A National Project: Syrian Refugee Resettlement in Canada 9780228002574

Table of contents :
Cover
A NATIONAL PROJECT
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Figures and Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Note about the Cover
Introduction: A National Project: Exploring Canadian Exceptionalism in Refugee Resettlement
PART ONE PERSPECTIVES OF SYRIAN REFUGEES
PART 1A SYRIAN REFUGEES’ EXPERIENCES WITH RESETTLEMENT, RECEPTION, AND INTEGRATION
1 The Right Information at the Right Time: Optimizing the Provision of Information to Facilitate the Settlement and Integration of Refugees in Canada
2 The Alberta Syrian Refugee Project: Understanding Trauma and Resilience in Refugee Resettlement
3 Health Needs and Service Use of Newly Arrived Syrian Refugees
PART 1B EXPERIENCES OF SYRIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES
4 The Honeymoon’s Over: Post-Settlement Issues and Challenges for Syrian Refugee Youth in Canada
5 Stress in Refugee Resettlement: Syrian Mothers’ Strains and Buffers during Early Integration
6 Syrian Refugee Youths’ Use of Social Media as a Space for Communicating Social Support during Resettlement
PART TWO THE SYRIAN REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT CONTEXT
PART 2A CIVIL SOCIETY AND COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES AND EXPERIENCES
7 Interrogating Canada’s Response to the Syrian Crisis: Analyzing the Observations of Post-Secondary Youth
8 Accommodating Government-Assisted Syrian Refugee Newcomers: The Experiences of Resettlement Assistance Program Providers
9 Private Sponsorship of Syrian Refugees: Perspectives of Sponsors and Refugees in Quebec
10 A Tale of Three Mid-Sized Cities: Syrian Refugee Resettlement and a Progressive Sense of Place
PART 2B RECEPTION AND INTEGRATION IN SMALLER CITIES ANDRURAL AREAS
11 Splits in the Neighbourhood? Negotiating Visibility in a Rural Reception Context
12 A Community Engaged in the Reception of Syrian Refugees: The Case of Moncton, New Brunswick
13 Syrian Refugee Integration in Newfoundland and Labrador
Conclusion: Outcomes and Lessons from Canada’s Experience with the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Acknowledgments

A NAT IONAL PROJECT

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mcgill-queen’s refugee and forced migration studies Series editors: Megan Bradley and James Milner Forced migration is a local, national, regional, and global challenge with profound political and social implications. Understanding the causes and consequences of, and possible responses to, forced migration requires careful analysis from a range of disciplinary perspectives, as well as interdisciplinary dialogue. The purpose of the McGill-Queen’s Refugee and Forced Migration Studies series is to advance in-depth examination of diverse forms, dimensions, and experiences of displacement, including in the context of conflict and violence, repression and persecution, and disasters and environmental change. The series will explore responses to refugees, internal displacement, and other forms of forced migration to illuminate the dynamics surrounding forced migration in global, national, and local contexts, including Canada, the perspectives of displaced individuals and communities, and the connections to broader patterns of human mobility. Featuring research from fields including politics, international relations, law, anthropology, sociology, geography, and history, the series highlights new and critical areas of enquiry within the field, especially conversations across disciplines and from the perspective of researchers in the global South, where the majority of forced migration unfolds. The series benefits from an international advisory board made up of leading scholars in refugee and forced migration studies. 1 The Criminalization of Migration Context and Consequences Edited by Idil Atak and James C. Simeon 2 A National Project Syrian Refugee Resettlement in Canada Edited by Leah K. Hamilton, Luisa Veronis, and Margaret Walton-Roberts

preface

A National Project Syrian Refugee Resettlement in Canada

EDITED BY LEAH K . HAMILTON , LUISA VERONIS , A N D M A RG A R E T WALTO N - ROBERTS

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2020 isbn 978-0-2280-0121-8 (cloth) isbn 978-0-2280-0122-5 (paper) isbn 978-0-2280-0257-4 (epdf) isbn 978-0-2280-0258-1 (epub) Legal deposit third quarter 2020 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: A national project : Syrian refugee resettlement in Canada / edited by Leah K. Hamilton, Luisa Veronis, and Margaret Walton-Roberts. Other titles: National project (Montréal, Québec) Names: Hamilton, Leah K., 1980– editor. | Veronis, Luisa, 1975– editor. | Walton-Roberts, Margaret, 1968– editor. Series: McGill-Queen's refugee and forced migration studies ; 2. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s refugee and forced migration studies ; 2 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200225235 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200225618 | isbn 9780228001225 (paper) | isbn 9780228001218 (cloth) | isbn 9780228002574 (epdf) | isbn 9780228002581 (epub) Subjects: lcsh: Syrians—Canada—Social conditions. | lcsh: Refugees— Canada—Social conditions. | lcsh: Refugees—Syria. | lcsh: Refugees— Government policy—Canada. | lcsh: Social integration—Canada. Classification: LCC HV640.5.S97 N38 2020 | DDC 305.892/75691071—dc23

This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

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This book is dedicated to Alan Kurdi and the many others who lost their lives trying to escape the conflict in Syria. All royalties from the collection will be contributed to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (msf), a Nobel Prize–winning emergency humanitarian medical organization that has helped tens of millions of people since its founding in 1971.

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Contents

Figures and Tables xi Foreword xiii Ümit Kiziltan Acknowledgments xxiii Note about the Cover xxv Introduction: A National Project: Exploring Canadian Exceptionalism in Refugee Resettlement 3 Margaret Walton-Roberts, Luisa Veronis, and Leah K. Hamilton PART ONE

PERSPECTIVES OF SYRIAN REFUGEES

part 1a syrian refugees’ experiences with resettlement, reception, and integration 1 The Right Information at the Right Time: Optimizing the Provision of Information to Facilitate the Settlement and Integration of Refugees in Canada 43 Victoria M. Esses, Leah K. Hamilton, Mohammed El Hazzouri, Alina Sutter, Bailey McCafferty, and Ajit Pyati 2 The Alberta Syrian Refugee Project: Understanding Trauma and Resilience in Refugee Resettlement 65 Julie Drolet, Gayatri Moorthi, Lisa Elford, Amanda Weightman, Dania El Chaar, Esra Al Saadi, Careen Khoury, and Erin Smith 3 Health Needs and Service Use of Newly Arrived Syrian Refugees 85 Andrew Tuck, Anna Oda, Michaela Hynie, Caroline Bennett-AbuAyyash, Brenda Roche, Branka Agic, and Kwame McKenzie

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part 1b experiences of syrian refugee children, youth, and families 4 The Honeymoon’s Over: Post-Settlement Issues and Challenges for Syrian Refugee Youth in Canada 105 Jan Stewart and Dania El Chaar 5 Stress in Refugee Resettlement: Syrian Mothers’ Strains and Buffers during Early Integration 127 Melissa A. Milkie, Neda Maghbouleh, and Ito Peng 6 Syrian Refugee Youths’ Use of Social Media as a Space for Communicating Social Support during Resettlement 151 Rukhsana Ahmed, Luisa Veronis, and Idris Alghazali PART T WO

THE SYRIAN REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT CONTEXT

part 2a civil society and community perspectives and experiences 7 Interrogating Canada’s Response to the Syrian Crisis: Analyzing the Observations of Post-Secondary Youth 175 James Baker and Leah K. Hamilton 8 Accommodating Government-Assisted Syrian Refugee Newcomers: The Experiences of Resettlement Assistance Program Providers 195 Damaris Rose and Alexandra G. Charette 9 Private Sponsorship of Syrian Refugees: Perspectives of Sponsors and Refugees in Quebec 218 Marie-Jeanne Blain, Lourdes Rodriguez del Barrio, Roxane Caron, MarieClaire Rufagari, Myriam Richard, Yannick Boucher, and Caroline Lester 10 A Tale of Three Mid-Sized Cities: Syrian Refugee Resettlement and a Progressive Sense of Place 243 Margaret Walton-Roberts, Luisa Veronis, Blair Cullen, and Huyen Dam

part 2b reception and integration in smaller cities and rural areas 11 Splits in the Neighbourhood? Negotiating Visibility in a Rural Reception Context 269 Christopher Kyriakides, Karen Anderson, Lubna Bajjali, and Arthur McLuhan

Contents

12 A Community Engaged in the Reception of Syrian Refugees: The Case of Moncton, New Brunswick 289 Chedly Belkhodja 13 Syrian Refugee Integration in Newfoundland and Labrador 311 Tony Fang, Halina Sapeha, Kerri Claire Neil, and Opeyemi JauntyAidamenbor Conclusion: Outcomes and Lessons from Canada’s Experience with the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative 331 Luisa Veronis, Leah K. Hamilton, and Margaret Walton-Roberts Contributors 345 Index 361

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François Crépeau

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Figures and Tables

figures 5.1 12.1 13.1 13.2

The refugee stress process model 129 Key stakeholders and responders 302 Positive first impressions of St John’s 317 Migration intentions of Syrian refugee respondents

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tables 0.1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 2.1

2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2

Number of Syrian refugee arrivals in each province/territory, by category (November 2015–September 2018) 4 Number of Syrian refugee arrivals in London and Calgary, by category (November 2015–January 2017) 47 Syrian refugees’ primary information needs 52–3 Timing of information needs 55 Syrian refugees’ primary sources of information 57 Overall population size and admissions of Syrian refugees in Alberta by Census Metropolitan Area (cma) of intended destination and immigration category (4 November 2015–30 November 2018) 66 Sample size by number of participants in each refugee category 71 Sample size by method and geographic area 71 Participant characteristics of follow-up sample (n=200) 91 Percentage of participants currently enrolled in governmentfunded English classes at follow-up survey 92

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3.3 Relationship between gender and sponsorship status to length of time spent taking government-funded English classes 92 3.4 Multidimensional scale of perceived social support 94 3.5 How is your health now compared to one year ago? 96 7.1 Number of Syrian refugee arrivals in Newfoundland and Labrador, by category (November 2015–January 2017) 177 7.2 Overview of respondents and overall observations about responses to Syrian refugees 181 8.1 Population, immigration, resettlement, and housing data for cities selected in this study 198 10.1 Key case study community details including the number of government-assisted refugees (gars), privately sponsored refugees (psrs), and Blended Visa Office–Referred refugees (bvors) (November 2015–September 2018) 250

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Foreword Ümit Kiziltan In the years to come, Canadians will look back with enormous pride on the contributions made by Syrian refugees and how they have made our country even better. The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, 2015

The Syrian conflict has been described as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent history. More than four million people have fled Syria since 2011, driving Syrian families to seek refuge in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and other neighbouring countries. In 2014, the United Nations Refugee Agency appealed to the international community and called upon states to make multiyear commitments to provide resettlement and other forms of admissions for an additional 100,000 Syrian refugees in 2015 and 2016. Though the Syrian conflict began in early 2011, and the first refugee camps opened in Turkey in May of that year, it was ultimately a horrifying photo in September 2015, of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s body lying on a Turkish beach, that sent shockwaves throughout the world. The toddler’s death became the catalyst for Canada’s refugee response to the Syrian conflict and galvanized thousands of individual Canadians to take action. Kurdi’s photo appeared in the midst of a federal election campaign. In reaction to public outcry, the Conservative government in power at the time quickly pledged to speed up the resettlement of 10,000 Syrian refugees and bring them to Canada in one year rather than three. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party of Canada was campaigning on a platform to expand Canada’s intake of refugees from Syria and to

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resettle 25,000 refugees by the end of 2015. They won the election and were sworn in on 4 November, eight weeks before the end of the year. The newly formed government immediately launched the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative. From the very beginning, this became a national project that involved all sectors of society and individual Canadians from all walks of life. In terms of magnitude, Canada historically resettles 11,000 to 13,000 refugees each year. While the government has previously resettled large waves of refugees, such as those from Indochina in 1979–80, the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative was an unprecedented endeavour in terms of size, scope, timing, and complexity in recent history. Canada was initially able to resettle a first wave of 26,172 Syrian refugees in just 118 days under Operation Syrian Refugees. Additional Syrian refugees were processed until into 2016, reaching a total of more than 40,000 welcomed in hundreds of communities across Canada. Such a massive undertaking in an exceptional and time-limited situation required extensive coordination across many areas. This was a national effort that involved all levels of government, private sponsors, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, advocacy groups, service providers, communities, and individuals. People from all parts of Canada stepped up to help address the crisis, especially as the reality of the Syrian refugees’ arrival became more tangible once the first planes began landing in Canada. The arrival of such a large wave of refugees in a short period presented challenges for both the refugees and for the massive resettlement effort which Canada put in place. Given the Government of Canada’s commitment to the successful resettlement of the Syrian refugees and the high degree of public interest in the Initiative, closely monitoring and understanding the resettlement and integration experiences and outcomes of this population became especially significant. To that end, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (ircc) developed a comprehensive Results Monitoring Framework as part of its efforts to ensure that Canadians, governments, and communities would be able to monitor the effectiveness of the resettlement efforts and to benefit from the lessons learned. As part of this proactive approach, a joint ircc and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (sshrc) research funding initiative was developed to shed light on the resettlement experience of Syrian refugees and their families in a timely fashion. The call for research

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projects, made in the early days of the resettlement process, engaged Canadian researchers in the study of the Syrian refugees’ immediate outcomes and challenges in key areas, such as access to resettlement services, housing, education, employment, skills development, and social integration. This book presents the results of twelve of the twenty-seven funded research projects (and one additional project funded directly by ircc). As Canada continues to be a global leader in refugee resettlement, such research studies will be essential for understanding the resettlement of refugees in Canada as they create a timely learning loop, inform ircc policies and community-based resettlement and settlement programming, and support program adjustments. These studies also offer opportunities for a comparative analysis of the resettlement experience of Syrian refugees in other parts of the world, further advancing our policy-relevant knowledge base and global, collective capacity to support resettled refugees. *** For Operation Syrian Refugees, protecting the safety, security, and health of Canadians and refugees remained paramount in guiding the Government of Canada’s actions through a five-phased national plan, outlined below. This included the efforts of other government departments, including Global Affairs Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Public Safety Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Transport Canada, Canadian Heritage, Shared Services Canada, Service Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and the Department of National Defence (which was key to transporting the refugees to Canada).

phases i and ii: identifying and processing syrian refugees to come to canada The Government of Canada worked with the United Nations Refugee Agency, in Geneva, Jordan, and Lebanon, and the Turkish government to identify refugees. Immigration processing, full immigration medical exams, and security screenings were conducted overseas, mainly

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from dedicated Canadian visa offices in Amman, Beirut, and Ankara. If successful, Syrian refugees were granted Canadian permanent resident visas.

phase iii: transportation to canada Flights organized by the International Organization for Migration and the Canadian military brought refugees from the three main visa offices to newly created designated ports of entry in either Montreal or Toronto.

phase iv: welcoming in canada Once refugees arrived at the Toronto or Montreal airports, they were met by Government of Canada officers in designated welcome centres specifically set up for the admission of Syrian refugees. The refugees were processed by Canada Border Services Agency officers, set up with Social Insurance Numbers, and screened for signs of illness. Many refugees were put up in hotels to rest and allow time for the reception communities across Canada to prepare to welcome them.

phase v: settlement and community integration Once the refugees arrived at their final destinations in Canada, immediate resettlement and settlement needs were provided through government assistance, sponsor support, volunteers, and service providers. As they settled into their communities, resettlement assistance and settlement programming were offered to the Syrian refugees to meet their integration needs. Canadian provinces and territories (each of which has a subnational government) supported resettlement initiatives in their own jurisdictions, often by expanding support and settlement services available to the Syrian refugees. Private sponsors came forward in record numbers. Canadians who had never sponsored refugees pooled together their resources to bring Syrian refugees to Canada. There were many instances where individuals who came to Canada themselves as resettled refugees formed private sponsorship groups to sponsor Syrian families.

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Resettlement agencies and settlement service–providing organizations stepped into action to help government-assisted refugees, notably in meeting the challenge to find housing for large families. The effort grew out of partnerships and cooperation among organizations, businesses, governments, communities, and individual Canadians across the country. The response was overwhelming, from both the public and private sectors and from organizations and private citizens, in all parts of the country and in communities both large and small, urban and rural. At the same time, an outpouring of private donations came from Canadians for overseas Syrian relief efforts, as Canadians generously donated almost $32 million to charitable organizations in response to the conflict in Syria (ircc 2016). For the first time, these donations were matched by the federal government, which had previously only ever matched funds in response to natural disasters. *** The Syrian resettlement initiative built upon Canada’s long tradition of welcoming displaced people from all over the world in need of protection, security, and the opportunity to rebuild their lives. Nevertheless, as expected, some challenges were experienced along the way. First among these were difficulties in finding adequate, affordable housing. This was amplified by the large number of arrivals in a condensed period of time, and the size and lower income range of the Syrian refugee families, in particular the government-assisted refugees. Despite these challenges the initial 25,000, who arrived in Canada between 4 November 2015 and 29 February 2016, all were placed in permanent housing in Canadian communities by early June 2016. ircc’s early evaluation, conducted in the summer of 2016, showed that of the Syrian refugees who arrived in Canada in the first few months, more than 50% of privately sponsored refugees and 10% of government-assisted refugees reported being employed (ircc 2016). These results were in line with historical trends for all resettled refugees. Findings from a survey conducted by ircc in the summer of 2018 indicate that, overall, 57% of surveyed adult Syrian refugees reported being employed (ircc 2019). Further, a December 2018 Statistics Canada report shows that Syrian refugees who arrived in 2015

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have comparable incomes to other refugees admitted during the same period (Statistics Canada 2018). ircc continues to monitor this important aspect of integration. The department’s overall goal is for all refugees to be economically self-sufficient and gainfully employed, but this is a long-term goal and requires the continued participation of many players, including all levels of government, businesses, and the non-profit sector. Since the arrival of the first planes in Canada, the Syrian refugees’ use of settlement services has been high. Ongoing data indicate that Syrian refugees are accessing ircc-funded settlement services at a higher rate than non-Syrian resettled refugees who arrived in Canada during the same period (4 November 2015–31 December 2016). These services, such as needs assessments, language training, information, and orientation have been instrumental in supporting Syrians’ integration. Among the special initiatives to support settlement, additional language-training spaces were created for Syrians. Another imminent challenge at the time was related to what would happen to Syrian refugees upon their thirteenth month after arrival, when their government income support or the financial assistance from their sponsors was set to come to an end. Many refugees, if unemployed, would need to access provincially administered social assistance services. Historically, the vast majority of resettled government-assisted refugees (93%) receive at least one month of social assistance in the second calendar year after arrival to Canada (ircc 2016). As refugees improve their official language levels, learn how to navigate the labour market, and upgrade their skills, their employment rate increases over time. The social assistance rate steadily decreases with each passing year, with 34% reporting social assistance usage after ten years of being in Canada (ircc 2016). As more labour market and earnings information becomes available, ircc will continue to monitor and report on Syrian refugees’ use of social assistance. *** There are numerous lessons to be gleaned from this unprecedented national initiative of resettling the Syrian arrivals. The importance of obtaining and sharing as much information as possible with stakeholders about the incoming refugee population became evident. Many Syrians had higher-than-anticipated health and other needs,

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which triggered a pressing need to communicate essential information quickly to the service providers and private sponsors. The unique nature and urgency of the initiative meant that Canada and its partners needed to embrace operational flexibility and innovative approaches to ensure that Syrian refugees were processed quickly, while maintaining appropriate due diligence and safety and security. This included a significant reallocation of resources and special measures, including the reassignment of staff from across ircc and other federal departments. Another key consideration involved giving refugees enough time to adequately prepare for travelling to Canada. Refugees had already fled their homes, leaving behind most of what they held dear. Travelling to Canada also meant saying goodbye to their extended family, friends, and homeland. However, the expedited nature of the resettlement activities meant that Syrian refugees were not provided with pre-arrival orientation, which resulted in many of them arriving in Canada without basic information and gaps in knowledge. This lack of pre-arrival services made the initial resettlement stages more challenging, but also highlighted the importance of these services to refugee resettlement. These and other important lessons continue to inform improvements to resettlement policy and program design and implementation. *** As the settlement and integration journey of the Syrian refugees proceeds, ircc continues to monitor, analyze, and report on outcomes as new data become available. From the outset, ircc was able to track federally funded settlement service usage, an essential support for the early integration of resettled refugees. It will take time, however, to properly measure medium-term integration outcomes and to have robust national results information on key indicators such as employment status, housing, community integration, schooling, and mental health. In 2016, a Rapid Impact Evaluation of the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative was conducted by ircc. It demonstrated how Syrian refugees were settling into Canada several months after their arrival and compared the population data to historical resettlement trends (ircc 2016). The department has since conducted and participated in several audits, reported to numerous House of Commons and Senate

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Committees, and posted monthly statistical tables on Syrian refugees’ landing information and settlement service use on the Government of Canada Open Data Portal, making key information on the initiative publicly available (ircc 2018). Moving forward, ircc is forging new data linkages with other governmental and provincial organizations, which will broaden the results information available and allow for deeper, more comprehensive research into key aspects of the Syrian refugees’ integration. Using these new data sources and other emerging results information, such as its 2018 settlement services client and non-client survey, ircc issued a report on the Syrian refugees’ integration outcomes in July 2019 (ircc 2019). With the Government of Canada’s initiative to make government data accessible to the public, current ircc statistical tables have been available on the Open Government Portal (Government of Canada 2019). *** While the multigenerational integration process takes time, as with previous refugee cohorts, it is anticipated that the majority of Syrian refugees and their children will ultimately succeed in their integration journeys, both in economic and social terms. The experience of transitioning to life in Canada is different for every newcomer and refugee group, and depends on a number of factors including educational and cultural background, skills, literacy levels, knowledge of official languages, and aspirations. While their journey has not been without hurdles and challenges, as outlined in this volume of chapters reporting the ircc/sshrc-funded project findings, many of the recently resettled Syrian refugees have been integrating in ways comparable to historical trends. Some are already giving back to the communities that welcomed them even as they continue to need community support and time to become fully accustomed to their new communities and adapt to an entirely new life in Canada. Some newcomers adapt to Canada quickly, but the reality is that others who are more vulnerable take longer. They require ongoing support and access to settlement programs, which are critical to ensuring their long-term success. Whether sponsored privately or by government, all refugees continue to have access to these federally funded settlement services until they become Canadian citizens.

