Canada welcoming Syrian refugees as new citizens

Canada has a history of accepting refugees, from Black Loyalists in the 1770s to Jews moving beyond the Pale of Settlement as the 19th century faded. In the late 20th century, Canada welcomed Hungarians escaping the ill-fated revolution of 1956, Chileans trying to get out from under the thumb of the right-wingers who overthrew Salvador Allende, Ismaili Muslims fleeing Amin butchery in Uganda and 60,000 “boat people” leaving postwar Vietnam.

It wasn’t a surprise when Ottawa announced in 2015 a two-stream sponsorship program to settle Syrians living in dire circumstances in refugee camps after running from the hard hand of Bashar Assad and the civil war that has raged in Syria since the decidedly mixed results of the Arab Spring.

Now comes the good news that the Syrians admitted under the government’s private- and public-sponsorship program are catching up to other groups of refugees in terms of employment and general blending into the social fabric of our country.

According to the final Citizenship, Immigration and Refugees Canada study of outcomes for 40,000 Syrians who arrived in 2015 and 2016, more than half are working and a further 23 per cent are engaged in active job search. Wages are lower than other refugee groups, however, forcing some to turn to food banks for support.

Eighty-nine per cent of Syrian adults, the report said, have accessed government-funded language assessments and three-quarters have taken language lessons. Most are getting by in their new language, which is key to finding work and getting medical care and an education.

A discrepancy remains, however, in the employment rates of Syrian refugee men. Those admitted to Canada under private sponsorship had an employment rate of about 55 per cent while only five per cent of governmentassisted male refugees — hardship cases, for the most part, still recovering from the effects of war — were working.

More work needs to be done to help raise the employment levels of these men, for the sake of their families, the government upon which they rely and their own self-esteem. Yet a job doesn’t make a man, nor a woman. It is but one part of who we are. So it is encouraging that Syrian refugees were reporting a growing connectedness to their adopted country. And what better way to say “I belong” than active suffrage, the right to vote in a public, political election.

The 25,000 Syrian refugees who settled in Canada between October 2015, when the Trudeau Liberals came into power, and February 2016 are now eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship and many have already done so, paving the way for their first vote, this October, in a Canadian federal election.

Between January and April of this year, almost 900 Syrian-born applicants became Canadian citizens, joining 1,597 Syrians who became citizens in 2018 and 587 in 2017. Whether these newly minted Canadian citizens vote to return to power the Liberals who invited them here or another party is of less concern than being encouraged to participate fully in all aspects of Canadian life, including voting.

Which is why it was discouraging to read, on Monday, that in the United States the Trump administration freed up federal officials to deny green cards — a pathway to U.S. citizenship — to immigrants they deem likely to rely on government aid.

It’s understandable in some way — who doesn’t want to stand on his or her own two feet as previous generations of immigrants have done? — but given the president’s stated animus toward Latin Americans and Muslims, it makes one wonder whether the president has found another way to say: “Go back where you came from.”

So ugly a phrase. So contemptible an idea. And, for a refugee, words to crush a soul.