New book "A National Project: Syrian Refugee Resettlement in Canada"

"A National Project: Syrian Refugee Resettlement in Canada"

Edited by researchers Leah Hamilton (Mount Royal University), Luisa Veronis (University of Ottawa) and Margaret Walton-Roberts (Wilfrid Laurier University) and published in August 2020.

The book provides a detailed examination of the experiences of refugees and receiving communities during Canada's Operation Syrian Refugee from 2015 to 2016.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, over 5.6 million people have fled Syria and another 6.6 million remain internally displaced. By January 2017, a total of 40,081 Syrians had sought refuge across Canada in the largest resettlement event the country has experienced since the Indochina refugee crisis.

Breaking new ground in an effort to understand and learn from the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative that Canada launched in 2015, A National Project examines the experiences of refugees, receiving communities, and a range of stakeholders who were involved in their resettlement, including sponsors, service providers, and various local and municipal agencies. The contributors, who represent a wide spectrum of disciplines, include many of Canada's leading immigration scholars and others who worked directly with refugees. Considering the policy behind the program and the geographic and demographic factors affecting it, chapters document mobilization efforts, ethical concerns, integration challenges, and varying responses to resettling Syrian refugees from coast to coast. Articulating key lessons to be learned from Canada's program, this book provides promising strategies for future events of this kind.

Showcasing innovative practices and initiatives, A National Project captures a diverse range of experiences surrounding Syrian refugee resettlement in Canada. The book features findings from 12 of the 27 research projects funded through the Syrian Refugee Arrival, Resettlement and Integration Initiative —a partnership between SSHRC and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada—that examined the experiences of Syrian refugees and the communities that helped settle them in their new country.

Exploring individual and community experiences

One of the projects profiled in the book is a study Hamilton conducted with colleagues on the immediate information needs of Syrian refugees when they first arrived in Canada.

“Before they come to Canada, refugees usually have access to pre-arrival programs describing life in Canada so they know what to expect in terms of weather, schools, health care, employment and other important topics,” said Hamilton. “Because of the rapid timelines, many Syrian refugees didn’t get that orientation. So we wanted to find out what they needed to know, when they needed to know it and how they preferred to receive that information.”

Also featured is the work of Walton-Roberts, Veronis and their team on settlement systems in Canada, looking specifically at the role played by local immigration partnerships (LIPs): community-based organizations that support local settlement agencies.

“This was a unique event, so we saw it as a natural experiment,” said Walton-Roberts. “The LIPs weren’t designed to deal with large cohorts like this one. We wanted to know how communities would respond to requests made of them to support rapid resettlement, how they would use and adapt existing resources, and what effect that would have.”

Sharing lessons learned

These are just a few of the projects featured in A National Project, which was conceived of after the outcomes of the SSHRC-funded projects were presented at the National Metropolis Conference in Montréal in 2017.

“There was a lot of buzz around these projects,” recalled Veronis. “We realized pulling some of these rich findings together would make a great capstone to all this work.”

The publication includes sections on the refugee experience, the community actors that contributed and how the resettlement experience played out across different regions of Canada, touching on health care, education, parenting and other areas with a direct impact on refugees’ lives. It highlights practices that worked, such as home visits and the use of social media to support refugees’ immediate needs on arrival—for example, the generous services and supports given to Syrian refugees were not extended to other refugees who arrived at the same time.

“This book tells the bigger story of what motivated Canadians to pour all this goodwill into supporting Syrian refugees,” said Veronis. “Because Canada is going to continue to support refugee resettlement, we hope this book can inform our future efforts—and offer insight to other countries as they develop their own resettlement policies and practices.”