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ircc’s unique, whole-of-society approach engages all Canadians, including recent and established cohorts of refugees and immigrants, in a continual act of welcoming newcomers and helping them transition to a new life in Canada. Canada’s consistent success in newcomer settlement and integration rests in this recurrent act of solidarity across generations, which, in turn, contributes to social cohesion and helps us all to become better citizens.

references Government of Canada. 2019. “Open Government Portal.” https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset?portal_type=dataset&q=ircc. ircc (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada). 2016. “Rapid Impact Evaluation of the Syrian Refugee Initiative.” https://www.canada .ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics /evaluations/rapid-impact-evaluation-syrian-refugee-initiative.html. – 2018. “Syrian Refugees – Monthly ircc Updates.” https://open.canada.ca /data/en/dataset/01c85d28-2a81-4295-9c06-4af792a7c209. – 2019. “Syrian Outcomes Report.” https://www.canada.ca/en/immigrationrefugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/evaluations/syrian-outcomes-report-2019.html. Statistics Canada. 2018. “Income and mobility of immigrants, 2016.” https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/181210/dq181210aeng.htm.

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Acknowledgments

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A collection of this nature represents the collective work of a very large community of scholars, research assistants, community activists, and practitioners, and we would like to thank all those who contributed for their commitment to seeing this through to completion. We were fortunate to receive multiple sources of funding to assist with the publication of this book, and we are grateful for the generous support of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (ircc), Pathways to Prosperity Research Partnership, the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Awards to Scholarly Publications Program. The editorial team at McGill-Queen’s University Press provided exceptional feedback and guidance throughout the publication process. Special thanks to Jacqueline Mason (Acquisitions Editor) and Kathleen Fraser (Managing Editor). We also wish to thank the two anonymous peer reviewers who gave us invaluable feedback on the manuscript, as well as Edwin Janzen, Zabeen Khamisa, and Diana Thomaz for their careful copyediting and Diana for her work on the index. We thank Ümit Kiziltan, Lorna Jantzen, David Kurfurst, Jessica Schafer, and many others at the Research and Evaluation branch of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (ircc). From the beginning, the team at ircc supported the book and worked with us to bring it to fruition. Finally, we are grateful to all of the people across Canada who were engaged in the resettlement of Syrian refugees from 2015 to 2018. Leah K. Hamilton, Calgary Luisa Veronis, Ottawa Margaret Walton-Roberts, Kitchener-Waterloo September 2019

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Note about the Cover

In seeking a cover for this book, we wanted something that would express the hope and optimism, for Syrian refugees, of permanent resettlement, rather than the horror of the war in Syria and the death and trauma of the Mediterranean Sea crossing. The artwork on this book’s cover was created by five grade 9 students in northern Ontario. We found the image on Northern Art Teacher, a website created by Colleen Rose, a visual arts teacher at Nipigon-Red Rock District High School in the township of Red Rock, 100 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.1 On her website, Colleen details how she worked with her students to explore the plight of refugees settling in Canada, and how she encouraged them to use art to examine and communicate their reactions to war, refugees, and trauma. We were interested in using this image because we believe it reflects the hope of resettlement, not the devastation of displacement. In addition, because such a large percentage of Syrian refugees who resettled in Canada were under 18, the idea of using art created by young people was appealing to us. As editors, we discussed the image: was it too optimistic? Did it reproduce a racialized vision of the “white saviour”? Was it too Pollyanna-ish? Did it unproblematically reproduce the very nationalist symbols that were at the root of the deviation caused by war? We debated the image and listened to our colleagues’ reactions to it. Responses were generally supportive of the image and the message of collaboration and support it communicated. As to the national symbols embedded in the image, we agreed that the conflict in Syria was a national civil war, and the book is titled A National Project. We cannot erase the damage done by civil wars and conflicts driven by nationalism, but we can commend national efforts to address the dev-

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astation, no matter how disproportionate to the crisis. In this regard, we are pleased that Colleen and her students from Nipigon-Red Rock District High School, in the Ontario township of Red Rock, have allowed us to use their image. We are grateful for their thoughtful reflections and for the contribution of their image to this record of Canada’s response to the conflict in Syria.

note 1 See: https://northernartteacher.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/studentsrespond-to-the-refugee-crisis-through-art/.

The Backstory

A NAT IONAL PROJECT

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2

On the House

INT RODU CT ION

A National Project: Exploring Canadian Exceptionalism in Refugee Resettlement Margaret Walton-Roberts, Luisa Veronis, and Leah K. Hamilton So I would say this is not a federal project, this is not even a government project, this is a national project that will involve all Canadians. John McCallum, former Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2015

introduction Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, over 5.6 million people have fled Syria and another 6.6 million continue to be internally displaced (unhcr 2018). Filippo Grandi, the unhcr High Commissioner for Refugees, declared that “Syria is the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time” (unhcr 2016). In this context, during the fall of 2015, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (cic), as it was known under the Conservative Party of Canada, was committed to resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next twelve months, but the government’s response was slow and reflected a “discourse of distrust” that it had developed in regard to refugee claimants (Carver 2016). The Harper government’s political discourse and their apparent reluctance to respond to the Syrian crisis was a major issue in the 2015 federal election, which the Liberal Party of Canada won. Sworn in to office in early November 2015, newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that, consistent with his election

36,708,083

528,817 152,021 953,869 759,655 8,394,034 14,193,384 1,338,109 1,163,925 4,286,134 4,817,160 38,459 44,520 37,996

2.4 6.4 6.1 4.6 13.7 29.1 18.3 10.5 21.2 28.3 12.6 9.0 2.6 21.90

Immigrants as % of population (2016 Census)

345 190 1,055 1,690 2,565 12,160 1,470 1,490 3,665 3,095 0 0 0 27,725

# Governmentassisted Syrian refugees (gars)

100 140 355 95 10,820 11,345 320 150 2,585 1,240 15 0 10 27,170

# Privately sponsored Syrian refugees (psrs)

125 40 305 230 20 2,745 265 150 460 615 10 5 5 4,985

# Blended Visa Office-Referred Syrian refugees (bvors)

Note: Numbers for Nunavut not recorded. Sources: https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/01c85d28-2a81-4295-9c06-4af792a7c209; https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-581-x/2018000/pop-eng.htm; https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/t001b-eng.htm

Newfoundland and Labrador Prince Edward Island Nova Scotia New Brunswick Québec Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan Alberta British Columbia Yukon Northwest Territories Nunavut Province/Territory not stated Total

Province/territory

Total cma population (2017)

Table 0.1 Number of Syrian refugee arrivals in each province/territory, by category (November 2015–September 2018)

570 370 1,715 2,015 13,405 26,250 2,050 1,790 6,705 4,950 25 5 15 59,875

Total Syrian refugees

4 Walton-Roberts, Veronis, Hamilton

Introduction

5

promise, Canada would resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2015. Moreover, reflecting Canada’s commitment to refugee assistance, cic was renamed Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (ircc). Under the resettlement initiative known as Operation Syrian Refugees, the federal government (led by ircc) resettled 26,172 Syrian refugees between 3 November 2015 and 29 February 2016 – that is, within 118 days of assuming office (Government of Canada 2017a). By January 2017, 40,081 Syrian refugees had been resettled across Canada (see Table 0.1). To put this in context, historically, Canada has resettled approximately 11,000–13,000 refugees per year. Although Canada has a long history of accepting refugees, even large cohorts, the only comparable event to Operation Syrian Refugees was more than thirty-five years earlier, with the arrival of 60,000 IndoChinese refugees in 1979–80 (Alboim 2016; Beiser 1999; Molloy et al. 2017). The chapters in this volume highlight some examples of how communities resettled Syrian refugees between late 2015 and early 2017. They illustrate a diverse range of refugee experiences based on geographic, demographic, and policy factors, and provide some promising strategies that may be adapted nationally and internationally in future mass refugee resettlement events. Despite Canada’s history and tradition of refugee resettlement, research on the issue is surprisingly limited, and rarely is the resettlement system itself examined in relation to local differences and histories of refugee resettlement and community building (Yu et al. 2007). This is important since the local context frames the nature and amount of resettlement resources available, shapes the process of resettlement and community integration, and thereby determines longterm settlement outcomes (Hyndman and Hynie 2016; Lanphier 1981; Sherrell et al. 2005). Key factors in resettlement, such as health services (Redwood-Campbell et al. 2003), language training (Hou and Beiser 2006), social support (Makwarimba et al. 2013; Simich et al. 2005), social capital and social networks (Carter and Osborne 2009; D’Addario et al. 2007; Lamba and Krahn 2003), housing (Rose 2016), education (Vatz Laaroussi 2016), and the openness of community (Esses et al. 2010) are all locally dependent. Rarely does analysis extend to incorporate elements of local settlement infrastructure as a whole, including contextual factors such as the nature of local governance, intersectoral support networks, and community collaboration. Moreover, previous literature is comprised primarily of case studies in gateway cities such as Toronto (Beiser and Hou 2000; Makwarimba et

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al. 2013). This imbalance in geographical focus is notable since Canada has developed a geographical dispersion refugee policy (cic 2001; McDonald et al. 2008). With a few exceptions, research has also tended to focus on the agency of refugees within the refugee system in gateways cities, rather than the structure of the refugee resettlement system itself (Simich 2003). Consequently, there is less research on how the architecture of local resettlement systems influences the actual resettlement process, and vice versa, especially outside of Canada’s largest cities.

the scope of canada’s syrian refugee resettlement initiative (srri) Every mass refugee resettlement event in which Canada has engaged differs in terms of the geopolitical factors causing displacement, the scale of international cooperation in addressing the issue, the national policy structures that direct the resettlement process, the nature of community receptivity that refugees encounter, and the sociodemographic composition of the refugees who arrive. In the case of those arriving through Operation Syrian Refugees, 54.6% were government-assisted refugees (gars), 35.6% were privately sponsored refugees (psrs), and 9.8% were Blended Visa Office–Referred refugees (bvors) (Government of Canada 2017a). gars were referred by the unhcr (or the Turkish Government), and were provided with resettlement services (e.g., accommodation, help finding employment, language classes, etc.) and income support for up to one year after arrival through the Government of Canada’s Resettlement Assistance Program (rap) (Government of Canada 2016b). Typically, an immigrant-serving agency (isa) at one of Canada’s official reception centres hosts the rap. In Quebec, the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration (mifi; formerly the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion, midi) administers the province’s rap equivalent, known as pro – Réussir l’immigration, Volet 2. The latter differs from the rap primarily to the extent that gars receive provincial social assistance payments whose sum equals that of the rap income support received in other provinces and territories. psrs were supported by a sponsorship group responsible for finding housing and other resettlement supports, and providing financial support for up to one year after arrival (or until the family becomes

Introduction

7

economically self-sufficient, whichever occurs first). bvors were unhcr-referred refugees who were eligible for settlement services (like all refugees), but not for the Resettlement Assistance Program. Their financial support is shared between the Government of Canada (six months) and private sponsors (six months) (Government of Canada 2017b). After their first year in Canada, all refugees continue to be eligible for settlement programs and services for several additional years. If they continue to need income support after the first twelve months, they can apply for provincial welfare programs, as with all low-income Canadians. They are also eligible for the Canada Child Benefit credit and Goods and Services Tax (gst) and other tax rebates. The demographic profile of Syrian refugees differed from other refugee arrivals historically resettled in Canada in that Syrians had larger family sizes: 40% had 4–6 family members, and another 9.8% had 7 or more (ircc 2016). Among gars specifically, 56.5% of Syrian refugee families had 4–6 members while 21.7% had 7 or more. These family sizes are significantly higher than other gars admitted between 2010 and 2014: 23.7% of gar families had 4–6 members while only 4% had 7 or more (ircc 2016). They also tended to have less formal education and were not familiar with either of Canada’s official languages (English and French); 60% of psrs spoke English compared to just 10% of gars (Munson and Ataullahjan 2016). This had implications for language training needs, with some Syrian refugees facing lengthy wait times for language classes. Roughly half of all Syrian refugees were minors under the age of 18 (ircc 2016). Among gars, 60% were minors, reaffirming how important Canada’s public education system is to the refugee resettlement and integration process, particularly for refugee youth who need to make an attachment to Canada during an important period in their personal and educational development (Munson and Ataullahjan 2016). The health needs of Syrian refugees were also notable considering the pressures on the health system in Syria and in major refugee-hosting countries in the region. Immunizations, dental, and mental health treatment were some of the key health concerns, especially since mental health challenges associated with pre-migration trauma may not fully appear until several months after arriving in Canada (Munson and Ataullahjan 2016). While there are some demographic features worth commenting on with regard to the Syrian refugees resettled in Canada under Operation Syrian Refugees, it is also important to recognize that those resettled represent a highly diverse group of individuals

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from a variety of religious (mostly Sunni and Shia Muslims, but also some Christians), ethnic (Kurds), socio-economic, linguistic, and educational backgrounds. In addition, individuals had varied exposure to pre-migration traumas and dramatically different resettlement experiences (e.g., some spent time in institutionalized accommodations such as refugee camps while others were settled in urban centres). The socio-cultural construction of a homogenous group of “Syrian refugees” is highly problematic, and one that the contributors to this collection address (see ch. 11 by Kyriakides et al.). Moreover, in addition to pre-migration differences, refugee experiences were also markedly different depending upon where they settled and under which refugee category they entered Canada (as many of the chapters in this collection detail).

canada’s immigration and resettlement policies In order to understand the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative (srri), it is important to take into consideration a number of particularities relating to the Canadian policy context. Immigration policy, including provisions relating to the selection and admission of refugees, is under the jurisdiction of the federal government, with newcomer settlement programs (i.e., the provision of services relating to orientation, language instruction, employment counselling, etc.) a shared federal-provincial/territorial responsibility. The situation differs in the case of Quebec, which under the Canada-Quebec Agreement signed in 1991 (Government of Canada 1991) has more control over the selection and admission of immigrants and refugees compared to other provinces and territories. One primary objective of this accord is to respect “the distinct identity of Quebec” (Government of Canada 1991, sec. 2) by preserving Quebec’s demographic and linguistic importance in Canada. Specifically, while falling within federal immigration categories, Quebec has more autonomy than other provinces or territories to decide on the number (quotas) of newcomers it admits and criteria relating to language proficiency (i.e., preference for French-speaking immigrants) (see Veronis 2013). Moreover, Quebec – in contrast to other provinces and territories – has sole jurisdiction over settlement programs (albeit with the transfer of federal funding), including settlement services and financial support for gars.

Introduction

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Canada has a unique model of newcomer settlement support. Historically, and throughout the twentieth century, charities and faithbased groups provided support to newcomers. With the adoption of multiculturalism as official policy in the 1970s, the Canadian government formally began to fund programs for newcomers and immigrants. This led to the development of a rich tapestry of service provider organizations (spos), including immigrant-serving agencies (isas) – non-profit, nongovernmental organizations specialized in immigrant settlement – along with faith-based services, healthcare providers, municipal services, and post-secondary institutions that assist with (re)settlement and integration. Increasingly, service provision occurs through a network of non-profit and for-profit providers in partnership with government (Shields et al. 2016). Working through this broad settlement sector network, the ircc Settlement Program aims to foster the successful social, cultural, civic, and economic integration of newcomers and refugees into Canadian society (Government of Canada 2018). ircc conceptualizes integration as a two-way process in which the government offers programs and supports to newcomers and refugees, and newcomers commit to adapt to life in Canada (Government of Canada 2018). Canada’s shared governance in immigrant integration reflects a whole-of-society approach, with provinces and territories as constitutional partners and other community stakeholders playing a key role (ircc 2016). ircc primarily funds five overarching, interconnected programs: needs assessments and referrals, information and orientation (beginning with pre-migration orientation), language training, employment programs, and programs that help newcomers connect with the broader host community (Government of Canada 2018). There are strict settlement service eligibility requirements; as it pertains specifically to refugees, only permanent residents of Canada, convention refugees, and protected persons outside Canada who have been selected for resettlement are eligible (Government of Canada 2018). While many settlement agencies/programs are located domestically, those that function primarily to support pre-departure services – such as the Canadian Orientation Abroad (coa) program operated by the International Organization for Migration – are located outside Canada. As explained above, settlement is a shared federal-provincial/territorial responsibility (except in Quebec), with each province/territory offering its own settlement and integration programs catered to the specific needs of its newcomer and refugee populations. This includes an

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array of services – orientation and assistance with immediate needs (healthcare, education, housing), as well as language instruction, employment-related services, and other specialized services targeting the diverse needs of newcomers (Bushell and Shields 2018; Praznik and Shields 2018). Settlement programs vary in nature and scope – including eligibility criteria – depending on whether they are funded federally or provincially/territorially, as well as between provinces and territories. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that state policies and funding regimes for newcomer settlement supports have undergone a variety of changes over time. Most notably, the 1990s marked the beginning of significant restructuring for the settlement sector with the adoption of New Management Techniques (nmt) based on neoliberal principles meant to increase efficiency and output through “leaner” approaches (Lowe et al. 2017). These changes significantly altered the landscape of settlement service provision, including changes to funding provisions (a move away from stable “core” funding to short-term, project-based funding, cutbacks, and smaller pools of funding), increased competition between settlement organizations, and requirements for collaborations and partnerships, among other things. While this process of restructuring has been ongoing for over two decades, Harper’s Conservative government (2006–15) further altered funding regimes for isas with the adoption of austerity measures. Although funding remained relatively stable in terms of absolute amounts, significant changes in the allocation of funding created instability and precarity in the settlement sector (Lowe et al. 2017). Moreover, under the Conservative government a number of changes to funding and service provisions for asylum seekers and refugees occurred. For instance, in 2012 the Conservative government reduced federally funded refugee healthcare benefits, effectively eliminating all supplemental health benefits (e.g., vision, dental, prescription medications) and medical coverage for refugee claimants (except in cases of a public health concern). The Federal Court found these cutbacks unconstitutional, and the Liberal government reinstated, and ultimately expanded, health coverage for refugees, although some concerns remain regarding equitable access to healthcare for refugees (Antonipillai et al. 2018). The timing of Canada’s srri thus coincided with a settlement sector that had endured many years of cutbacks under the Conservative government. When the Liberals formed government in the fall of

