Top-down immigration isn’t working. Sponsorship relies on grassroots knowledge of how many new people communities can absorb
By Xizi Daigle
The current top-down system in which the government decides how many refugees to allow into the country isn’t working. Support for bringing in Afghan refugees dropped from an already ambivalent half of Canadians in 2022 to just one-third in 2023. Instead of government-set quotas, we need a system that allows Canadians themselves to have a direct say in how many refugees to accept.
Embracing a system that leans heavily on private refugee sponsorship would empower Canadians to make decisions about immigration levels based on their own knowledge of their community’s ability to welcome newcomers. Government polling shows Canadians’ main concerns over immigration relate to shortages of housing and public services. This only makes sense: More newcomers add demand to already stretched supplies. Refugees who have their asylum cases approved overseas automatically receive permanent residency upon arrival in Canada and gain access to government services. Private refugee sponsorship allows the Canadian people — rather than the government — to help decide how many is too many. No one knows the social fabric and public infrastructure of the community accepting refugees better than the community itself.
Sponsorship is not complicated. Groups of citizens or permanent residents — whether families, employers, civil society organizations, or members of faith or ethnocultural groups — nominate refugees from overseas for resettlement. They then support refugees’ living costs for a time, usually up to a year after refugees’ arrival in Canada. In this way, private refugee sponsorship, in addition to delivering the benefits already mentioned, also puts less strain on the public purse.
Although the government should continue to vet asylum seekers, the actual selection and integration of refugees should increasingly be given over to private sponsors. Let Canadians themselves decide how many refugee newcomers to welcome.
Private refugee sponsorship also benefits Canadian society by strengthening the social fabric. Sponsored refugees are better able to contribute as community members or employees. To ensure refugees are accepted first and foremost on the basis of asylum, however, employers who sponsor skilled refugees should not be allowed to pay them less than Canadian workers.
Private refugee sponsorship, when implemented well, works for communities, employers, governments and refugees alike. Communities welcome people they know something about, employers find talent without displacing people, governments can reallocate services and resources, and refugees are supported in their transition to Canadian society.
Canadians are lucky to be able to choose who to let in to this country without having to deal with the mass border crossings on land or in small boats that complicate other countries’ migration policies. We should use our geography to our advantage by being selective when helping those in need. Private refugee sponsorship would make the best of Canadian kindness and also ensure we can continue to help safeguard the world’s most vulnerable.
Xizi Daigle, an MPA from the London School of Economics, has worked on refugee and migration issues in Canada and internationally.