Help them prosper

When Basil Mahmoud, a Syrian refugee, attended a job fair in June 2016 he was at a distinct disadvantage. He didn’t speak English.

But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Mahmoud was one of 1,800 Syrian refugees in Toronto who found their hopes for quick employment dashed when English classes they had been attending were put on hold for the summer. That was because COSTI, an organization that helps settle refugees in the city, had run out of federal funding.

Now it turns out that Mahmoud and his classmates weren’t the only ones who missed out on important settlement services that would have helped them get on their feet more quickly.

A new report from the federal auditor general found that despite millions of dollars allocated to settlement organizations, some 16 groups cut services for three months because Ottawa was too slow in delivering the money.

That was just one of several avoidable shortcomings identified by auditor general Michael Ferguson. It’s important, then, that the federal government learns from Ferguson’s findings and acts on them.

As the report notes, “the Syrian refugee initiative will succeed in the long term only if the people it brought to Canada integrate into Canadian society.”

For example, a lack of data collected from the provinces has prevented the federal government from knowing such important facts as how many Syrian kids are in school or how many families are on income assistance.

In other words, the government doesn’t know enough about what happened to the newcomers once they arrived in Canada, so it can’t measure the success of its programming and identify areas where improvement is necessary.

That may well be costing municipal governments. Toronto, for example, needed to add $20 million to its shelter budget to extend hotel and motel contracts into 2018 to house refugee claimants who now account for 25 per cent of beds in the over-flowing system.

As Ferguson recommends, the federal government must get money out the door more quickly to settlement organizations, track outcomes and ensure service providers know what is expected of them.

Only then can the government ensure that the 40,000 Syrian refugees it welcomed to this country will prosper.