Introduction

11

2015 and rapidly decided to resettle one of the largest cohorts of refugee arrivals in recent history, many settlement organizations were functioning with limited human and financial capital. In the context of these precarious conditions, the settlement sector faced the additional challenge of rapidly responding to ircc’s humanitarian effort to resettle a complex cohort of vulnerable refugees. Despite these challenges, the settlement sector came together with stakeholders from a variety of areas – including civil society groups, sponsors, community volunteers, and the private sector – to resettle Syrian families across the country. The contributors to this volume document part of this story.

purpose and structure of this collection Objectives of the Collection This edited collection has three overarching objectives. First, it documents Canada’s experience with Operation Syrian Refugees. It does this by including the perspective of various actors (including Syrian refugees themselves), regions, and communities (large or small, urban or rural). The collection offers a record of Canada’s legacy in refugee resettlement that will be of immediate interest in Canada and internationally. The second objective is more conceptual in nature: to bring forth and highlight the involvement and dynamic interplay between various structures, actors, and processes at work, and their role in shaping refugee resettlement response and experiences. As a whole, the collection provides a more holistic approach to the study of refugee resettlement than is currently available in the existing literature. Specifically, it offers a systems view that will help to illuminate the complex relationships between structures, actors, and processes as embedded in specific places and contexts across Canada. Third, through its examination of the many dimensions of refugee resettlement (from service provision, housing, and communication technologies to sponsorship programs, community mobilization, structures of local resettlement, and innovative practices), the collection offers important insights into what did and did not work, and why. Based on a close analysis of the many lessons learned and challenges faced during this unique resettlement experience, the individual chapters and the book as a whole suggest areas where things worked and did not, areas that demand improvement, and

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promising approaches that could be adapted elsewhere in Canada or overseas. The volume targets three primary audiences: (1) academics and graduate students researching migration and settlement; (2) policy makers in Canada and other immigrant- and refugee-receiving countries; and (3) practitioners, including both service providers and front-line workers who deliver services to refugees in resettlement contexts. We detail how this collection will be of interest to these diverse groups below. First, given its interdisciplinary approach to the Syrian refugee resettlement and its broad range of empirical, methodological, and conceptual insights, this edited volume will appeal to migration scholars from diverse disciplinary perspectives (e.g., anthropology, communication, economics, education, geography, health sciences, information studies, migration studies, political science, psychology, public policy, social work, and sociology). Second, this collection will be of great interest to policy makers in Canada and other migration-receiving countries. Throughout the book, broad policy implications are discussed that can inform the development of evidence-based immigration policies in response to current and future migration opportunities and challenges. In the chapters presented, public policy researchers and students will encounter policy case studies, which will contribute to comparative and ongoing research in policy areas of refugee resettlement and integration challenges in many domains, including health, education, housing, the labour market, and communication technology, among others. Third, this edited volume will appeal to practitioners who develop and implement settlement programs and services for newcomers and refugees, and those involved in public engagement linked to refugee and immigrant settlement. The collection includes several chapters in which leading migration scholars collaborate with practitioners to develop rigorous research that articulates key lessons learned through Canada’s rapid resettlement of Syrian refugees in multiple areas of critical importance, including: information provision, education, housing, healthcare (including mental health needs), community mobilization, and resettlement in smaller cities and rural areas. A Note on the Preparation of This Collection As Canadians responded to the challenge of rapidly resettling more than 40,000 Syrian refugees, in 2016 the Social Sciences and Human-

Introduction

13

ities Research Council (sshrc, one of Canada’s three federal research funding agencies) partnered with ircc to award twenty-seven rapidresponse, targeted grants examining different dimensions of the Syrian refugee arrival, resettlement, and integration experience (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council 2016). This multidisciplinary edited collection features twelve of these projects (plus one funded solely by ircc) exploring several dimensions of the Syrian refugee resettlement process, including refugees’ own perspectives on their experiences with relocation and resettlement, as well as community mobilization, response, and experience with the resettlement initiative across Canada. Findings from the majority of these sshrc/irccfunded projects were presented at the National Metropolis Conference, held in Montreal in March 2017. A number of the projects were also featured in a series of workshops that one of the co-editors of this collection organized at the Pathways to Prosperity (p2p) National Conference in Toronto in November 2017. ircc officials were interested in collating the research findings, and, because of networks forged at these conferences by this volume’s co-editors, the goal of preparing an edited collection and recruiting contributing authors emerged. The co-editors circulated a call for chapters among all of the grantees from the rapid-response evaluation call. As a result, leading migration scholars from a wide range of disciplines, as well as practitioners and community actors working directly with Syrian refugees, became contributors to this collection. Given their central role in the srri and their leadership in making the call for proposals upon which this collection is based, we requested that ircc contribute a foreword for the volume. Furthermore, ircc provided funding to support the publication of this edited collection, as did the Pathways to Prosperity Research Partnership, the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and Wilfrid Laurier University. ircc played no role in the editorial process. The co-editors, working independently with the contributors in preparing the chapters, were responsible for guiding the book’s production. Each chapter went through several rounds of internal review and revision led by the co-editors prior to submission of the manuscript for single-blind external evaluation by two peer reviewers. Following this, the coeditors worked with chapter contributors on a second round of revisions to ensure that authors addressed the external reviewers’ comments and suggestions.

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Research Paradigms Featured in the Collection Projects featured in this edited volume consist of methodologically diverse approaches, including community-engaged research projects that co-create knowledge with stakeholders directly involved in the resettlement of Syrian refugees, primarily isas. The objectives of each project are therefore heterogeneous, from documenting novel practices in resettlement (e.g., social media use, community mobilizing), the involvement of a diverse range of players, raising ethical issues (e.g., sponsor-sponsored relationships), and evaluating resettlement processes (e.g., rap services, community governance), to giving voice to refugees and shedding light on their pressing needs (e.g., housing, healthcare). Taken as a whole, the chapters in this collection capture the voices of multiple stakeholders in refugee resettlement, effectively reflecting ircc’s whole-of-society approach to settlement and integration (Prince-St-Amand 2016). The majority of the chapters are based on interviews and focus groups with Syrian refugees (including men, women, parents, youth, gars, bvors, and psrs), and these are complemented by narratives from other key informants. This includes settlement workers, schoolteachers and administrators, representatives from settlement organizations and Local Immigration Partnerships, and leaders from community and municipal governments, as well as sponsors and community volunteers who assisted with resettlement efforts. Triangulating across these various perspectives creates a more fulsome understanding of, and engagement with, the contrasting perspectives and actors involved in this “national project.” Conducting research with refugees presents many ethical complexities (Clark-Kazak 2017). In addition to working closely with Arabicspeaking interpreters, many of the contributors’ research teams included research assistants with expertise in refugee resettlement and/or who originated from the region and were cultural brokers on the projects. These research assistants helped to build trust between researchers and local Syrian refugee communities. Despite their efforts to create inclusive research teams, contributors faced challenges pertaining to participant recruitment, attrition, and the intensive resources required to conduct community-based research. Contributors were also required to exercise sensitivity to contexts involving unequal power relations (e.g., between refugees and sponsors, or refugees and service providers) (Clark-Kazak 2017), and to ensure participants were given information about resources and sup-

Introduction

15

ports in the community. Ultimately, the projects featured in this book add to the growing conversation about how to address the methodological and ethical challenges of conducting research with vulnerable groups such as refugees. Structure of the Collection The book is organized into two main parts: Part 1 focuses on the perspectives of Syrian refugees, while Part 2 examines the Syrian refugee resettlement context. Each part is divided into two subsections, which facilitate the examination of contrasting perspectives, actors, and regions. Section 1A covers Syrian refugees’ experiences with resettlement, reception, and integration, and begins by addressing key issues related to refugees’ access to information during resettlement (see ch. 1: Esses et al.). It explores the types of information that Syrian refugees seek pre- and post-arrival, and promising strategies on how to optimize the provision of information to refugees. Next, Drolet et al. (ch. 2) report on the challenges Syrian refugees faced during the resettlement process, including suggestions for fostering resilience through trauma-informed practice. Following this is an in-depth examination of the interplay among self-perceived mental and physical health, unmet health needs, and integration (see ch. 3: Tuck et al.). The chapters in this section highlight the importance of understanding the service needs of refugees and how service delivery systems are organized. Linked to this, the chapters highlight how building strong partnerships between service providers, other refugee support systems, and refugees themselves is central to long-term integration. To different degrees, the chapters also offer suggestions regarding how to improve service delivery models so that they empower recipients. The second subsection (1B) focuses specifically on the perspectives and experiences of Syrian refugee children, youth, and families – demographic groups that are highly represented among this cohort of refugees and whose long-term resettlement success is vital to their families’, and Canada’s, long-term interests. Stewart and El Chaar (ch. 4) use a multi-ecological perspective to investigate the unique educational, psychosocial, and mental health needs of Syrian refugee children and youth. Milkie and colleagues (ch. 5) investigate Syrian refugee mothers’ post-migration parenting stressors, and the social and personal resources that may ameliorate these strains. Next, Ahmed and colleagues (ch. 6) further examine how Syrian refugee

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youth use social media as a platform to seek and share various forms of social support, including accessing resettlement information, and to share their own resettlement experiences. The themes examined in this subsection address the main challenges children, youth, and parents may experience in the early stages of resettlement. In addition, they address resources that can help during resettlement, including the use of social media to access information and support, and to connect with family members back home; the importance of felt support from others in the local community; and ensuring effective training for educators to support refugee youth. By examining the interconnected systems and supports that impact Syrian refugee children, youth, and families during the resettlement process, these authors identify the current processes in place and the need for further capacitybuilding among stakeholders involved in refugee resettlement. To complement the focus on refugee perspectives and experiences, the second part of the book sheds light on the role of context, and of local factors, processes, and stakeholders, in shaping the Syrian refugee resettlement response. Here the lens of analysis shifts from the refugee families and their immediate service needs toward the wider infrastructures and contexts of support available in the diverse communities across Canada that participated in the srri. Subsection 2A places emphasis on the role, experiences, and perspectives of civil society and communities, including settlement agencies and non-profit organizations, sponsors, community groups, and volunteers mobilizing across various Canadian regions. One theme linking these chapters is the interplay between various dimensions of the local structural context (e.g., community structure and capacity, housing, institutional landscapes, local governance responsiveness, the nature of sponsorship models, etc.) in influencing resettlement experiences. This section opens with an important discussion on Canadian youth in non-gateway cities and their perceptions of the srri (ch. 7: Baker and Hamilton). This chapter gives voice to important concerns expressed by the public related to equity and social policy during the srri. For example, concerns over differential treatment of refugees and low-income Canadians and the level of demand placed on local health and housing systems reveal the importance of understanding refugee policy as part of a larger social policy framework wherein equality in service access and the quality of services delivered are perennial matters of political concern. Rose and Charette (ch. 8) echo these concerns and offer a detailed account of the experiences of hous-

Introduction

17

ing Syrian refugees across thirteen Canadian cities, some of which had only recently become designated as official refugee resettlement centres. They detail how agencies responsible for housing gars were under extreme duress during the srri, since some resettlement communities already suffered from an acute lack of low-income housing units, and the private rental market was not well oriented to serving the needs of large and complex family units. Despite these challenges, the settlement sector was effective in resettling families, in part through the support of community volunteers and supportive landlords, but also by developing a number of key strategies that could be useful in future resettlement situations. The next chapter examines different aspects of the private refugee sponsorship model, a Canadian policy that has garnered significant international interest (Minsky 2016). Blain et al. (ch. 9) conducted interviews with both privately sponsored refugees and sponsors in Montreal. Their findings reveal the heterogeneity of the experiences of both sponsors and sponsored refugees, but also the importance of understanding how expectations of the sponsorship model framed both groups’ experiences. Walton-Roberts and colleagues (ch. 10) close this section by shedding light on the process of community mobilization in support of the srri in a comparative study of three mid-sized cities in Ontario: Hamilton, Ottawa, and Waterloo Region. They reveal how local histories of welcoming refugees and building community responsibility became capacity-building narratives to mobilize support and build a positive receptive context. Drawing on the geographer Doreen Massey’s (1993) idea of a “progressive sense of place,” they demonstrate the importance of understanding how the resettlement initiative was facilitated by, and productive of, changes in the nature of place and community for those involved in the resettlement process. While many of the abovementioned chapters examine these experiences in Canada’s main gateway cities (Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver) as well as other large urban areas (Ottawa, Calgary), the subsection 2B documents the experiences of rural areas and smaller urban centres across Canada. Kyriakides et al. (ch. 11) provide a compelling account of how rural settings (in Ontario) shape refugee resettlement efforts and experiences. In particular, they demonstrate how tensions relating to the arrival of refugees are negotiated among members of local communities given their smaller size and the importance of spaces of daily community interaction, such as coffee shops and

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community meeting places. The next two studies are set in Atlantic Canada, which has been experiencing demographic decline relative to other regions in Canada, and which traditionally receives only small numbers of refugees. Belkhodja’s study (ch. 12) provides a close analysis of the experience of the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Moncton, New Brunswick. Through interviews with multiple stakeholders (community organizations, government officials, sponsors, and community volunteers), he explains the challenges experienced in this smaller city and examines the development of a community governance model for refugee resettlement. Last, Fang et al.’s study (ch. 13) investigates the factors that influenced Syrian refugees’ experiences in St John’s, Newfoundland, especially their decisions to stay rather than leave. The immense geographical variability of Syrian resettlement across Canada emerges through these chapters and demonstrates how regional contexts shape how societies and their civic leaders perceive and respond to refugee resettlement based on the particular set of demographic and socio-economic challenges they face. The experience of British Columbia with the srri is somewhat less represented among the chapters in this volume, but interested readers may consult existing available research on Syrian resettlement processes and experiences (issofbc 2016, 2018).

intersecting themes The chapters in this collection offer varied disciplinary and regional perspectives, but a number of significant themes emerge across the contributions, revealing important factors regarding the success of the srri and offering points of analysis for considering future mass refugee resettlement events. These themes include: resettlement and integration challenges and feelings of loss; representations of refugees; refugee resettlement and Canadian social policy issues; the importance of collaboration, innovation, and new practices in refugee resettlement; uneven geography of resettlement and immigration as a form of regional and economic development; and the context of reception and civic engagement. Resettlement and Integration Challenges and Feelings of Loss Like other forcibly displaced persons, Syrian refugees experienced significant losses throughout the resettlement process. In addition to the

Introduction

19

physical destruction of homes, neighbourhoods, and communities in Syria, these refugees faced emotional losses such as the loss of and separation from immediate and extended family members and friends. Separation from extended family and friends was made more difficult by well-founded fears associated with the safety and wellbeing of those left behind (see ch. 4: Stewart and El Chaar). Milkie and colleagues (ch. 5) explain how many Syrian refugee mothers experienced a dismantling of cherished family structures and relationships. Transitioning to a more “nuclear” family structure exacerbated their sense of grief, together with increased anxiety over losing their language and culture as they and their children integrated into Canadian society. Both of these chapters discuss how changing family dynamics and parenting practices can create conflict between parents and youth (Losoncz 2016). Several projects featured in the current volume found that access to the Internet, cell phones, and social media were a vital source of support for Syrian refugees (see ch. 1: Esses et al.; ch. 5: Milkie et al.; and ch. 6: Ahmed et al.). Staying connected to extended family and friends in Syria and those resettled in other countries provides a crucial sense of connection and emotional support. Of equal importance for social integration was connecting to Canadians (including sponsors), other refugee groups, and other Syrian refugees in Canada. As discussed below (see “Representations of Refugees”), social media played a key role in Canada’s national response to Syrian refugee resettlement. This began when increasing media attention to the civil war in Syria captured the Canadian public’s attention. As awareness and support for Syrian refugees grew among many Canadians, politicians took note, and resettling a (relatively) large number of Syrian refugees was a 2015 electoral promise of the Liberal Party of Canada. In addition to fostering positive public attitudes toward resettling Syrian refugees, social media became a key tool for Syrian refugees at various stages in their resettlement. New technologies such as social media were a primary source of resettlement information for many Syrian refugees (see ch. 1: Esses et al.). Syrian refugees’ use of social media to share their resettlement experiences and challenges and to seek social and emotional support was of equal importance (see ch. 6: Ahmed et al.). As social media becomes increasingly ubiquitous, technological developments will have implications for settlement service delivery models and outcomes. On the one hand, social media may alleviate potential strains on the settlement sector (e.g., basic informational

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needs, such as understanding transit systems, can be resolved through social media use). On the other hand, careful attention to the potential downsides of social media use is also necessary (e.g., inaccurate information, lack of in-person social connections). As technologies continue to advance, policy makers will need to consider how to balance the use of emerging technologies in resettlement (from online pre-arrival information/mentorship to post-arrival emotional support) with funding programs that foster in-person connections to both refugees and host community members. There are also potential downsides evident in the most celebrated of Canadian refugee policies, the private refugee sponsorship program. Blain et al. (ch. 9) reveal the complexities embedded in the psr program with which Canada has become aligned and some of its negative dimensions. Despite regulations that prohibit refugees providing funds to their sponsorship groups, Blain and colleagues detail the existence of one such case, also reported in the media (Lynch and Ghalia 2016). Indeed, ircc’s own evaluation of the srri found that 4.1% of surveyed psrs paid someone either to complete their sponsorship application before they came to Canada or to provide for their support while in Canada. Of this group, 50% said they paid their sponsor, 25% paid an immigration consultant, and 7.1% paid family or friends in Canada (ircc 2016). Such transactional features of private refugee resettlement raise necessary concerns about the potential to profit from the refugee process and about perpetuating inequities among refugees. In their own evaluation of the resettlement programs for refugees, ircc itself has indicated that greater monitoring of the sponsorship program is needed (Government of Canada 2016a). As ircc explains (see the Foreword in this volume), understanding the effectiveness of the srri is important. In part, this involves evaluating the integration of Syrian refugees over time. The integration of newcomers and refugees is conceptualized as a multidimensional process that unfolds over many years and is affected by public policies, the resettlement sector, and many other stakeholders (Joppke and Seidle 2012). Integration into different spheres – economic, social, and political – is complex and interconnected. As Tuck and colleagues explain (ch. 3), Syrian refugees typically reported high levels of physical and mental health early in the resettlement process, including high levels of social support and perceptions of Canadians as welcoming (see also ch. 2: Drolet et al.). That said, reports of unaffordable housing (see also ch. 8: Rose and Charette), unmet dental needs, and

Introduction

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unmet health needs were common. Some Syrian refugees experienced other stressors, such as discrimination, during their resettlement process (ch. 2: Drolet et al.; ch. 11: Kyriakides et al.), and failures in the sponsorship process (ch. 9: Blain et al.). Highlighting the interwoven nature of the various dimensions of integration, socio-economic stressors (difficulty finding a job, difficulty finding affordable and appropriate housing, lack of social networks) are associated with lower selfperceived mental health and unmet health needs (ch. 3: Tuck et al.). We must understand these challenges and failures in the resettlement process in light of broader issues such as the representations and perceptions of refugees among various groups in Canada. Representations of Refugees A major theme in forced migration and refugee studies relates to the representation of refugees in academic work, as well as in the media, and in political and public discourse. In particular, critical approaches reveal a tendency toward a dichotomous portrayal of refugees either as passive victims lacking agency and in need of or deserving humanitarian assistance, or as undeserving either because they are “bogus refugees” or are seen as exercising too much agency (“self-rescue”) or presenting a threat (i.e., terrorists) (Tyler 2018; Winter et al. 2018). While either of these portrayals is problematic for multiple reasons, there is further concern with the material and policy impacts these may have for refugees and refugee policy – ranging from paternalistic policies that disempower refugees to anti-immigrant sentiment that may manifest in direct violence and state closure of asylum processes. In the case of the Syrian conflict and ensuing exodus, media coverage played an important role – especially in 2015, with ongoing images of a “migrant crisis” in the Mediterranean, which played a complex role in influencing the response of the international community (Triandafyllidou 2018). On the one hand, it probably fed into anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric that has been mounting in various countries in Europe (e.g., Hungary) and North America (e.g., the United States). On the other hand, media coverage also raised public outrage and expressions of solidarity and support, which in a number of cases translated into significant awareness of refugee needs. Such was the impact in Canada. As these images went viral, many Canadians from coast to coast mobilized and organized a range of initiatives to assist Syrian refugees specifically. Moreover, as the 2015 fed-

