Refugees And Welfare: Hamilton
According to a new report, Hamilton took in twice as many refugees as other cities between 2003 and 2008. Get beyond the gee whiz rhetoric and it turns out that doing missionary work in your own back yard is a dog's breakfast, and a costly one. It appears that our government shovels our money at settlement agencies without pestering them for anything like even rudimentary audits of outcomes: "The Demographic Profile of Immigrants in Hamilton report was designed to serve as a background paper for the development of an immigration strategy. It also shows little is known about the status of refugees who have arrived here over the past five to 10 years. Tim Rees, programme manager for the Hamilton Immigration Partnership Council, said while the city is proud of its humanitarian reputation, there needs to be more follow-up on refugees who come here. 'Nobody at the federal, provincial or municipal level is documenting, quantifying or costing the particular settlement experiences of refugees,' said Rees.
'We need to know far more about how successful different categories of newcomers, including refugees, are in finding employment, feeling a sense of belonging and staying in Hamilton, and how they are able to contribute to the city's social, cultural and economic well being.' Approximately 1,440 refugees arrive annually in Hamilton. Of those, around 440 are government-assisted refugees while 1,000 are refugee claimants; [that is, spontaneous chancers who roll in and ride the refugee train.] Morteza Jafarpour, executive director of SISO [Settlement and Integration Services Organization], said refugees present a certain challenge when it comes to settlement and can need help with the most basic skills, such as turning on a stove and running a shower. [Wonderful!] ... SISO frequently receives special requests from Citizenship and Immigration Canada asking if it will take families that have special needs, said Jafapour, adding they have accepted many families who have been turned down by other cities because their needs are too costly. ...
Government-assisted refugees (GARs) can receive financial support under the federal government's Resettlement Assistance Programme for one year. The support is meant to meet basic food and shelter needs while they learn English and look for employment. Melanie Carkner, spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said there is no formal monitoring or tracking of refugees. 'Although we encourage these refugees to remain in Hamilton in order to benefit from the services planned for them, they are free to move,' said Carkner. Refugee claimants differ from GARs in that they bypass the government system and come to Canada directly. They must plead their case at a hearing in Toronto. That can take two to five years, depending on the complexity of the case.
In that time, they are not allowed to work but can apply for Ontario Works [the current term for not working, aka collecting welfare. Sweet deal. You turn up and, for the next five years or so, you collect welfare. If you can't concoct a humanitarian exemption like an anchor baby or a marriage of convenience in five years, you're just not trying]. As of April 2010, there were approximately 19,300 refugee claimant cases in the province on Ontario Works [welfare], of which about 700 were in Hamilton. Kerry Lubrick, director of employment and income support for the city, said the city has no sense of how many GARs go on Ontario Works [that is to say, shifting dependency from federal to provincial welfare] after that first year. 'There is a cost but nobody knows it,' said Lubrick. [However, according to Rees] refugees 'find ways not only to survive but to succeed and contribute in disproportionate ways to local prosperity.'" (Hamilton Spectator, July 19, 2010)
Down boy. You've just told us that no one in the industry has a clue whether refugees succeed and contribute, let alone "in disproportionate ways" -- remember?
[This article appears in the September, 2010 issue of the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE. Published monthly, the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE is available by subscription for $30 per year. You can subscribe by sending a cheque or VISA number and expiry date to CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE, P.O. Box 332, Rexdale, ON., M9W 5L3.]
