

 

Instead of posturing in photo opportunities, Canada’s governing politicians need to follow Europe and track what is happening on the difficult ground. It’s impossible to create effective integration programs if no one knows what’s working and what’s not.

 

[JM_]

3 minutes ago, Rob_Zepp said:

trudeau-government-goes-silent-on-syrian-refugees

 

 

I like how they start with a complaint about monitoring but finish hard on costs 

 

I can post the studies later if you want for interest sake, but immigration pays for itself over and over. Its a bit creepy to me to allude to the initial social services costs without also talking about the benefits, or alternatives, to immigration. Every first generation has to adjust, these folks will too. 

[Rob_Zepp]

1 minute ago, Jimmy McGill said:

I like how they start with a complaint about monitoring but finish hard on costs 

 

I can post the studies later if you want for interest sake, but immigration pays for itself over and over. Its a bit creepy to me to allude to the initial social services costs without also talking about the benefits, or alternatives, to immigration. Every first generation has to adjust, these folks will too. 

No need.   I think immigration can be very positive economically but refugees are not typically - which is ok as the latter wasn't carried out for such but was based upon humanitarian need.   

 

Like has been the case in Europe, immigration is a long-game and it can take a generation or two to see the tangible benefits if one wants to view through an economic lens.   I didn't find the article complaining at all really -  just thought it interesting that the government in Canada is seemingly missing out on an ability to track things better but who knows what they are really doing versus what they are saying they are doing.

 

What I personally found most interesting about the article was that they are placing so many refugees in high density, pricey urban areas.   Why near Vancouver?   That seems a double whammy of harder to find jobs that will pay the rent and harder to find places to rent altogether.   Seems a really odd concept but perhaps there is a rule about where you can put refugees?    I would have thought, if in BC, somewhere like your middle of Province like Prince George or similar would make more sense.

[Tortorella's Rant]

4 hours ago, Rob_Zepp said:

No need.   I think immigration can be very positive economically but refugees are not typically - which is ok as the latter wasn't carried out for such but was based upon humanitarian need.   

 

Like has been the case in Europe, immigration is a long-game and it can take a generation or two to see the tangible benefits if one wants to view through an economic lens.   I didn't find the article complaining at all really -  just thought it interesting that the government in Canada is seemingly missing out on an ability to track things better but who knows what they are really doing versus what they are saying they are doing.

 

What I personally found most interesting about the article was that they are placing so many refugees in high density, pricey urban areas.   Why near Vancouver?   That seems a double whammy of harder to find jobs that will pay the rent and harder to find places to rent altogether.   Seems a really odd concept but perhaps there is a rule about where you can put refugees?    I would have thought, if in BC, somewhere like your middle of Province like Prince George or similar would make more sense.

They're just here for votes. If they succeed, great, if they don't, then whatever. The government doesn't really care all that much. Canadians are getting thrown out on their asses every single day from coast to coast, living in campers or tent cities, and they completely ignore this. In fact, they've only made it worse through increased taxes and other means. Again, because they don't really care. 

[Rob_Zepp]

39 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

They're just here for votes. If they succeed, great, if they don't, then whatever. The government doesn't really care all that much. Canadians are getting thrown out on their asses every single day from coast to coast, living in campers or tent cities, and they completely ignore this. In fact, they've only made it worse through increased taxes and other means. Again, because they don't really care. 

Wow, harsh view but I can see it is hard to see $50,000 going to a refugee family and little, if any, to a currently resident family makes it a politically charged discussion for sure.