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eral election was underway, the Canadian public put pressure on governments and the issue became a significant item on the electoral platform of the Liberal Party of Canada, ultimately leading to the srri following their victory. The language used by the Liberal Party (and the media) throughout the srri was exceedingly positive, incorporating the hashtag #WelcomeRefugees (Government of Canada 2017a) and drawing on images of Canada’s inclusive, multicultural identity. Evidence suggests that the Canadian government’s welcoming stance on Syrian refugees led to more positive public attitudes toward refugees (Gaucher et al. 2018). As Walton-Roberts et al. show (ch. 10), media images and representations of refugees can exert a strong social and moral influence, leading to both community mobilization and policy change. Furthermore, they demonstrate how positive narratives of place and a history of welcoming refugees can become a foundation around which to build support for specific policy initiatives such as the srri. Yet, other chapters offer important insights into the existence of tensions between the diverse representations and perceptions of refugees among various groups in Canada and how these may be negotiated (Kyriakides et al. 2018). Stewart and El Chaar (ch. 4) raise the issue of stereotypes of refugees as victims who lack agency or who come from poor countries that are underdeveloped, and how these representations of refugees are problematic. Specifically, they show that different people, including those in the support system working with refugees (e.g., teachers, settlement workers, volunteers, etc.), all have different levels of knowledge about who the refugees are, what they experienced, and where they are coming from, with implications for developing ethical relationships in service provision. Focusing on a different group, Baker and Hamilton (ch. 7) explain that Canadian white youths’ representations and perceptions of their friends’ and families’ responses to the srri are shaped by broader concerns about social equity and redistribution, the more so if they live in a region with limited economic opportunities. In contrast, Kyriakides et al. (ch. 11) address differences in representation and perception of refugees in urban and rural areas. In their study on the experiences of a small, rural Ontario community, they explain how antagonistic views (i.e., those in support of refugee resettlement versus those opposed to it) are expressed and managed, eventually being deflected and diffused in ways that are less feasible in the more “anonymous” environments of larger urban centres. Issues of representations of refugees

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also feature in Blain et al. (ch. 9), who point out the paradox of defining and selecting refugees in terms of their vulnerability (fleeing war, conflict, or persecution) (unhcr 2011), and then expecting their fulsome integration into all spheres of Canadian life along a trajectory similar to newcomers from other immigration categories (e.g., economic migrants). This research on issues relating to the representation of refugees indicates the importance of understanding how settlement and integration approaches and outcomes interact with the larger social policy landscape. Refugee Resettlement and Canadian Social Policy Issues The research presented in the current volume highlights the critical need to address structural barriers to refugee integration by understanding the entire resettlement ecosystem as part of a larger social policy landscape. By positioning refugee resettlement as a social policy issue, we engage in the debate regarding the public good that society gains from social investment (Jenson and Saint-Martin 2003). Canada has made an international commitment to meet its obligation to resettle refugees, and, in so doing, the resulting resettlement process must be one that yields the most positive benefits possible for the country. Language proficiency is a perfect example of this, since proficiency in an official language is critical to all dimensions of integration (Delander et al. 2005; Remennick 2004); yet, some Syrian refugees experienced lengthy wait times when trying to access (advanced) English-language classes (ch. 1: Esses et al.). Delays in language acquisition can create a bottleneck in the integration process, as many refugees wait to begin their job search until they have completed language classes. Thus, ensuring that new refugee arrivals have access to language classes is an investment and a critical pathway for economic and social integration. Just as the settlement sector struggled to provide language training to large numbers of Syrian refugees (particularly after experiencing budget cuts under Harper’s Conservative government), local housing markets were challenged to accommodate record numbers of large refugee families in a very short timeframe (ch. 8: Rose and Charette). Housing was one area in which the federal government was careful to avoid any perception of providing special awards for refugees (especially in month 13). Sensitive to how broadly housing affordability affects Canadians as a social policy issue, the federal government took

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measures to avoid the appearance of unfairness to Canadian welfare recipients. As is common for low-income Canadians, the childcare benefit became part of the income used to pay rent, and Syrian refugees also benefitted from the Welcome Fund for Syrian Refugees. In some provinces (e.g., Alberta), legislative changes at the provincial level (e.g., child tax benefits not counting as “income”) had major implications for where Syrian refugees were placed on social housing waitlists. Positioning refugee resettlement policy as part of a strong national social protection framework is necessary to maintaining public support for refugee resettlement. For example, as housing prices in Canada continue to rise, and affordable housing becomes increasingly scarce – particularly in large urban centres – there is a need to develop permanent policy solutions. This could include rent geared to income and more affordable housing units for large and multigenerational families, which would facilitate refugees’ and other low-income Canadians’ access to affordable, appropriate housing in close proximity to necessary services (ch. 8: Rose and Charette). The ethical concerns regarding the differential treatment of refugees, low-income Canadians, and Indigenous communities are apparent in several chapters in the collection, but especially in the case of housing (ch. 8: Rose and Charette) and financial support (ch. 7: Baker and Hamilton). Concerns about equity were also apparent within the refugee community. Some refugees expressed the concern that, compared to refugees from other countries, both the government and the settlement sector treated Syrian refugees preferentially. Some also cited concerns over “luck of draw” policy decisions that had significant financial implications for some Syrian refugees and not for others (see ch. 10: Walton-Roberts et al.). For example, Canada waived the travel loan for Syrian refugees who arrived between 4 November 2015 and 29 February 2016, but not outside of these times and not for other refugees. Such policy decisions created the impression of a “two-tier” refugee system, which undermines the morale of frontline workers and sponsors, as well as refugees themselves (Munson and Ataullahjan 2016). For refugee resettlement policies to meet their objectives, public support is essential. Thus, it is important to monitor social policy inequalities, and perceptions of those inequalities, within and between refugee and newcomer groups, low-income Canadians, Indigenous persons, and other historically disadvantaged groups. The Canadian government must be careful to maintain public support for

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refugees and refugee policies; this is highly relevant in cases where private sponsors have to wait years for the arrival of the sponsored refugees they have committed, personally and financially, to support. Policy decisions have to keep the public on side in such cases, and examples of differential or preferential treatment in some refugee cases can cause greater damage than might be expected (Munson and Ataullahjan 2016). While fostering positive public attitudes toward refugees is essential to the success of resettlement initiatives (Esses et al. 2017), spaces for civil public discourse and disagreement also must be developed and protected (see ch. 11: Kyriakides et al.; see also Ahad and BanulescuBogdan 2019). Refugee resettlement policy must have a public education component if the policy is to remain one that attracts the support of the majority of Canadians. Indeed, Ahad and Banulescu-Bogdan (2019) suggest that, when constructing their communications about refugee integration, governments emphasize a whole-of-society approach that does not prioritize certain social groups over others. Importance of Collaboration, Innovation, and New Practices in Refugee Resettlement A key theme emerging from many of the chapters included in this collection relates to the importance of collaboration among a range of stakeholders (governments, non-profit sector, private sector, citizens) and across multiple sectors (settlement, health, education, housing, employment, community building, etc.) during the srri. Overall, the research findings underline the significance of collaboration and partnership building as an essential framework not only for emergency response to refugee resettlement but also for immigrant settlement and integration more broadly. Because Canada continues to rely on immigration for demographic and economic growth, (re)settlement is a truly national project. Further, these chapters detail numerous innovations and new refugee resettlement practices that can be drawn upon – by practitioners, policy makers, politicians, the media, civil society, and the public at large. These practices may serve not only to improve and strengthen settlement service provision but also to create communities that are better prepared, more welcoming, and more inclusive, and which thus may better leverage and benefit from the arrival of refugees and newcomers in general. Esses et al. (ch. 1) explain the role and importance of providing refugees with relevant information in an

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adequate format and in a timely fashion. Based on their findings from London, Ontario, and Calgary, Alberta, they offer many useful recommendations for innovative information provision practices, such as bringing information directly to refugees in the community, particularly women with large families. Among other things, consideration of new communication technologies such as the Internet and social media is clearly an important avenue to help make information more accessible (see also ch. 6: Ahmed et al.). Yet, as both ch. 1 and ch. 6 indicate, innovation in this area will require collaboration among funders, policy makers, service providers, and users (and probably experts in education and communication technologies) to develop the bestquality and most-useful tools for information provision. Other areas where collaboration is essential include housing, education, and health. Rose and Charette’s findings (ch. 8) reveal the various strategies that rap agencies have developed to meet refugees’ housing needs, such as establishing information networks and contacts with landlords and the broader community. Nevertheless, significant issues relating to a lack of affordable and adequate housing affect Canadian society as a whole; ultimately, we need to address the housing issue collectively, as a society, including the design and implementation of a national housing policy. Such an endeavour will require the participation and collaboration of multiple stakeholders: all three levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and citizens. When it comes to education, Stewart and El Chaar (ch. 4) discuss the need for more training for stakeholders (e.g., teachers, language instructors, mental health practitioners) working in the systems that interact with refugee students and families. More specifically, they stress the significance of multisectoral partnerships that involve all stakeholders – educators as well as settlement workers, healthcare workers, and other social service providers – in ensuring the longterm support that refugee children and their parents need to succeed in their new society. Stewart and El Chaar explain how, in working with Syrian refugee children and youth, elementary and high school educators navigated complex issues including: the effects of premigration trauma (on mental health), language acquisition, preparing students for post-secondary education and the labour market, strained family relationships, and challenges with social integration. Educators addressed these complex challenges with little to no training on how to provide support to youth who had experienced trauma. The chapters by Drolet et al. (ch. 2) and Tuck et al. (ch. 3) further underline the

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need for collaborative approaches to address the complex dimensions of health and mental health, and how communication between all service providers, as well as holistic interventions, are essential to provide adequate support to refugees and ensure both their wellbeing and successful resettlement. From a broader perspective, a number of chapters – especially those by Belkhodja (ch. 12) on the experience of the City of Moncton, New Brunswick, and by Walton-Roberts et al. (ch. 10) on three mid-sized cities in Ontario – highlight the degree of community collaboration and mobilization that took place during the srri, thus making this event possible. As noted above, this was a truly local community effort involving a multiplicity of stakeholders; moreover, this reality was evident nationally. The research in this volume serves to bolster the power of community organizing and the many forms it can take, thus giving credence to a “community governance” framework (Belkhodja, ch. 12) and building a progressive sense of place (Walton-Roberts et al., ch. 10) for refugee resettlement. These chapters suggest interesting notions of intersectional community building and civic engagement (connection across and between multiple axes of difference), for example, the Moncton case of francophone Maghreb students connecting with Syrian newcomers through the Arabic language. Many innovations and new practices came out of these experiences of community collaboration – innovations as diverse as the communities themselves, from the participation of non-traditional stakeholders (e.g., the chief of the fire department in Moncton), to the creation of special coordination bodies (e.g., Refugee 613 in Ottawa), to new volunteer management models. More specific aspects of collaboration emerge in other chapters. For example, Blain et al. (ch. 9) shed light on the unique dynamics that characterized the collaborative efforts of the people and organizations involved in the private sponsorship models, including groups of individuals who decided to take on the responsibility of becoming sponsors, the sponsor-sponsored relationship, and the key role of sponsorship organizations. Despite their best intentions, sponsors varied in their ability to navigate the complexities inherent in refugee resettlement, underscoring the necessity of linking privately sponsored refugees into existing resettlement support systems. To this end, fostering collaborations between sponsors and the refugee resettlement sector more broadly is critical. Kyriakides et al. (ch. 11) and Fang et al. (ch. 13) also reveal the importance of collaboration in their studies of smaller urban areas and rural con-

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texts, where refugee resettlement becomes everybody’s business. In such small communities with less experience in refugee resettlement, and due to a paucity of knowledgeable stakeholders and resources, collaboration is paramount. Uneven Geographies of Resettlement and Immigration as a Form of Regional and Economic Development The fact that Syrian refugees resettled across almost all of Canada’s provinces and territories supports the claim made by then immigration minister John McCallum that this was a national project. This initiative was not only a project for Canada’s gateway cities. Refugees were dispersed across the country to official resettlement communities and were sponsored by groups of Canadians from the Atlantic Ocean on the Bay of Fundy (McGregor 2017), to the Beaches in Toronto (Beach Metro 2015), to Moose Jaw on the Saskatchewan prairie (CBC News 2016), to Whistler in the mountains of British Columbia (Gill 2018). While large urban centres, such as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, took in the largest absolute number of Syrian refugees, mid-sized cities like London, Ontario, and Trois-Rivières, Quebec, had the highest per-capita rate. The diversity of settlement sites undergirds the idea of the srri as a national project, but the long-term retention and settlement of refugees in these communities will depend upon the nature of the economic and social integration they experience. How well will families be able to settle if they cannot find employment or appropriate support networks? Local services that meet refugee needs are vital, and private sponsors provide important social networks needed to promote effective settlement and longterm retention; however, mobility is the right of those who have become permanent residents of Canada, and this is a vital aspect of individual agency. The agency of refugees that Kyriakides et al. (ch. 11) discuss may well result in a challenge for remote and rural communities, if refugees who arrived there move elsewhere in search of better opportunities. This is precisely the issue that Fang et al. (ch. 13) contemplate as a risk for Newfoundland. Time will tell how the eventual dispersion of the Syrian refugees of 2015–16 will map itself out; but one of the justifications for settling refugee families in diverse communities across Canada was framed, in part, by an interest in contributing to demographic and economic development (for example, see Belkjodja, ch. 12). In some cases, communities’ direct engagement

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with psrs yielded an added benefit of serving local labour market needs. For example, Jim Estill, the ceo of Danby Appliances in Guelph, Ontario, sponsored fifty-eight families from Syria with the help of the Guelph community; through his company, he has provided employment, along with English classes, for many Syrian refugees. Estill’s rationale for supporting Syrian refugee families is rooted in his belief that these individuals find work rapidly and make a lasting contribution to Canadian society (Mann 2016). Behind many of the debates about refugee resettlement is the reality that immigration and refugee policy serves economic growth and demographic policy in Canada (Ley and Hiebert 2001). Immigration policy remains intimately tied to the reality of Canada as a settler nation and the ongoing dispossession experienced by Indigenous Canadians (Banting and Kymlicka 2010; Chazan et al. 2011), and thus the resettlement of Syrian refugees is inescapably part of the larger demographic puzzle in which Canada has long engaged: immigration and the building of a multicultural society (Bricker and Ibbitson 2019). While there may be some dispute about how large Canada’s population needs to be and what role immigration should play in it (see, for example, Romaniuk 2017; and Beaujot 2017), currently there is general public support for the continuation of Canada’s immigrant and refugee policy (Hiebert 2016). In this regard, the resettlement of nearly 40,000 Syrian refugees across Canada can be seen as part of a longer demographic practice of regionalizing the settlement of newcomers to Canada, partly to “share the burden” (Sherrel et al. 2005), but also to share the potential wealth. Indeed, statistical analysis of the educational outcomes and incomes of the children of immigrants shows that the children of refugees are a resilient group: they fair better than the children of family and live-in caregiver immigrants, and, the younger they are when they arrive, the better they do in terms of education and income (Hou and Bonikowska 2016). Data also suggest that refugee earnings are slightly higher in Canada than in Sweden (Bevelander and Pendakur 2014) and that psrs have relatively good earning outcomes, especially over the short run (Sweetman and Warman 2013). Analysis of the economic contributions made by refugees (see the Conclusion in this volume) and the relative success of their children matters not only in terms of understanding the long-term economic consequences of refugee resettlement policy, but also has implications for public attitudes toward refugees, and for the context of reception. Refugee policy is the humanitarian pillar of Canada’s

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larger immigration program, but this does not mean that economic and demographic outcomes linked to the settlement of refugees belong in a void. The reality of maintaining public support for refugee resettlement policy demands both a moral empathy and responsibility for the conditions of life that fellow humans endure, but also a recognition that refugees, with the right assistance, will become productive members of Canada’s social, economic, and political fabric. Context of Reception and Civic Engagement As mentioned above, members of the Canadian public from coast to coast mobilized in support of the plight of Syrian refugees and their resettlement in Canada. Moreover, while ircc was responsible for and orchestrated the processing and arrival of refugees to Canada, the resettlement effort post-arrival fell to local communities (WaltonRoberts et al. 2019). As with any significant resettlement effort, the local context of reception – its capacity, level of preparation, engagement, and resilience – played a key role not only for meeting the immediate resettlement needs of Syrian refugees, but also in paving the way for their successful integration in the medium and longer terms. For most cities and regions, in spite of having little time to prepare for the rapid arrival of refugees in numbers significantly above the typical annual rate, the presence of experienced settlement support networks – coupled with tremendous civic engagement – meant that an unprecedented level of community mobilization made this resettlement initiative possible. Several chapters in this volume document this experience and provide detailed accounts of how the effort played out in a variety of local contexts. Belkhodja (ch. 12), for example, provides a vivid account of the level of mobilization and the role of a range of local stakeholders (municipal government, settlement agencies, schools, sponsors, volunteers) in Moncton, New Brunswick. In the process, he explains that this city, which traditionally received a small number of refugees each year, had to undergo a significant shift to a “community governance” model for resettlement whereby all local actors participated – effectively a scaled-down version of the whole-of-society approach. Kyriakides et al. (ch. 11) offer a similar account, but with a focus on a rural community in Ontario where support for the srri had to be negotiated more openly between those in favour versus those opposed to the arrival of refugees. Through a

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range of initiatives – e.g., town hall meetings, conversations in public spaces such as cafes – local sponsors were able to garner support. With regard to negotiating attitudes toward the srri, Baker and Hamilton (ch. 7) provide a different lens by examining how relatively lowincome white Canadian youth in a smaller community (St John’s, Newfoundland) perceived responses to the resettlement effort. This chapter reveals the importance of communication and of maintaining a sense of social equity among all communities to build local engagement and buy-in. In their chapter, Walton-Roberts et al. (ch. 10) shift the focus to the importance of community capacity, including how communities – in this case three mid-sized cities in Ontario – managed to build positive narratives using local histories of refugee welcome as part of the mobilization and engagement process. They demonstrate that such narratives and positive images play a key role in contributing to creating progressive places open to receiving refugees. Also, on the subject of community capacity, Rose and Charette (ch. 8) address more specifically the issue of housing and how local stakeholders – especially rap holders, but also with the help of landlords, volunteers, and other community actors – managed to meet this important refugee need. Thus, while noting a number of challenges and stresses, these chapters shed light on the importance of local context and civic engagement in the srri, and the diverse experiences and forms of community mobilizing that took place across the country in support of it.

conclusion Through their diverse approaches to the study of the srri, the chapters in this volume describe how Syrian refugees resettled across Canada in 2015–17. Drawn together through a funding call from sshrc and ircc, scholars, in collaboration with practitioners, focused on what was effectively a natural experiment, the rapid resettlement of more than 40,000 Syrian refugees across Canada, in communities large and small, and using diverse policy instruments that integrated communities, groups, and individuals directly into the process of refugee reception and resettlement. The resulting research highlights the experiences of the Syrian refugees themselves, as well as other essential actors, regions, and communities across the country. The authors of the chapters in this volume illustrate the complex, dynamic ways in which resettlement structures and communities responded

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during the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Despite the diversity of experiences, we have identified six overarching themes among these contributions. First, we examine resettlement and integration challenges and the feelings of loss that refugees experience in order to reflect the importance of taking stock of resettlement processes. Second, we describe how representations of refugees interact with the broader social policy context to impact community mobilization and responses to refugee resettlement. Third, we describe the importance of understanding refugee resettlement in the context of broader Canadian social policy issues, and we argue that matters of equity and fairness within social policy practices will be crucial to maintaining the level of national support that Canada’s refugee system currently experiences. Fourth, we explain the importance of collaboration, innovation, and new practices in refugee resettlement, which emerged as an important concern both in terms of innovative approaches developed during the srri and of the shortcomings that necessitate the development of further improvements. Fifth, we describe the uneven geography of resettlement and immigration as a form of regional and economic development. Sixth, the context of reception and civic engagement is examined, fulfilling our argument that the resettlement context as a whole is rarely the target of critical analysis and assessment. Through a holistic examination of Canada’s successes, challenges, and promising practices during the srri, important lessons may be learned and shared. Yet, future refugee cohorts will most likely come from other regions of the world that have faced varied political, social, and environmental causes of displacement. These arrivals will have their own, unique demographic profiles and different pre-migration experiences, and thus will have differing resettlement needs and integration challenges. When adapting and creating new resettlement policies and programs, we must consider these complex factors in light of political will, public attitudes, and discourse, and evolving local, national, and international contexts of reception. Ultimately, the current edited collection sheds light on Canada’s largest resettlement effort in over thirty-five years – the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative – a significant event in Canada’s immigration history that involved Canadians across the country and was truly a national project offering many important lessons.

