Businessman goes solo on sponsoring refugees
Donating up to $1.5 million to support 50 Syrian families
An “impatient” Ontario businessman weary of lengthy, bureaucratic processes that can keep refugees out of their host countries is personally ending the waiting game for 50 Syrian families.
Jim Estill says he’s spending at least $1.5 million to privately sponsor the families and help them settle in the southern Ontario city of Guelph.
He’s also mobilizing the community to provide everything from housing, language training, clothing and career counselling to the new arrivals.
Estill’s efforts illustrate the complexities of Canada’s private refugee sponsorship program, under which sponsors commit to meeting all of a newcomer’s needs for the first few months of their time in Canada.
Estill says he hopes to see families start arriving in the next six to eight weeks.
He says the decision to sponsor a handful of families in need was an easy one for him to make.
“It’s a humanitarian crisis. It needs to be dealt with, and I wasn’t finding that other organizations or government were doing things fast enough,” Estill said in a telephone interview.
“I’m a businessperson, I’m very impatient, and we should just do it now.”
The wheels of Canada’s refugee system do not always turn quickly, particularly when newcomers are being brought to the country by private sponsors rather than via a government-run program.
Guidelines published by Citizenship and Immigration Canada spell out the process, complete with the many restrictions in place at each stage.
Only certain classes of refugees are eligible for private sponsorship, and those sponsorships can only be undertaken by groups or individuals prepared to assume the considerable responsibilities of resettling new arrivals.
There are also slightly different regulations for those identifying a specific refugee to sponsor and those who are willing to be matched with pre-approved applicants, but in both cases the expectations are the same — sponsors must be prepared to handle all of a refugee’s expenses for either the first year of their residency or until they become self-sufficient, whichever comes soonest.
This entails providing a standard of living that’s at least in line with social assistance levels in the sponsor’s home province. In Estill’s case, he estimates needing to spend a minimum of $30,000 for each family that enters the community.