Study confirms refugees succeed in Canada over the long haul

Refugees who arrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s are now earning more than the average Canadian.

An internal immigration department document shows that, after 25 years in the country, a typical refugee earns as much or more than the Canadian norm, which is about $45,000 a year. The document quotes a senior department official who says the long-term study of refugees’ wages suggests the recent wave of 50,000 refugees from Syria could several decades from now do as well as earlier refugees in regards to earnings.

“In a nutshell, this is the trajectory we would expect (all things being equal) from governmentassisted refugees and privately sponsored refugees ,” senior immigration department official Umit Kiziltan writes in a memo obtained under an access to information request.

The immigration and tax department data, which tracks refugees’ earnings from 19812014, shows that government assisted refugees earned less than $20,000 a year in their first decade in the country, when many families rely on welfare and other government benefits to get by.

However, after 25-30 years in Canada, the average refugee is earning roughly $50,000 a year, about $5,000 more than the average Canadian. The study also shows the earnings gap between government-assisted refugees, who initially do worse than privately sponsored refugees, basically disappears over the long run.

The largest groups of refugees to Canada in the 1980s and early 1990s came from Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa. In that era, the number of refugees arriving ranged from 15,000-40,000 annually. In recent years, Canada has accepted more than 50,000 refugees from war-torn Syria alone.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who obtained the internal government documents, said they contain reliable information that strongly indicates most refugees, no matter where they come from, develop usable skills and do well in the labour market over their careers.

However, even though the senior immigration department’s memo welcomed the news that refugees who arrived several decades ago perform well, Kiziltan cautioned that it’s hard to forecast how more recent refugees will do, given the “cyclical nature of the economy overall and especially (the) human capital of the Syrian cohorts.”

The report, in addition, also doesn’t compare the earnings of refugees who have been in Canada for several decades (which means many would be in their 50s and at the peak of their careers) with the earnings of other Canadians of the same age cohort.

The data on refugees’ slow road to labour market success in Canada comes on the heels of 2018 controversies over thousands of asylum seekers illegally crossing the Canadian border, a Syrian refugee being charged with the murder of Burnaby teen Marrisa Shen and a Postmedia story revealing the federal Liberal government hasn’t produced any reports in two years on whether recent Syrian refugees are learning English or French, working, receiving social assistance or going to school.

This isn’t the first federal government indication, however, that many refugees eventually earn solid incomes.

In 2014, then-federal Conservative immigration minister Jason Kenney cancelled the contentious immigrant-investor program, revealing that refugees were actually paying more in income taxes than wealthy newcomers who had in effect bought their Canadian passports.

Asked about the contrast between taxes paid in Canada by refugees and rich immigrants, Kurland said it’s “a complicated comparison.”

The breadwinner of an immigrant-investor family, Kurland explained, “usually returns home to support the family’s millionaire lifestyle in Canada.” And unlike a refugee who stays in Canada, doesn’t pay significant income taxes in this country.

Previous studies have consistently shown that children of refugees quickly perform well in their new land.

This recent internal study of refugee earnings, however, is among the first to emphasize that, over many decades, most refugees who directly experienced war, persecution and trauma in their homeland could still attain financial success in the country that welcomed them.