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Carter, Thomas S., and John Osborne. 2009. “Housing and Neighbourhood Challenges of Refugee Resettlement in Declining Inner City Neighbourhoods: A Winnipeg Case Study.” Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 7 (3): 308–27. doi:10.1080/15562940903150097. Carver, Peter J. 2016. “A Failed Discourse of Distrust Amid Significant Procedural Change: The Harper Government’s Legacy in Immigration and Refugee Law.” Review of Constitutional Studies 21 (1): 209–34. cbc News. 2016. “Saskatchewan’s Welcomed 1,094 Syrian Refugees, Government says.” cbc News, 1 March. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada /saskatchewan/1094-syrian-refugees-saskatchewan-1.3471906. Chazan, May, Lisa Helps, Anna Stanley, and Sonali Thakkar, eds. 2011. Home and Native Land: Unsettling Multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines. cic (Citizenship and Immigration Canada). 2001. Towards a More Balanced Geographic Distribution of Immigrants. Strategic Research and Review. Ottawa: cic. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/Ci51-1092002E.pdf. Clark-Kazak, Christina. 2017. “Ethical Considerations: Research with People in Situations of Forced Migration.” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 33 (2): 11–17. D’Addario, Silvia, Dan Hiebert, and Kathy Sherrell. 2007. “Restricted Access: The Role of Social Capital in Mitigating Absolute Homelessness Among Immigrants and Refugees in the gvrd.” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 24 (1): 107–15. Delander, Lennart, Mats Hammarstedt, Jonas Månsson, and Erik Nyberg. 2005. “Integration of Immigrants: The Role of Language Proficiency and Experience.” Evaluation Review 29 (1): 24–41. Esses, Victoria M., Leah K. Hamilton, and Danielle Gaucher. 2017. “The Global Refugee Crisis: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications for Improving Public Attitudes and Facilitating Refugee Resettlement.” Social Issues and Policy Review 11 (1): 78–123. Esses, Victoria M., Leah K. Hamilton, Caroline Bennett-AbuAyyash, and Meyer Burstein. 2010. Characteristics of a Welcoming Community. Prepared on behalf of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Integration Branch. Ottawa: cic. Gaucher, Danielle, Justin P. Friesen, Katelin H.S. Neufeld, and Victoria M. Esses. 2018. “Changes in the Positivity of Migrant Stereotype Content: How System Sanctioned Pro-Migrant Ideology Can Affect Public Opinions of Migrants.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 9 (2): 223–33. Gill, Robin. 2018. “From War to Waiting in Airport to Whistler, bc: Syrian

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Refugee Starts Over.” Global News video, 2:04, 29 November. https://global news.ca/video/4713910/from-war-to-waiting-in-airport-to-whistler-bc-syrian-refugee-starts-over. Government of Canada. 1991. “Canada-Quebec Accord relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens.” Ottawa: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/immi gration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operationalinstructions-agreements/agreements/federal-provincial-territorial/quebec /canada-quebec-accord-relating-immigration-temporary-admissionaliens.html. – 2016a. “Evaluation of the Resettlement Programs (gar, psr, bvor, and rap).” Ottawa: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate /reports-statistics/evaluations/resettlement-programs.html. – 2016b. “Government-Assisted Refugees Program.” Ottawa: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en /immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/help-outsidecanada/government-assisted-refugee-program.html. – 2017a. “#WelcomeRefugees: Key figures.” Ottawa: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugeescitizenship/services/refugees/welcome-syrian-refugees/key-figures.html. – 2017b. “Internal Audit of Operation Syrian Refugees Identification and Processing.” Ottawa: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate /reports-statistics/audits/operation-syrian-refugees-identificationprocessing.html. – 2018. “Program Terms and Conditions: Settlement Program.” Ottawa: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. https://www.canada.ca /en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/transparency/programterms-conditions.html. Hiebert, Daniel. 2016. What’s So Special about Canada? Understanding the Resilience of Immigration and Multiculturalism. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/whats-so-special-about-canadaunderstanding-resilience-immigration-and-multiculturalism. Hou, Feng, and Morton Beiser. 2006. “Learning the Language of a New Country: A Ten-Year Study of English Acquisition by South-East Asian Refugees in Canada.” International Migration 44 (1): 135–65. doi:10.1111 /j.1468-2435.2006.00358.x. Hou, Feng, and Aneta Bonikowska. 2016. Educational and Labour Market Outcomes of Childhood Immigrants by Admission Class. Analytical Studies

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Branch Research Paper Series. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. http://www .immigration.ca/images/pdf/11f0019m2016377-eng.pdf. Hyndman, Jennifer, and Michaela Hynie. 2016. “From Newcomer to Canadian: Making Refugee Integration Work.” Policy Options, 17 May. http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2016/from-newcomer-tocanadian-making-refugee-integration-work/. ircc (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada). 2016. Rapid Impact Evaluation of the Syrian Refugee Initiative. Ottawa: ircc, Evaluation Division. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/english /resources/evaluation/pdf/evaluation-syrian-refugee-initiative.pdf. issofbc (Immigrant Services Society of bc). 2016. Syrian Refugee Operation to British Columbia: One Year In – A Roadmap to Integration and Citizenship. December 2016. https://surreylip.ca/sites/default/files/ISSofBC %20Syrian%20Refugee%20Operation%20to%20British%20Columbia _final.pdf. – 2018. Syrian Refugee Operation to bc: Taking Stock Two Years after Arrival. May 2018. https://issbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ISSofBCOperation-Syrian-Refugees-Taking-Stock-Two-Years-After-Arrival-May-152018.pdf. Jenson, Jane, and Denis Saint-Martin. 2003. “New Routes to Social Cohesion? Citizenship and the Social Investment State.” Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie 28 (1): 77–99. Joppke, Christian, and F. Leslie Seidle. 2012. Immigrant Integration in Federal Countries. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Kyriakides, Christopher, Lubna Bajjali, Arthur McLuhan, and Karen Anderson. 2018. “Beyond Refuge: Contested Orientalism and Persons of SelfRescue.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 50 (2): 59–78. Lamba, Navjot K., and Harvey Krahn. 2003. “Social Capital and Refugee Resettlement: The Social Networks of Refugees in Canada.” Journal of International Migration and Integration/Revue de L’integration et de la Migration Internationale 4 (3): 335–60. doi: 10.1007/s12134-003-1025-z. Lanphier, Michael C. 1981. “Canada’s Response to Refugees.” International Migration Review 15 (1–2): 113–30. doi:10.2307/2545331. Ley, David, and Daniel Hiebert. 2001. “Immigration Policy as Population Policy.” Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien 45 (1): 120–5. Losoncz, Ibolya. 2016. “Finding Better Ways to Support Resettled Refugee Families: Dealing with Intergenerational Conflict.” In Children of Forced Migration, edited by Marisa Ensor and Elżbieta M. Goździak, 272–93. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-40691-6_12. Lowe, Sophie, Ted Richmond, and John Shields. 2017. “Settling on Austerity:

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isas, Immigrant Communities, and Neoliberal Restructuring.” Alternate Routes 28: 14–46. Lynch, Laura, and Ghalia Bdiwe. 2016. “Some immigration consultants violating rules of private refugee sponsorship program.” cbc News, 19 April. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/immigration-consultants-refugeeprogram-1.3535899. Mann, Mark. 2016. “The Man Who Saved 200 Refugees.” Toronto Life, 20 December. https://torontolife.com/city/life/jim-estill-the-man-who-saved200-syrian-refugees/. Makwarimba, Edward, Miriam Stewart, Laura Simich, Knox Makumbe, Edward Shizha, and Sharon Anderson. 2013. “Sudanese and Somali Refugees in Canada: Social Support Needs and Preferences.” International Migration 51 (5): 106–19. doi:10.1111/imig.12116. Massey, Doreen. 1993. “Power-geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place.” In Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, edited by John Bird, Barry Curtis, Tim Putnam, and Lisa Tickner, 60–70. London: Routledge. McCallum, John. 2015. “Speaking Notes for the Honourable John McCallum, P.C., M.P., Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship at an Announcement on Canada’s Plan to Resettle 25,000 Syrian Refugees” (speech). Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada. Government of Canada. 24 November. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugeescitizenship/news/2015/11/speaking-notes-for-the-honourable-johnmccallum-p-c-m-p-minister-of-immigration-refugees-and-citizenship-atan-announcement-on-canada-s-plan-to-resettle-25-000-syrian-refugees .html. McDonald, Brooke, Sandy Gifford, Kim Webster, John Wiseman, and Sue Casey. 2008. Refugee Resettlement in Regional and Rural Victoria: Impacts and Policy Issues. Melbourne: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. http://library.bsl.org.au/jspui/bitstream/1/977/1/RefugeeResettlement_Re port_Mar08.pdf. McGregor, Phlis. 2017. “Syrians find comfort – and work – in rural Nova Scotia: five Syrian refugees have found work at Oxford Frozen Foods.” CBC News, 27 January. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/syrian-newcomers-agriculture-jobs-cumberland-county-1.3955400. Minsky, Amy. 2016. “Why Canada’s private sponsorship refugee system is a model for the world: expert.” Global News, 25 December. https://global news.ca/news/3143282/canada-private-sponsorship-refugees/. Molloy, Michael J., Peter Duschinsky, Kurt F. Jensen, and Robert Shalka. 2017. Running on Empty: Canada and the Indochinese Refugees, 1975–1980. Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Munson, Jim, Hon., and Hon. Salma Ataullahjan. 2016. Finding Refuge in Canada: A Syrian Resettlement Story. Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. Ottawa: Senate of Canada. https://sencanada.ca /content/sen/committee/421/RIDR/Reports/RIDR_RPT_SyrianResettlem ent_FINAL_E.pdf. Praznik, Jessica, and John Shields. 2018. An Anatomy of Settlement Services in Canada: A Guide. Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada/Immigration et Résilience en Milieu Urbaine (bmrc-imru). Toronto: York University and Ryerson University. http://bmrc-irmu.info.yorku.ca/files/2018/07/AnAnatomy-of-Settlement-Services-in-Canada_BMRCIMRU.pdf. Prince-St-Amand, Corinne. 2016. “Immigrant Integration in Canada: A whole-of-society approach to help newcomers succeed.” Presented at the Pathways to Prosperity Conference, 1–2 December 2016. Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada. http://p2pcanada.ca/wp-content /blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/Corinne-Prince-ENG-p2p1026.pdf. Redwood-Campbell, Lynda, Nancy Fowler, Janusz Kaczorowski, Elizabeth Molinaro, Susan Robinson, Michelle Howard, and Morteza Jafarpour. 2003. “How Are New Refugees Doing in Canada? Comparison of the Health and Settlement of the Kosovars and Czech Roma.” Canadian Journal of Public Health/Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique 94 (5): 381–5. Remennick, Larissa. 2004. “Language Acquisition, Ethnicity and Social Integration Among Former Soviet Immigrants of the 1990s in Israel.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 27 (3): 431–54. Romaniuk, Anatole. 2017. “Stationary Population, Immigration, Social Cohesion, and National Identity: What Are the Links and the Policy Implications? With Special attention to Canada: A Demographer’s Point of View.” Canadian Studies in Population 44 (3–4): 165–78. Rose, Damaris. 2016. “Affordable housing for refugees is a major challenge.” Policy Options, 20 May. http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may2016/affordable-housing-for-refugees-is-a-major-challenge/. Sherrel, Kathy, Jennifer Hyndman, and Fisnik Preniqi. 2005. “Sharing the Wealth, Spreading the ‘Burden’? The Settlement of Kosovar Refugees in Smaller British Columbia cities.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 37 (3): 76–96. Shields, John, Julie Drolet, and Karla Valenzuela. 2016. Immigrant Settlement and Integration Services and the Role of Nonprofit Service Providers: A Crossnational Perspective on Trends, Issues and Evidence. Toronto: Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement. https://www.ryerson.ca/content/dam /rcis/documents/RCIS%20WP%202016_01%20Shields%20et%20al %20final.pdf. Simich, Laura. 2003. “Negotiating Boundaries of Refugee Resettlement: A

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Study of Settlement Patterns and Social Support.” Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie 40 (5): 575–91. doi:10.1111 /j.1755-618X.2003.tb00006.x. Simich, Laura, Morton Beiser, Miriam Stewart, and Edward Mwakarimba. 2005. “Providing Social Support for Immigrants and Refugees in Canada: Challenges and Directions.” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 7 (4): 259–68. doi:10.1007/s10903-005-5123-1. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (sshrc). 2016. “Targeted Research: Syrian Refugee Arrival, Resettlement and Integration. June 2016 Competition Awards.” Last modified 3 October 2016. http://www .sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/results-resultats/recipients-recipiendaires/2016/syrian _refugee-refugie_syrien-eng.aspx. Sweetman, Arthur, and Casey Warman. 2013. “Canada’s Immigration Selection System and Labour Market Outcomes.” Canadian Public Policy 39 (1S): S141–S164. Triandafyllidou, Anna. 2018. “A ‘Refugee Crisis’ Unfolding: ‘Real’ Events and their Interpretation in Media and Political Debates.” Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 16 (1–2): 198–216. Tyler, Imogen. 2018. “The Hieroglyphics of the Border: Racial Stigma in Neoliberal Europe.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 41 (10): 1783–801. Vatz Laaroussi, Michèle. 2016. “Les réfugiés et l’accueil scolaire.’’ Policy Options, 19 May. http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2016/lesrefugies-et-laccueil-scolaire/. unhcr (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). 2011. The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. Geneva: unhcr. http://www.unhcr.org/about-us/background/4ec262df9/1951convention-relating-status-refugees-its-1967-protocol.html. – 2016. “Syria conflict at 5 years: the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time demands a huge surge in solidarity.” https://www.unhcr.org /news/press/2016/3/56e6e3249/syria-conflict-5-years-biggest-refugeedisplacement-crisis-time-demands.html. – 2018. “Syria Emergency.” https://www.unhcr.org/syria-emergency.html. Veronis, Luisa. 2013. “The Border and Immigrants in Ottawa-Gatineau: Governance Practices and the (Re)Production of a Dual Canadian Citizenship.” Journal of Borderlands Studies 28 (2): 257–71. Walton-Roberts, Margaret, Luisa Veronis, Sarah Wayland, Huyen Dam, and Blair Cullen. 2019. “Syrian Refugee Resettlement and the Role of Local Immigration Partnerships in Ontario, Canada.” Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien (Fall). doi: 10.1111/cag.12561. Winter, Elke, Anke Patzelt, and Mélanie Beauregard. 2018. “L’Imaginaire

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National, l’Asile et les Réfugiés Syriens en Allemagne et au Canada: Une Analyse Discursive.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 50 (2): 15–34. Yu, Soojin, Estelle Ouellet, and Angelyn Warmington. 2007. “Refugee Integration in Canada: A Survey of Empirical Evidence and Existing Services.” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 24 (2): 17–34.

The Backstory

PA RT I

Perspectives of Syrian Refugees

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On the House

PA RT IA

Syrian Refugees’ Experiences with Resettlement, Reception, and Integration

1 The Right Information at the Right Time: Optimizing the Provision of Information to Facilitate the Settlement and Integration of Refugees in Canada Victoria M. Esses, Leah K. Hamilton, Mohammed El Hazzouri, Alina Sutter, Bailey McCafferty, and Ajit Pyati, in partnership with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, the London Cross Cultural Learner Centre, and the South London Neighbourhood Resource Centre

introduction Between November 2015 and January 2017, 40,881 Syrian refugees arrived in Canada (ircc 2017). Torn from their country of origin, these refugees face challenges in arriving in a new country and making a new life for themselves. It is essential that their settlement and integration process is successful, not only for their own wellbeing but for Canadian society in general. Poor settlement and integration outcomes for this high-profile group of refugees are likely to influence Canadians’ views of refugees more generally and to have the potential for conflict and strife – between refugees and established Canadians, between refugee groups, and between established Canadians who are more and less supportive of Canada’s refugee policy (Esses et al. 2017; 2019). As a result, strategies for optimizing the success of Syrian refugee resettlement in Canada are of high priority. In addition, we suggest that successful strategies identified for Syrian refugee resettlement can be generalized beyond Syrian refugees to refugee resettlement in Canada more generally.

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In this chapter, we draw on theory and research from the field of Information Science on information practices and behaviour (e.g., Caidi and Allard 2005; Caidi et al. 2010; Fisher and Julien 2009), and from Psychology on communication and persuasion (e.g., Miller 2005; Perloff 2010), to examine the information needs of Syrian refugees prior to arrival and in Canada, and strategies for meeting these needs. Working closely with community partners in London, Ontario, and Calgary, Alberta, we conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants from organizations that provide information and services to refugees, and focus groups with Syrian refugees in these two locations. In this way, we were able to determine the types of information Syrian refugees seek pre- and post-arrival; the barriers they face in obtaining this information; their primary sources of information; and strategies that can be used to most effectively support these refugees in obtaining the information they require. This chapter will be of interest to social scientists interested in models of communication and information provision, and those specifically interested in refugee and immigrant information and settlementservice needs and provision. It will also be of considerable interest to policy makers and practitioners who provide information to refugees pre- and post-arrival in Canada, and those more generally working in the area of refugee resettlement.

information provision and refugee resettlement Previous research has shown that the provision of information is fundamental to facilitating refugees’ settlement and integration into Canadian society (Caidi and Allard 2005; Caidi et al. 2010; Esses 2016; Esses and Medianu 2012). Information facilitates access to and use of settlement and other services, assists refugees in their navigation of the Canadian system (including in such sectors as health, education, and employment), promotes realistic expectations of what refugees will face upon arrival in Canada, and fosters knowledge about the Canadian way of life. It allows refugees to make informed decisions regarding their own welfare and that of their families. Research conducted in Alberta and other locations in Western Canada several years ago demonstrated, however, that substantial proportions of refugees were not receiving sufficient information to facilitate their settlement and integration in Canada, and were not taking

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advantage of settlement services offered by the federal and provincial governments because of a mismatch between the provision of information and refugees’ information-seeking behaviour and information needs (Esses et al. 2012; 2013). This lack of information can significantly compromise refugees’ settlement and integration in Canada. While the lack of information is an issue for all categories of immigrants, refugees are particularly likely to be affected by a lack of information because their migration is a forced rather than a voluntary process, often leaving them with little time and resources for prior planning and information-seeking (Esses 2016; see also ch. 11, Kyriakides et al.). In the case of Syrian refugees arriving between late 2015 and early 2017, the process was further expedited, with large numbers of Syrians receiving refugee status in a relatively short period of time (ircc 2017), resulting in even less time for prior planning, information seeking, and information provision. Though there is a modest literature on the information needs, sources, and practices of immigrants in general (e.g., Caidi et al. 2010), there is a dearth of research on the specific information needs of refugees and how best to fill these. The aim of this chapter is to describe research addressing this gap in the literature. Though the characteristics of Syrian refugees and the nature of their arrival in Canada may differentiate them from other groups of refugees, by understanding how best to provide information to Syrian refugees we may also extract lessons for information provision to other groups of refugees arriving in Canada, particularly those who arrive in a short time span and under duress. We define information needs as the advice and knowledge that newcomers seek and require in order to settle and integrate in the receiving society. According to the model of information behaviour, information needs stipulate information-seeking behaviour (Wilson 1999). Once information is found and used satisfactorily, an information need is met. However, when no information is, or can be, found or when the information found does not satisfy the information need, further information-seeking behaviour is required. This raises the question of what determines whether the provision of information is successful or not. First, one has to establish the information needs of individuals and groups, and ensure that there is a match between the needed information and the provided information. Second, one has to find the most effective way to provide the needed information. Research has identified several factors that con-

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tribute to efficient information provision to newcomers. The model of information provision and use by newcomers (Esses and Medianu 2012) argues that the provision of information can be conceptualized as a form of persuasive communication designed to induce certain attitudes and behaviours that are meant to help newcomers with their settlement and integration into the receiving society. From this perspective, the successful provision of information is determined by three aspects of a persuasive communication: (1) the source of the message (e.g., a credible source such as an official government website or a settlement worker) and the context in which it is being provided (e.g., timing of the information and the location in which the information is provided); (2) the format and content of the message (e.g., is the information provided in Arabic or English/French; is the information explained through videos, images, and/or text; is the information easy to understand); and (3) the target of the message (e.g., the age and gender of the information recipient; how long the information recipient has been in Canada). The model emphasizes that all three factors and their interactions have to be examined in order to develop information strategies that are most likely to be well utilized and effective. Overall, this model suggests that in order to help Syrian refugees (and refugees in general) settle and integrate into Canadian society, it is important to understand what their information needs are, the role of context (e.g., timing, location), what their preferred sources for information are, and what their preferred formats for receiving information are. Furthermore, it is also important to investigate whether Syrian refugees’ information needs, preferred sources of information, and preferred formats for information provision differ depending on their characteristics, such as their gender or whether they are government-assisted or privately sponsored. In this context, we describe research that aimed to answer the following specific questions: (1) What types of information do Syrian refugees seek pre-arrival, immediately upon arrival, and in the longer term? (2) What barriers do Syrian refugees face in obtaining this information? (3) What are Syrian refugees’ most common and preferred information sources and information-seeking pathways, and what role do new technologies and social media play (see ch. 6: Ahmed et al.)? (4) How do Syrian refugees’ information needs differ as a function of key personal characteristics (e.g., gender, government-assisted versus privately sponsored)? and (5) What strategies can government

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Table 1.1 Number of Syrian refugee arrivals in London and Calgary, by category (November 2015–January 2017)

Location

London, on Calgary, ab

Immigrants as % of population (2016)

#Syrian gars

521,756

22%

1,250

428

75

1,753

1,488,841

28%

926

989

117

2,032

Total cma population (2017)

#Syrian psrs

#Syrian bvors

Total Syrian refugees

Sources: ircc 2017; Statistics Canada 2018.

departments and community organizations use to most effectively support Syrian refugees in obtaining needed information?

methodology To answer these questions, we conducted a two-part study. The first part consisted of semi-structured interviews with key informants responsible for providing information to Syrian refugees in London, Ontario, and Calgary, Alberta. The second part consisted of focus groups with government-assisted and privately sponsored Syrian refugees in these two locations. We selected London and Calgary as the locations for this research because of the relatively large number of Syrian refugees who had been resettled in these two cities. We also sought to include a larger and a smaller community in two different provinces that have received both government-assisted and privately sponsored refugees (as well as lower numbers of Blended Visa Office– Referred refugees, or bvors; see table 1.1). Government-assisted refugees (gars) are refugees who are assisted by the Government of Canada or the Government of Quebec during their initial resettlement in Canada; privately sponsored refugees (psrs) are refugees who are assisted by a group of volunteers during their initial resettlement in Canada; and bvors are refugees who are assisted partly by the Government of Canada and partly by a group of volunteers during their initial resettlement in Canada. The project partners in London – the South London Neighbourhood Resource Centre and the London Cross Cultural Learner Cen-

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tre – and in Calgary – the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society and the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association – participated in all phases of the research, including identifying key informants for interviews, helping to recruit participants for and organize the focus groups, and providing feedback on the analyses of results. Interviews and Focus Groups In early 2017, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 key informants (12 in London and 11 in Calgary) responsible for providing information and services to Syrian refugees. The key informants had diverse roles and responsibilities with respect to providing information and services to Syrian refugees, including resettlement coordinators and counsellors, case managers, settlement workers in schools, housing coordinators, employment and youth counsellors, and coordinators for special programs designed for Syrian refugees. For the interviews, we developed scripts that included central questions and follow-up probes. The questions focused on the strategies used to provide information to Syrian refugees, the types of information that seem to be most needed by Syrian refugees pre- and postarrival, barriers to providing this information, barriers to reaching particular groups of Syrian refugees, and strategies used to overcome these barriers. The key informant interviews generally lasted 60 to 90 minutes. In the spring and summer of 2017, 148 Syrian refugees participated in 10 focus groups in London (n=80) and nine focus groups in Calgary (n=68). Participants were recruited with the help of the project partners. The sample consisted of 70 women and 78 men, with an age range of 18 to 75 years; most participants (87%) were married with children. The majority of focus groups consisted of 7 to 10 participants. Separate focus groups were conducted depending on participants’ gender and, where possible, refugee status (gar versus psr). Approximately two-thirds of the sample were gars and one-third psrs. The average length of time in Canada was 12.4 months (range of 1 to 20 months). Consecutive interpretation (Arabic to English) was used during the focus groups, which lasted 60 to 120 minutes. The focus groups were semi-structured and based on central questions along with follow-up probes. The questions focused on the sources, format, and content of information that Syrian refugees would find useful to receive pre- and post-arrival in Canada. In par-

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ticular, the questions asked Syrian refugees where they were most likely to seek information; what specific topics of information they would like to have had before and after they arrived in Canada; how best to inform them about where to obtain this information; and how to provide the information to them so that this information would be most accessible and useful. The Syrian refugees were also asked about information barriers they encountered before and after arriving in Canada, and about potential strategies for overcoming these barriers. Following the discussions, the Syrian refugees were also asked to provide some demographic information about themselves. Analysis of Themes Detailed notes were taken and audio recordings conducted during the interviews and focus groups. To identify the main themes covered during the key informant interviews, two coders first independently reviewed the interview notes and audio recordings from both locations, and then together determined the main themes by consensus. In order to identify the main themes covered in the focus groups, two coders reviewed the notes taken during the focus groups and the audio recordings from both locations and compiled a list of themes. Each coder then independently rated the strength of the themes across all focus groups on a scale from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong). To identify the final list of themes, only themes rated 4 or 5 by at least one of the coders were selected. Following this determination, for each focus group the two coders judged independently whether each of the final themes was present in that group discussion. Inter-rater reliability was high. Although the audio recordings were not translated in full, representative quotes were selected in Arabic from the audio recordings and translated into English.

results General Insights about Information Needs and Provision Generally speaking, the Syrian refugees had very little information pre-arrival. Typically, they reported that they knew which documents to bring with them to Canada and that they would be safe in Canada; gars knew that they would receive government funding for one year. Importantly, unlike other refugees, many Syrian refugees had not par-

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ticipated in the full Canadian Orientation Abroad Program implemented by the International Organization for Migration (iom). Thus, they were especially likely to receive information about life in Canada from family, friends, and other refugees already living in Canada. The key informants in both cities indicated that this information was not always accurate and tended to foster unrealistically high expectations about resettling in Canada. In part due to the limited pre-arrival information received, Syrian refugees had extensive information needs upon their arrival in Canada. First, according to the key informants, Syrian refugees needed basic information about day-to-day living in Canada (e.g., the garbage/recycling system, dressing for Canadian winters) and Canadian norms (e.g., appropriate noise levels in apartment buildings, upkeep of property). For government-assisted Syrian refugees living in resettlement/reception centres, case workers spent time explaining to families many details about the dwellings in which they would live, including how to use the appliances, heating system, and other housing features. At the same time, Syrian refugees also needed information about how to access and register for services, including language classes. Additionally, they needed information on a range of topics including housing, transit, healthcare, enrolling children in school, Canadian laws and norms about the treatment of children and youth, rights and responsibilities, and budgeting. More details about the priority information needs as indicated by the refugees themselves are provided below. In response to these needs, immediately upon arrival and during their first six weeks in Canada, many Syrian refugees were given an overwhelming amount of information. This was particularly the case for gars who receive services through providers of Resettlement Assistance Programs (rap). One of the key informants in London stated, “They need to be given the right dose of information at the right time”; otherwise information retention is low. Many of the Syrians who participated in the focus groups in both cities confirmed that too much information was provided in too short a time, that they were distracted by basic concerns when they first arrived in Canada and, as a result, retained very little of the information provided early on.

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Primary Information Needs Identified in the Focus Groups Nine primary information needs were identified in at least 50% of the focus groups with the Syrian refugees. Table 1.2 describes these information needs, including the percentage of focus groups in which these needs were mentioned, and a representative quote for each information need. Although, as discussed in a later section, there were some differences between the two cities, the quotes selected generally represented responses in both locations. Looking across all focus groups, the information need most frequently mentioned was information about work opportunities in Canada, including how to find a job and the credential recognition process. The Syrian refugees who participated in our research also indicated that they required more information about housing. This included how to find affordable housing or low-income housing for large families, as well as information about tenant rights (see also ch. 8: Rose and Charette). Another top information need of Syrian refugees was information about the education system in Ontario/Alberta and, more broadly, about educational opportunities in Canada (for both themselves and their children). In addition, the Syrian refugees would have liked to receive more information about their provincial healthcare system and how to navigate it (e.g., how to access specialists). Relatedly, they would have liked to receive more information about coverage for dental care and prescription drugs. The final information priority in the top five priorities for the Syrian refugees was information about banking, finances, financial supports, and loans. This included information about eligibility criteria and the application process for Ontario Works/Alberta Works, the Canada Child Benefit, and other financial assistance available from the government. Mentioned in over 50 per cent of the focus groups, but a slightly lower priority, was information about (advanced) language classes, wait times, and work opportunities that do not require a high level of English-language proficiency. Also mentioned quite frequently by the Syrian refugees was a need for more information about the new city in which they were being resettled and everyday living in Canada (including markets, neighbourhoods, streets, transit systems, and the location of schools; see also ch. 6: Ahmed et al.). In addition, the Syrian refugees indicated that they would have liked to receive more

Includes information about banking, finances, loans, and government assistance.

Finances – 71%

Includes information about the healthcare system and how to navigate it, as well as health care coverage

Healthcare – 79%

Includes information about the education system and the educational opportunities in Canada

Education – 87%

Includes information about how to find affordable housing as well as information about tenant rights

Housing – 89%

Includes information about work opportunities in Canada, how to find a job, and the credential recognition process in Canada

Employment – 90%

Information need and percentage of focus groups in which need was identified

Table 1.2 Syrian refugees’ primary information needs

“We were told that the government will help you, you will be supported in all aspects, and you will be able to work. We came here, we were surprised that you either work or get government assistance especially for welfare. They can’t happen together. If you work, government assistance will stop. Nobody has explained this to us properly.”

“For the subject of health, we found a lot of difficulty and are still having difficulty regarding where should we go for treatment. We have a family doctor but we need information about whether maybe we have the option to find better treatment somewhere else.”

“I have kids in high school. So far the subjects they are taking, we don’t know how these subjects relate to university admission. So far there are a lot of books and different subjects so we don’t know which subjects to choose to help them for university admission. There is an assistant at school who speaks Arabic trying to help yet we still don’t know enough.”

“When we came here, you found that we could stay only 15 days at the welcome residence. Ten of these days we were taking orientation so we couldn’t look for a house. One has to find a housing during the remainder of these days. This is very difficult especially if you have something specific in mind. Eventually you will be obliged to take any housing even if it’s not appropriate, all so you could move out. Otherwise, you will face problems… This is very difficult. What makes it more difficult is that the budget we got from the government has a suggested housing allocation, it is impossible to find housing for that budget allocated…”

“We asked about studying. We have a diploma and we were told that we are able to work in here. When we got here we were very surprised that we have to start studying all over again. And apply to schools and get my diploma accredited… A very long journey. However, we heard when we were in Jordan that we can work with our diploma. Nobody explained to us this properly.”

Representative quote

Source: The authors.

Includes information about travel restrictions for newly arrived refugees in Canada

Travel restrictions – 53%

Includes information about how to connect with family members who are not in Canada and how to apply to bring them to Canada

Connecting with family members and other Syrians – 61%

Includes information about the city and everyday living in Canada (including transit and location of schools)

Navigating the city – 61%

Includes information about (advanced) language classes, wait times, and being able to work without a high level of English proficiency

Language training – 63%

“We asked for whether we can go back to visit our family in Jordan or Turkey. Til now we have no answer whether we need to wait one or two years. What is the process we need to follow to be able to visit? I don’t know the answer ’til now.”

“Nobody is giving us the right information regarding family sponsorship. I have a brother that I want to bring to Canada… We asked a consultant, we asked a few organizations and other people. Nobody is giving us beneficial information. Some say we will be able to start sponsoring in June others say in January; some say sponsorship is possible and others say it’s impossible. This piece of information has been impossible to find in any way. What can we do? What method to follow? Who can sponsor him? We can’t find any information about this. We’ve been here for one year and I haven’t seen my family for seven years. We’ve been looking for this information since we first arrived to Canada and we can’t find it.”

“I don’t know who to ask about this. As I have a disability and I use a wheelchair, I need to drive to get things done. However, I have a problem with parking. It is very difficult to find parking here in downtown and it is expensive. Parking here is for two hours maximum. By the time I get back to my car, more than two hours would have passed thus I end up paying for tickets around $50–$60. I don’t know where to get information to resolve this... Now I’m taking the bus to get to English class, which is very difficult.”

“If somebody with occupational skills but with no English proficiency, why is he made to wait one year while the government is spending money on him until he finishes English language classes when the country can benefit from his muscles and skills? The government can communicate with businesses in Calgary or Canada, they can assess his skills and thus match him to work in a job where he can put his skills to good use. He may not know English well but working with others who are proficient in English will help him getting 30% of necessary language skills. He can continue to go to language classes and he’ll get another 50% of necessary language skills. Thus, he can get the language skills faster while saving money for the government.”

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information about how to connect with family members who are not in Canada and how to apply to bring them to Canada. Relatedly, the refugees also would have liked to receive more information about the government’s plans to bring more Syrian refugees to Canada in the future. The final top information need of the Syrian refugees, and a source of considerable confusion, was information about travel restrictions. The Syrian refugees wanted to know whether they are allowed to visit or return to Syria (and/or their most recent countries of residence, e.g., Lebanon) after arriving in Canada, and when they would be able to do so. Timing of Information Needs Whenever a theme was mentioned during the focus groups, the coders also recorded whether the Syrian refugees indicated that they needed this information pre-arrival, immediately after arrival, and/or one year after arrival. As shown in table 1.3, Syrian refugees were especially likely to indicate that pre-arrival, they desired more information about employment, housing, education, and travel restrictions. Immediately after arriving in Canada, all information needs are salient, with the exception of connection with family members and other Syrians, and travel restrictions. One year after arrival, some of these information needs lessened, though employment, housing, education, finances, and language training remained evident needs. Information Needs as a Function of Refugee Stream and Gender We also analyzed whether Syrian refugees’ information needs differed as a function of their refugee stream: gar versus psr. We highlight those in which there was at least a 20% difference between the two streams in whether the information need was mentioned. Interestingly, there were no notable differences between gars and psrs for the top two information needs of employment and housing. Of the remaining primary information needs, two were mentioned more frequently in focus groups consisting of gars: information about travel restrictions and language training. Typically speaking, gars have lower Englishlanguage proficiency than psrs (Government of Canada 2016). Thus, their desire for more information about language training is likely a reflection of gars’ overall higher actual need for language training and

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Table 1.3 Timing of information needs

Theme

Employment Housing Education Healthcare Finances Language training Navigating the city Connecting with family members and other Syrians Travel restrictions

% mentioned for pre-arrival

% mentioned for immediately after arrival

% mentioned for one year after arrival

45 40 55 24 18 26 18

68 66 66 68 45 45 47

66 50 50 21 47 42 8

11 40

18 29

24 16

Notes: Percentages are calculated out of the nineteen focus groups. Multiple responses were possible when rating the timing of the information needs. Source: The authors.

desire to work without advanced language skills. Interestingly, psrs were more likely than gars to indicate a need for information about education and navigating their city. Recall that education information includes understanding the broader education system and also awareness of educational opportunities for both children and adults, both perhaps of particular interest to the more highly educated psrs. psrs’ higher need for information about navigating their city and everyday living in Canada (including learning more about their neighbourhood, local markets, etc.) is perhaps a reflection of the fact that gars receive this information explicitly via the Resettlement Assistance Program (rap), which is not provided to psrs. Privately sponsored individuals may rely primarily on their sponsors for initial support and, thus, the level of information they receive depends on the experience and knowledge of their individual sponsors. In addition to analyzing whether information needs differed based on refugee stream, we analyzed whether there were gender differences in Syrian refugees’ information needs. Of the nine primary information needs, four were mentioned more frequently in focus groups consisting of female (versus male) refugees. Female refugees were more likely to indicate a need for information about: (1) the education system and opportunities; (2) navigating their city and everyday

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living; (3) connecting with family members and other Syrians; and (4) travel restrictions. Because nearly 90% of focus group participants were parents, it is likely that Syrian women’s desire for more information about the education system and navigating everyday living in their city is closely tied to their role as mothers. Syrian refugee women’s desire for more information about connecting with family members who are not in Canada and other Syrians, and about travel restrictions, may reflect feelings (e.g., grief) associated with their forced separation from family and friends who are not in Canada (see ch. 5: Milkie et al.). As discussed further in the section “Major Challenges to Providing and Receiving Information,” below, these effects may also reflect the fact that, overall, women may have been less likely to have participated in information sessions due to childcare and other household responsibilities. It is interesting to note that in no case were men substantially more likely to indicate a specific information need than women, perhaps because they were more likely than women to have attended the earlier information sessions. Information Needs as a Function of Location Though the majority of the information needs discussed to this point were expressed in both Calgary and London, some minor differences were evident. A need for further information on language training and travel restrictions was especially likely to be mentioned in Calgary. In contrast, a need for information on navigating the city and on connecting with family members and other Syrians was more likely to be mentioned in London. These differences may in part reflect the relative size of the two cities and the formal information that was provided. For example, the greater need for information on language training in Calgary may reflect the fact that language training was more dispersed in Calgary (the larger city), whereas in London was available from a smaller network of providers. In contrast, the need for information on connecting with other Syrians may have been particularly evident in London because of the smaller community size. Primary Information Sources When asked about their most important sources of information, Syrian refugees described a number of information sources (see table 1.4). The Syrian refugees were most likely to obtain information from

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Table 1.4 Syrian refugees’ primary sources of information Source

% mentioned

Immigrant serving agency Family and friends Internet Group information sessions In-person meetings with counsellors Social media Government sources

90 90 82 68 63 63 50

Notes: Percentages are calculated out of the 19 focus groups. Multiple responses were possible when describing sources of information. Source: The authors.

immigrant-serving agencies and from family and friends. Both preand post-arrival, Syrian refugees used informal channels to receive (and share) information about resettling in Canada. Prior to coming to Canada, some refugees relied on friends and family members (both back home and in Canada) for information about Canada. After arriving in Canada, they rely on friends (including other Syrian refugees) and relatives to obtain day-to-day information about life in Canada. At times, this information is not entirely accurate and creates unrealistic expectations about resettling in Canada. Those who could access the internet also listed it as an important source of information (see ch. 6: Ahmed et al.; Veronis et al. 2018). Of note, government sources were not one of the top sources of information for the refugees (mentioned in only 50% of the focus groups). In addition, cultural and religious centres were not frequently mentioned as important sources of information. Major Challenges to Providing and Receiving Information The key informants and the Syrian refugees identified several major challenges that emerged during the process of providing and receiving information. Chief among these were limited literacy (in both English and Arabic; see also Veronis and Ahmed 2015) and low levels of English-language proficiency, coupled with long wait times for language classes. These limitations restricted where and how the refugees

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could obtain information and who could provide information to them. That is, limited literacy meant that the refugees often could not obtain information from printed sources, irrespective of language, and poor English-language proficiency that was prolonged in Canada resulted in an inability to obtain information from English sources. Exacerbating these limitations was the fact that some Syrian refugees, particularly gars, lacked familiarity with computers and use of the internet, thus impeding access to an important potential source of information and translation. Another major challenge to information transmission related to cultural norms around making and keeping appointments. At times Syrian refugees missed opportunities to obtain information due to not keeping appointments that they had booked, while at other times they sought information from busy service providers without first making an appointment, leading to some thwarting of expectations. Although access to free childcare during information sessions and language classes was considered important, at times women and families were not able or willing to use these childcare services. Large family sizes meant that childcare was often over-subscribed so that spots were unavailable during information sessions and language classes. In addition, unfamiliarity with formal childcare services served as a barrier for some Syrian refugee women who were not willing to leave their children with strangers in order to attend sessions and classes. Relatedly, getting information to Syrian refugee women was perceived as a major challenge overall. Although the immigrant-serving agencies used innovative strategies (e.g., home visits) to try to overcome this challenge, at times it remained difficult for immigrant-serving agencies to connect directly with women. Rigid gender roles meant that women did not always attend information sessions, either because they needed to stay home to take care of their children or because they were seen by their spouses or parents as not needing information. As a result, it was at times difficult for women to obtain important information (e.g., about women’s health, women’s rights, and children’s rights). Finally, there was variability in the extent to which psrs received resettlement information. Although they had good intentions, some sponsors were not well informed about refugees’ information needs or about the services available in their community. Thus, some psrs wished their sponsors had more information about social assistance, language classes, and other settlement services and programs. For example, one psr indicated that, “as for child benefit, I didn’t get it for

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nine months. My sponsors did not know enough about child benefits, so things took much longer.” Effective Strategies for Information Provision Syrian refugees who were able to attend pre-arrival information sessions found the sessions useful and indicated that they received valuable information. It is important for these information sessions (and, indeed, all information provided to the refugees) to include basic information that is accurate and promotes realistic expectations about resettling in Canada. Syrian refugees indicated that, in addition to the formal pre-arrival information sessions offered by unhcr-iom, they found videos (in their first language) helpful. For refugees who have access to the internet, online portals and apps promoting a question/answer approach to information provision were also considered useful, particularly pre-arrival. Several innovative strategies for providing information to refugees immediately after arrival and in the longer term were also described. These strategies used active learning rather than a “sit and listen” approach. Key informants and the Syrian refugees in both cities described the effectiveness of a “show and tell” approach to information provision. Rather than providing information via lectures, handouts, or videos, this approach involves experiential learning. For instance, in Calgary, resettlement workers took Syrian refugees downtown to show them how to use the public transit system (the CTrain, a light rail system). By showing refugees how to buy tickets, navigate the transit platforms, and get on and off the CTrain, resettlement workers provided valuable information while fostering refugees’ sense of confidence in their ability to get around the city. Another effective strategy for information provision involves bringing information directly to refugees. This is particularly the case for refugee women, who may be housebound while taking care of their young children. In London, language instructors held informal group sessions, involving several Syrian women within a small radius of one another, in one of the women’s homes. Although this approach is resource-intensive, it is a great way to connect with refugee women who have young infants and/or large families. Two other innovative strategies for information provision are the “Tell Me” information session series and the “Hello Neighbour” program. One of the immigrant-serving agencies in London organized

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information sessions, branded as the “Tell Me” series, based on Syrian refugees’ emergent needs. Thus, if agency staff were asked similar questions by a number of refugees, information sessions on those topics were launched. These 1.5-hour sessions covered topics such as: parenting in Canada; your rights in Canada; laws in Canada (delivered by a police officer); to whom you should go for accurate information; how to organize your finances and prepare an income tax return; and how to connect with community members. Teachers from language classes were given a copy of the information provided during the “Tell Me” series so that this information could be integrated into the language classes as well. In London, the “Hello Neighbour” program was a promising strategy for information provision that supported integration into local neighbourhoods. Syrian refugee families living in a neighbourhood (organized by postal code) were invited to share dinner together at a local centre. Following dinner, breakout sessions were organized by age group, from seniors to young children, to provide relevant information on services and programs available in the immediate neighbourhood and how to access them. For example, local health centres, sports organizations, community service organizations, and employment agencies were invited to give short presentations. In addition to providing information, opportunities to meet neighbours and develop a sense of community were facilitated.

theoretical and practical implications, and some lessons learned As indicated earlier, to provide information successfully one has to establish the information needs of individuals and groups, and ensure that there is a match between the needed information and the provided information. In addition, one has to find the most effective way to provide the needed information. The model of information provision and use by newcomers (Esses and Medianu 2012; see also Caidi et al. 2010) suggests that for effective information provision to occur, one must take into account the source of the information and the context in which it is being provided, the format and content of the information, and the target of the information. Assessing each aspect of this model allowed us to gain considerable insight into the information needs of Syrian refugees and how best to fill these needs.

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According to the research conducted here, the top five information needs expressed by Syrian refugees relate to employment, housing, education, healthcare, and finances. Thus, these should be priorities in terms of the content of information to provide both to Syrian refugees and to similar groups of refugees who may arrive in Canada in an expedited fashion, with little time to prepare for their new lives. Indeed, we would argue that the findings are likely to apply to refugees more generally and thus have broad implications for refugee resettlement in Canada. Although all of the top five information needs are important, they may differ in terms of when they are most needed – that is, depending on the context. It is important to tailor information provision according to the timing of these needs so that information is most relevant at the time when it is being provided and, thus, most likely to address a current information need. For example, it is most important to provide healthcare information to refugees immediately after their arrival in Canada. It is also important to tailor information provision according to the targets of this information. For example, women are more likely than men to express a need for information on navigating the city, and gars are more likely than psrs to express a need for information on language training. In terms of providing information in the most effective way possible, when considering the source of information, it is important to take into account the finding that refugees look for information on the internet, and seek information from family and friends (in addition to obtaining information from immigrant-serving agencies). This means that a high priority should be ensuring that information provided by these sources is accurate – for example, by providing “official” and accurate information online that is not only easily accessible by the refugees themselves, but also by their families and friends. More extensive use of the internet to convey information to refugees should be given serious consideration by governments and organizations interested in supporting refugee settlement and integration (see ch. 6: Ahmed et al.). Relatedly, in terms of the format in which to provide information, videos in refugees’ first language seem to be particularly sought after and were described as especially engaging and informative, again suggesting an important means for governments and organizations to provide information to refugees. Two more general lessons learned from our research are that information providers should avoid providing large “doses” of information in a short period of time, so that it is not overwhelming and thus

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unlikely to be processed. In addition, information providers should consider innovative strategies to connect with hard-to-reach groups. Women, youth, seniors, and privately sponsored refugees are important targets for information who may require additional effort to reach and, thus, require innovative strategies to do so. Of value would be targeted programs that take into account the specific information needs of women, youth, and seniors, and provide information from sources and in settings in which these groups will be reached (e.g., for women, parent-child groups with question-and-answer sessions at local libraries). For privately sponsored refugees, mandatory information sessions for the sponsors themselves should be considered, as well as formal connections to settlement agencies that can provide support on an ongoing basis. By taking into account the determinants and factors influencing effective information provision discussed here, governments, service providers, and others who seek to provide information to refugees will see greater success. Similarly, researchers interested in information provision to refugees and other groups of immigrants would do well to consider the various components of the model of information provision and use by newcomers (Esses and Medianu 2012) for a nuanced understanding of the process. In this way, our understanding of information provision to immigrants and refugees will continue to grow, ultimately contributing to successful settlement and integration in the country that these individuals are making their new home.

acknowledgments Preparation of this chapter was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. We are grateful to the coeditors of this volume, Luisa Veronis and Margaret Walton-Roberts, for their insightful comments, which greatly improved this chapter.

references Caidi, Nadia, and Danielle Allard. 2005. “Social Inclusion of Newcomers to Canada: An Information Problem?” Library and Information Science Review 27 (3): 302–24. Caidi, Nadia, Danielle Allard, and Lisa Quirke. 2010. “Information Practices

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of Immigrants.” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 44 (3): 493–531. Esses, Victoria M. 2016. The Pathways to Prosperity Partnership: Research on Welcoming Communities, Promising Settlement Services and Information Provision to Refugees. Paper presented at the sshrc-idrc International Research on Refugee Studies Meeting, Ottawa, 20 April 2016. Esses, Victoria M., Leah K. Hamilton, and Danielle Gaucher. 2017. “The Global Refugee Crisis: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications for Improving Public Attitudes and Facilitating Refugee Resettlement.” Social Issues and Policy Review 11: 78–123. – 2019. “The Role of Attitudes in Migration.” Handbook of Attitudes, vol. 2, edited by Dolores Albarracin and Blair T. Johnson, 455–87. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Esses, Victoria M., Leah K. Hamilton, Lori Wilkinson, Li Zong, Janine Bramadat, and Jill Bucklaschuk. 2013. Western Settlement Outcomes Survey. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Western Region. http://p2pcanada .ca/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/08/Western-Settlement-OutcomesSurvey.pdf. Esses, Victoria M., Meyer Burstein, Zenaida Ravanera, Stacey Hallman, and Stelian Medianu. 2012. Alberta Settlement Outcomes Survey. Pathways to Prosperity Partnership. Alberta Human Services. http://p2pcanada.ca/wpcontent/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/12/Alberta-Outcomes-Settlement-SurveyReport.pdf. Esses, Victoria M., and Stelian Medianu. 2012. Integration Barriers and Information as a Solution: Report Based on the Literature Covering 2005–2011 Inclusive. Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Integration Branch. http://p2pcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Integration-Barriersand-Infomation-as-a-Solution.pdf. Esses, Victoria M., Zenaida Ravanera, Meyer Burstein, and Stelian Medianu. 2013. Multivariate analyses of information-related variables from the Alberta Settlement Outcomes Survey. Government of Alberta. Fisher, Karen E., and Heidi Julien. 2009. “Information Behavior.” Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 43 (1): 1–73. Government of Canada. 2016. Evaluation of the Resettlement Programs (gar, psr, bvor and rap). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugeescitizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/evaluations/resettlement-programs .html. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (ircc). 2017. #Welcome Refugees: Key Figures. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugeescitizenship/services/refugees/welcome-syrian-refugees/key-figures.html.

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Miller, Katherine. 2005. Communication Theories: Perspectives, Processes and Contexts. New York: McGraw-Hill. Perloff, Richard M. 2010. The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the 21st Century. 4th ed. Oxon, UK: Routledge. Statistics Canada. 2018. Canada at a Glance: Population. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Last modified 27 March 2018. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1 /pub/12-581-x/2018000/pop-eng.htm. Veronis, Luisa, and Rukhsana Ahmed. 2015. “The Role of Multicultural Media in Connecting Municipal Governments with Ethnocultural and Immigrant Communities: The Case of Ottawa.” Global Media Journal 8: 73–95. Veronis, Luisa, Zac Tabler, and Rukhsana Ahmed. 2018. “Syrian Refugee Youth Use Social Media: Building Transcultural Spaces and Connections for Resettlement in Ottawa, Canada.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 50: 79–99. Wilson, Thomas D. 1999. “Models in Information Behaviour Research.” Journal of Documentation 55 (3): 249–70.

2 The Alberta Syrian Refugee Project: Understanding Trauma and Resilience in Refugee Resettlement Julie Drolet, Gayatri Moorthi, Lisa Elford, Amanda Weightman, Dania El Chaar, Esra Al Saadi, Careen Khoury, and Erin Smith

introduction When I first got here it was the toughest, because my husband was immediately secured with a job with long hours of 10 a.m.–11 p.m., which left me all alone. It was okay at the start because I kept busy with a new house and my baby. But then it became very depressing, it was the beginning of winter, I didn’t know anyone, didn’t go out anywhere, it was too cold, couldn’t talk to my family and friends back in Syria because of the time difference, felt like I was locked up all alone. bvor woman participant 3

The war in Syria has led to the displacement of more than 5.5 million persons since 2011 (unhcr 2017), and the narrative at the beginning of this chapter provides a brief glimpse into the complex story of refugee resettlement. Research is now more crucially focusing on the holistic experience of settlement – beyond employment, language, and housing – to better understand the social and psychological experience of settlement, wellness, and resilience (mhcc 2016). This is especially important to consider as Canada has a longstanding humanitarian commitment to the protection of individuals and families that are displaced and persecuted (Government of Canada 2017). By early 2017, Canada had received a total of 40,081 Syrian refugees and Alberta, one of the top destinations for refugees, became home to a

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Table 2.1 Overall population size and admissions of Syrian refugees in Alberta by Census Metropolitan Area (cma) of intended destination and immigration category (4 November 2015–30 November 2018) Census Metropolitan Area

cma population (2016)

Blended sponsorship refugee

Governmentassisted refugee

Privately sponsored refugee

Total

Calgary Edmonton Lethbridge Red Deer Medicine Hat Alberta Total

1,392,609 1,321,426 117,394 100,418 76,522 4,067,175

150 225 — — 10 470

1,260 1,580 330 250 230 3,755

1,410 975 55 25 0 2,640

2,815 2,780 390 280 240 6,865

Sources: ircc 2018, Statistics Canada 2016.

total of 7,415 Syrian refugees between January 2015 and September 2016 (Government of Canada 2017). The majority of refugees arriving during this period were government-assisted refugees (gars), followed by privately sponsored refugees (psrs) and Blended Visa Office–Referred refugees (bvors) (Government of Canada 2017) (see table 2.1). This chapter draws on data collected as a part of a larger study undertaken in 2016 (Moorthi et al. 2017) to understand the needs, barriers, and everyday experiences of “settlement” for Syrian refugee newcomers in Alberta (Drolet and Moorthi 2018). A mixed methods approach was used to understand the resettlement process of three categories of refugees in five cities in Alberta, of which two were large cities (Calgary and Edmonton) and three were smaller cities (Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer). Table 2.1 provides data on the reception of Syrian refugees in these cities. Over the course of three months, one hundred surveys and twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with newly arrived Syrian refugees (Moorthi et al. 2017). The goal of the study was to contextualize the experiences of Syrian refugees in both small and large urban centres, while being attuned to and documenting any differences between gars, psrs, and bvors. An outcome of this collaborative research partnership was to inform the services and programs targeting Syrian refugees in the province and to identify key issues to support refugee resettlement. As the study progressed, a complex picture of settlement emerged that went beyond traditional settlement needs in terms of language, employment, hous-

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ing, or sponsor support. Syrian refugees shared stories that spoke to their social and psychological wellbeing, which were linked to their social networks and supports, geographical environment, sponsorship context, and access to community resources. The study identified traumatic experiences related to the migration process that affected the mental health and wellbeing of Syrian refugee newcomers during initial settlement and the related stresses of adapting to life in a foreign country. At the same time, the research highlighted stories of resilience in navigating resources and adapting to life in Canada, while pointing out gaps in the system of welcome, reception, and community care and identifying new understandings of refugee resettlement in Alberta. In order to make sense of these diverse experiences, the researchers sought to understand Syrian refugee resettlement experiences by examining the relationship between trauma and resilience. The theoretical framework considers trauma and resilience through a socio-ecological approach that attends to the complexity of human experiences, examining mental health in resettlement, community connections, and stigma and discrimination. This chapter draws from a trauma-informed social work approach and a socio-ecological understanding of resilience that will be of interest to social workers, settlement practitioners, social service and healthcare providers, and scholars interested in the relationship between trauma and resilience in the field of forced migration and refugee studies.

literature review and conceptual framework Syrian refugees who entered Canada as gars, psrs, or bvors in 2015–16 were granted permanent residency status and could access a range of services and supports either through the Resettlement Assistance Program (rap – specifically for gars) or other settlement programs (see the Introduction to this volume for additional information). The rap includes reception, temporary accommodation (and help finding long-term housing), orientation, language learning, community and employment services, foreign credential recognition support, and settlement information, among other services (ircc 2016). Often additional support services may be available, including childcare (while attending orientation and/or language classes), transportation assistance, translation, interpretation, crisis counselling, and provisions for disabilities (ircc 2017). At the time this study was con-

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ducted, gars were eligible to receive monthly income support from the federal government based on provincial/territorial social assistance rates. psrs received income support from their sponsors and bvors received income support for six months from the government and six months from the private sponsors. Typically, all three categories were eligible for this funding support for up to twelve months after their arrival. The aim of these supports is to facilitate the successful integration of refugees into Canadian society and, overall, studies have shown that refugees do broadly benefit from these government programs (Agrawal and Zeitouny 2017; ircc 2016). Despite their importance, mental health supports are often not central in the provision of settlement services to refugee newcomers, and serious mental health issues are referred to the public health system. An environmental scan of Alberta’s mental health services conducted by aaisa (2017) found that there are many immigrant-serving and ethno-cultural agencies that provide mental health and counselling services to immigrants and refugees. Gaps in mental health and counselling services have emerged, relating to geographic distribution, level of mental health services provided, and cultural-specific competencies around mental health services and resources (aaisa 2017). In Alberta, many population groups experience challenges in accessing mental health services and supports, both in acute and primary healthcare settings, and such challenges can be particularly difficult in smaller communities and rural areas (Rural Health Services Review Committee 2015). Refugee newcomers may encounter challenges in terms of mental health due to traumatic experiences before and during migration, issues of loss and grief, separation from friends and family, experiences of internment, poor housing, multiple moves, poor jobs, lower education levels, and lack of social support (mhcc 2016). Further, development and provision of the psychosocial supports that are required are often beyond what the mental health care system can offer. Thus, fostering refugee resilience requires access to culturally meaningful resources at various levels. There are many perspectives on trauma and resilience, and numerous theoretical approaches that explain how individuals cope with traumatic life experiences such as psychodynamic attachment symptom, person-centred narrative, and socio-ecological and anti-oppressive approaches (Harms 2015). In practice and research, traumatic events include disasters, war, forced migration and displacement, forced separations of children from parents, abuse and neglect, torture, acci-

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dents and injuries, health crises, and assaults to emotional, physical, social, and spiritual wellbeing (Harms 2015). The literature on trauma is relevant given refugees’ experiences of war, violence, malnutrition, community upheaval, torture, imprisonment, and separation (Hadfield et al. 2017). Studies have found that refugees are more prone to experiencing anxiety, major depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) than the general population (Kim 2016; Lindencrona et al. 2008; Mitschke et al. 2017; Shannon et al. 2015; Smeekes et al. 2017). Trauma is complex and contextual, and the losses inherent in many traumatic events can lead to profound grief (Harms 2015). Yet evidence demonstrates that people can adapt and survive well (Harms 2015). According to Herman (1992, 211), “resolution of trauma is never final; recovery is never complete. The impact of a traumatic event continues to reverberate throughout the survivor’s lifecycle.” Many individuals maintain the ability to function after a traumatic event, and research has tended to focus less on resilience than psychopathological outcomes (Bonanno and Mancini 2012; Harms 2015). It is critical for settlement practitioners and social service providers to develop an understanding of trauma-informed practice, given the pervasiveness of trauma and the relationship between trauma and resilience in the resettlement experiences of refugees. The literature on resilience has explored enabling factors and obstacles to resilience (Hutchinson and Dorsett 2012) in the fields of psychology and sociology. Factors that build resilience include personal qualities (optimism, adaptability, perseverance), support (family, friends, community), and religiosity and spirituality (Hutchinson and Dorsett 2012). Obstacles include language barriers (leading to powerlessness, affecting opportunities, and inhibiting fuller inclusion), racism and discrimination (leading to distress, isolation, and lack of belonging), and labelling (trauma stories, deficit or pathological model of illness) (Hutchinson and Dorsett 2012). However, conceptualizing resilience in terms of enabling and inhibiting factors poses the risk of thinking about resilience as limited to the presence and absence of factors, and to fixed characteristics inherent to either the person or their context. Such an approach excludes thinking about resilience as a process mediated through personal circumstances, social opportunities, diverse environments, and systemic structures. Resilience is not a fixed characteristic (Hutchinson and Dorsett 2012) and studies have found that resilience can be fostered and developed with appropriate resources (Ungar 2013; Masten 2015). Specifically,

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Ungar (2013, 17) defines resilience as “both the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to the psychological, social, cultural, and physical resources that sustain their wellbeing, and their capacity individually and collectively to negotiate for these resources to be provided in culturally meaningful ways.” A socio-ecological approach is helpful to understand resilience beyond individual factors to consider a person within their environment and the broader social, community, and cultural contexts. Here, this understanding of resilience is applied to comprehending the Syrian refugee resettlement process. The theoretical framework presented in this section considers trauma and resilience through an approach that attends to the complexity of human experiences and goes beyond dominant Western understandings of trauma as psychodynamic (such as traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder) to consider spiritual, relational, structural, cultural contexts, as well as time and place. This chapter explores trauma and resilience by considering mental health in resettlement, community connections, and stigma and discrimination.

methodology The study adopted a mixed methods approach in order to understand the resettlement experiences of gars, psrs, and bvors in five cities in Alberta, including two large cities (Calgary and Edmonton) and three smaller cities (Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer). The study organized community forums in collaboration with Resettlement Assistance Providers (raps) to introduce the study to potential Syrian refugee participants. Attendees of the community forums were invited to participate in the survey. In addition, a sample of twenty Syrian refugees was invited to participate in interviews in four cities (excluding Lethbridge due to budgetary constraints). The interviews provided a deeper understanding of the perspectives and experiences of Syrian refugee newcomers in their new communities. The data in this project were collected by research assistants who spoke both English and Arabic. The sample included 100 survey participants, of which 56% were men and 44% women. The majority of the survey participants were gars (83%), with other refugee groups participating as follows: psrs (10%), bvors (5%), and other/do-not-know (2%) (see table 2.2). Over half (54%) of the sample came from small cities and 46% from the large ones (see table 2.3 for sample distribution across cities). The majority

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Table 2.2 Sample size by number of participants in each refugee category Gender (male and female)

# Syrian gars

# Syrian psrs

# Syrian bvors

Total Syrian refugees

Survey

56% male 43% female

82%

10%

5%

100

Interview

40% male 60% female

55% n=11

35% n=5

20% n=4

20

Location

Source: The authors.

Table 2.3 Sample size by method and geographic area Location

Survey participants

Interview participants

Medicine Hat Red Deer Lethbridge Calgary Edmonton Total

15% 26% 13% 23% 23% n=100

10% 30% 0 35% 35% n=20

Source: The authors.

(74%) of the sample group was between the ages of 25 and 44. In terms of education, 50% had completed primary school or secondary schooling, 20% had completed high school, and 19% of the sample had education beyond high school. A majority of survey participants were students (47%) or unemployed and looking for work (27%). Only about 8% of the sample had either full-time or part-time work. The study included 20 interview participants, of which 40% were men and 60% were women. gars made up 55% of the interviewees, compared to 25% psrs and 20% bvors (see table 2.1). Smaller centres represented 40% of the sample, while 60% were from large centres (see table 2.2 for sample distribution across cities). A $25 gift card was given to each interview participant to compensate them for their time. The research team conducted a mixed methods analysis process that included the following steps: first, each qualitative interview was translated and transcribed from Arabic to English; next, each was coded to include critical themes and identify important quotes that

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illustrated key ideas. For the quantitative data, spss was used to run both frequencies and cross-tabulations.

findings and analysis Syrian refugee participants in the study discussed the trauma they experienced before their arrival in Canada. Many participants faced high risk and danger, and were forced to flee traumatic conditions such as imprisonment, torture, loss of property, physical and/or sexual assault, and loss of employment, housing, and social supports. Syrian refugees recounted how, when they fled their homes, they often made multiple stops across Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon, as well as other cities in Canada, before settling in their current location. As with most refugees resettling in Canada, the Syrian refugees in this study had little choice as to their destination location, which was often determined based on their sponsorship status. Participants reported moving or intending to move to other locations in Alberta and/or Canada to pursue employment opportunities, to be closer to family and friends, and/or to seek a more diverse culture and community. This informed their resettlement experiences and shaped the nature of their interactions and social relationships. My brothers-in-law sent people to take me to the Syrian-Jordanian border. They told us that they could get us to the border but after that we would have to make our way tahreeb (illegally) by foot to Jordan … we walked for four to five hours, my wife, my kids, and I – and we had two pieces of luggage and my kids were little. The road was very rocky and then they opened fire on us, from both sides (the Syrian and the Jordanian). We were terrified, we were scared, we had to lay low, and we were then thirty families crossing at the same time. We arrived safely, however some people got shot, some passed away, and others got injured. I saw this with my own eyes. What I saw is indescribable, and those who were shot were our relatives. My children were petrified, and this has affected them. (gar man participant 4) Upon arrival, most refugees discussed how they continued to adjust to a new culture, language, and environment while seeking to maintain their basic needs. This process, supported through immigrant-

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serving agencies and private sponsors, was described as often stressful and challenging. Mostly the immigrant-serving agency provided me with hope and a positive attitude. They really try to help you out with anything they can, whether it was general inquiries or questions, or just providing general information. The immigrant-serving agency is even helping me meet a lawyer to assist me with inquiries. (bvor woman participant 4) The survey results revealed that 67% of respondents found settlement organizations “very important” in helping them settle, and about 28% found them “important.” According to the Syrian refugee participants, private sponsors, more than immigrant-serving agencies, played a key support role for psrs; however, the interview narratives highlighted that the level of support was often uneven. For some participants, the sponsors were extremely supportive in connecting to jobs, linking to immigrant-serving organizations, and helping find housing or schooling for their children. The relationships between private sponsors and Syrian refugees often went beyond the material sponsorship support and included social, psychological, and emotional supports (see ch. 9: Blain et al.), as in the following interview quote: I passed through an extremely rough time, even more rough than our immigration here, but my sponsors were there to fully support me. I had a nervous breakdown because my brother-in-law was killed in the war back home, and I suffered tremendously. My sponsors tried to make me feel better: they hosted a social function for me, they even told me not to worry and that they will sponsor my sister for me … I couldn’t even sleep … it was very, very tough … I feel that sponsors will not leave me alone … I trust them well … I don’t do anything – not even one step – without informing them. (psr woman participant 1)

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building community and fostering resilience Our study explored the role of social connections, community, and relationships in supporting refugee resettlement, coping with stressors, and building resilience. We found that social support from individuals and community members can contribute to fostering resilience. The survey asked who provided the most emotional and mental health support: 49% identified family and friends in Canada, 17% identified colleagues at work or school, and 15% identified both family or friends outside Canada and immigrant-serving agencies. Similarly, family and friends in Canada (53%) and outside Canada (14%) provided the main sources of social support for Syrian refugees in the study. Colleagues at work or school were also identified as important for providing social support (12%). The survey results suggest that social support was available and critical to building resilient lives in Canada. Relationships between private sponsors and resettled Syrian refugees can provide important social supports that contribute to building resilience and mitigating trauma. However, when the study probed the exact nature and extent of this support, the situation became more complex. The qualitative interviews showed that some refugees felt unwelcome, isolated, and disconnected post-migration. Participants felt both uprooted from their social life and unable to connect with the Canadian social fabric. Interview participants discussed the different societal and cultural contexts between Syria and Canada that affected their relationships and experiences of loss. Our Syrian culture is all about the social life, and being able to go out with family and friends is a huge part of our lives. It troubles me and my kids that we don’t have that anymore. (psr woman participant 2) Some of the major factors that contributed to Syrian refugees’ social isolation were the lack of time or resources needed to nurture social relations and the inability to converse fluently in English. Some participants expressed that social norms in Alberta did not permit them to connect informally with others, a significant change from their prior experiences in Syria. Differences were noted between

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refugees who originated from rural contexts in Syria, who often experienced challenges in negotiating new urban environments such as public transportation; and refugees originating from cities in Syria, who were able to adapt more quickly and exhibited greater resiliency. In addition, those refugees who made connections with health and social service systems within the community, either through work, school, volunteering, or involvement in religious groups, reported a greater ability to cope with stress, manage expectations, and locate community resources. The survey asked participants about the role of the Syrian community in supporting their settlement. 51% of the respondents found the Syrian community “very important” for their settlement and another 37% found it “important.” Most participants reported positive and supportive relationships marked by familiarity and comfort due to their shared history and culture, while others highlighted the challenges of establishing close personal relationships. There are lots of Syrians around me. We visit each other very often, we go to school together, we live in the same community. Most of us came together as refugees. Having all these Syrians together makes it so much easier to adjust to the new environment. They prepared us and told us that the first period in Canada will be like a honeymoon where you will find everything new and love everything, but then we will encounter a period of shock because of all the cultural differences and such. So, having all the Syrians living together as a community made this so, so much easier on all of us. We really don’t miss anything from back home. We are surrounded with everything here … Arabic traditions, food, culture, people… (bvor woman participant 2) Similarly, the Syrian community contributes to building community and fostering resilience, as well as to mental health and wellbeing, as discussed by another interview participant: “Having a Syrian community around contributes to our emotional health” (gar woman participant 4). Interview participants spoke of using social media to connect with other Syrian refugees, which contributed to their social connections and wellbeing (see ch. 6: Ahmed et al.). Within the Syrian refugees, we made WhatsApp group. If anyone needs anything, like translation, or food, or furniture, immigration

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papers, etc., they can post it and anyone who can help will pitch in. (gar man participant 1) However, some interview participants noted that members of the established Syrian community who had lived in Canada for a significant time were not always receptive of the newly arrived refugees and preferred to keep their distance. I am facing great difficulty with the Syrian community here because it seems like they are all clustered into groups, and to be honest, I don’t feel welcomed in any of the groups. So, although I tried, I can’t seem to get into the community. They say we go way back and we are comfortable with the people we already know, so we don’t want to add anyone into the group. I found some might also befriend you for a while and then they stop. (bvor woman participant 3) An interview participant discussed the importance of recognizing the diversity of backgrounds, geographical locations, education, and religious views among Syrians, and how these factors influenced community building and relationships. I only have a few Syrian friends because there is a divide between us. One is that we have different backgrounds; some are more urban people – so different [in] mentality – and the others come from the rural areas. Even being educated and modern plays a role. The other reason is religious views that I prefer not to get into. (gar man participant 3) For some participants, it was important to make links with Canadians rather than with the Syrian community, as they emphasized the need to settle in a new cultural environment, improve their Englishlanguage skills, and build new connections. I value being connected to both communities – the Arabic and the Canadian. But perhaps I feel that I need the Canadian community support a little more because I am coming to their culture, and I need to feel welcomed and also adjusted to their ways. (bvor woman participant 3)

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A gar interview participant voiced similar interests in connecting with Canadians to facilitate the integration process. [If] your environment is all Arabic, then you will never advance in the English, in getting accustomed to the culture. If you are surrounded with Canadians, integration is easier… (gar man participant 3) The interviews revealed stories of participants socializing with their neighbours, making friends at English classes or at work, holding picnics or social gatherings, celebrating Ramadan, and participating in sports activities with friends. Various social interactions and connections were recognized as critical in building social support and mitigating the impacts of migration-related trauma. However, given that most of these connections were new and forged under the stressful context of resettlement, participants struggled to build strong longterm relationships that could continue to provide social and emotional support in their new context. The implications of these connections in building socio-emotional support and resilience will be discussed later in this chapter.

responding to stigma and discrimination Overall, both the qualitative and quantitative data showed that refugees reported feeling supported and welcomed. 63% of survey participants found the local community welcoming and supportive and 37% found its role important. An interview participant shared an experience where he felt welcomed: One time, I was doing grocery shopping at the Superstore … then went to the cashier to pay. The lady who was waiting to pay in front me asked me where are you from, and I said Syria. She said, I would like to pay for your groceries. I said, but I have money to pay for that. If you see someone who is more in need than myself, then, if you wish, you can pay for them. She said, but I would like to help you, in particular. She said, I saw you and your wife, I felt I want to help. (gar man participant 1) For many participants, Canada was perceived as a land of opportunities that had provided a new home and a new beginning in their lives.

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The participants explained that their lives had improved since arriving in Canada. Canada is great. In Jordan we had absolutely no importance at all … we had no human value or dignity, especially the Syrian refugees … We were treated very badly … even the children, no one used to care about them … they used [to] be hit in school. Thank God, we love living here. I felt like I was in another world. When we first came in at the airport, this person smiles [at] us, this person says hi to us, this person plays with my kids. We received a lot of attention … way more than we expected. As soon [as] we came, we felt very much at ease and felt very safe. If you have safety and a peace of mind, you have everything. (gar man participant 5) The study found that among the contributing factors to Syrian refugees’ experiences of trauma were racism and discrimination. Given the small sample size, we cannot definitively comment on the extent of racism and discrimination experienced by incoming Syrian refugees. However, some study participants shared their experiences in the context of settlement and the concerns they faced in various community settings. One of my kids woke up one day for school and told me he really doesn’t want to go because whenever he gets into an argument with his friends at school, they yell at him, “go back to your country.” He said that really bothers him. I told him it’s normal. He said that it’s not the only time that it happened, and that he just never told me before. Another incident was a kid in the hockey field at a park that asked my son, “are you Muslim?” He replied yes. Then he told him, “who brought you here?” My son replied “the prime minister.” Then he told him, “he brought you here to kill you.” I am not okay with my kids having to deal with those kinds of comments. (gar woman participant 5) Discriminatory practices were evident when seeking affordable housing. I can’t rent a place right now because we are Syrian and they don’t trust that we will pay. They are asking for a year’s rent in advance. Since we can’t afford that, we still haven’t found a place. (gar woman participant 3)

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Some participants experienced racism in terms of public attitudes toward Syrian newcomers’ access to social assistance. One of the girls were told that Syrians brought the mice and dirt with them … I have faced a person that holds a grudge about the Syrians that are taking the government’s money. (gar woman participant 2) These narratives highlight the stressors that incoming refugees faced as they attempted to settle in small cities with a relatively smaller refugee or Muslim population than in larger urban centres. Some interview participants shared their heightened concerns around adapting to a local context in which they felt different and experienced challenges in finding culturally appropriate food or religious spaces. In some cases, there was a gap in understanding cultural and/or social expectations. [We live in a small house within a compound.] The kids go out to play on the bicycle and the police comes in. Not only our kids who are playing, all the other kids from the other houses in the complex as well, from Eritrea and Somalia. But when the police come, they say those are the Syrians who are making trouble. So, we get warnings – us, the Syrians. (bvor woman participant 3) The Syrian refugee newcomers’ lack of awareness of the socioeconomic environment in terms of rental housing and municipal bylaws emerged as a concern, as stated by this interview participant: When we first got here, we were so excited about the nice weather, so we stayed in the balcony all day long – lunch, breakfast, and dinner – so our neighbours complained and got us evicted. Also, we threw out an old BBQ that was metal into the recycle bin, because it said “metal,” and we got a $500 fine. How were we supposed to know that was not allowed, and why was there no warning first? The fine wasn’t from the city or the government; it was from the building [management] themselves. They can just give it back to me and I will recycle it for $75. (gar woman participant 3) In some cases, refugees reported feeling taken advantage of and believed they had not been treated fairly.

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My first impression when I got here was the feeling of being used because you lack the English language and your status in the country is refugee. They know you don’t know anything, so they abuse it. I have a few examples of incidences that happened to me. It started with the guy that sold me the used car. He gave me a car with so many issues that he failed to mention, both on the ad online and face-to-face. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. Second incident was when we rented a house. We signed the contract without knowing that it was a one-year contract because we don’t read English, and we can’t really get a translator for everything. We also waived a number of privileges you usually get, like being allowed to have your visitor park in the visitor parking. (gar woman participant 5) Negative experiences in the workplace can affect feelings of belonging in the community, as discussed by an interview participant below. Some have the wrong impression of us. A person that left a bad impression on me would be my previous boss, although I gave it my best and worked so hard. But he couldn’t stand me, he couldn’t wait till I was gone, and the other supervisor that was away came back so he could let me go. Some people only see us as backwards people, or slaves. They think that we need their help so much, we are willing to do everything and anything for it, because we are desperate. (psr man participant 5) This section above details the complex and often subtle ways in which stereotyping, racism, and discrimination affect feelings of belonging in the community and other settlement-related stressors experienced by Syrian refugees. While most study participants reported many positive experiences in their resettlement processes, integrating into a community while facing challenges remained a concern in the long term.

conclusion and recommendations This chapter aims to share the experiences and perspectives of resettled Syrian refugees in Alberta and to advance a trauma-informed practice approach in refugee resettlement to better meet the multidimensional needs of refugees, including psychosocial and mental

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health needs. Resettled Syrian refugees require assistance to negotiate resources at multiple levels within the social and environmental system (see also ch. 4: Stewart and El Chaar) and to use these resources effectively to meet their needs. As Syrian refugees become more familiar with various social opportunities and new environments, systems, and structures, and become more skilled at navigating services, programs, and resources, this will contribute to fostering their resilience. Settlement practitioners and social service providers can assist with building and fostering the resilience of resettled Syrian refugees by considering individuals and families within their socioecological contexts and systems. The resettlement process also includes spiritual, relational, structural, cultural, and time- and placerelated dimensions that need to be considered in understanding trauma and resilience. Human service systems and organizations can become traumainformed by thoroughly incorporating, in all aspects of service delivery, an understanding of the prevalence and impact of trauma and the complex paths to healing and recovery. Trauma-informed services are designed specifically to avoid re-traumatizing both those who come seeking assistance and staff working in service settings. Being traumainformed is compatible with building resilience, as it accounts for experiences of risks and strengths, and supports refugees in actively shaping their resettlement experience. Implications for practice include building the awareness and capacity of refugee resettlement practitioners in trauma-informed practice and understanding how their services can be restructured to empower clients, affirm their experiences, and avoid retraumatization (Shannon et al. 2015), while building resilience (see also ch. 4: Stewart and El Chaar). It is necessary to consider the challenges experienced by an individual beyond that individual (e.g., microsystems; see ch. 4: Stewart and El Chaar) and to examine the broader context and structural systems, and how these systems may be contributing to secondary trauma (e.g., racism, discrimination). The individual who works with refugees must act as a navigator, interpreter, and broker, and as an educator who can explain the systems in place and how they will impact resettled refugees’ new lives. Refugee resettlement practitioners must build links with various informal and formal supports at the local level to strengthen post-migration resilience at all levels – with peers, family, and the ethnocultural community – which can have a critical impact on mental health and wellbeing (Hadfield et al. 2017; Mitschke et al. 2017; Simich et al. 2003; Smeekes et al. 2017).

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acknowledgments We wish to acknowledge Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (ircc), which provided funding for this research project through the Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies (aaisa).

references Agrawal, Sandeep, and Seraphine Zeitouny. 2017. Settlement Experience of Syrian Refugees in Alberta. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. https://cms.eas.ualberta.ca/UrbanEnvOb/wp-content /uploads/sites/21/2017/11/Syrian-Refugees-final-report-Nov-2017-1.pdf. aaisa (Alberta Association for Immigrant Serving Agencies). 2017. Accessing Mental Health Services for Newcomers in Alberta – Environmental Scan. aaisa. Bonanno, George. A., and Anthony Mancini. 2012. “Beyond Resilience and ptsd: Mapping the Heterogeneity of Responses to Potential Trauma.” Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 4 (1): 74–83. Drolet, Julie, and Gayatri Moorthi. 2018. “The Settlement Experiences of Syrian Newcomers in Alberta: Social Connections and Interactions.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 50 (2): 101–20. Government of Canada. 2017. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Departmental Plan 2017–2018. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigrationrefugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/departmental-plan2017-2018/departmental-plan.html. Hadfield, Kristin, Aly Ostrowski, and Michael Ungar. 2017. “What Can We Expect of the Mental Health and Well-Being of Syrian Refugee Children and Adolescents in Canada?” Canadian Psychology 58 (2): 194–201. Harms, Louise. 2015. Understanding Trauma and Resilience. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Herman, Judith. 1992. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books. Hutchinson, Mary, and Pat Dorsett. 2012. “What Does the Literature Say about Resilience in Refugee People? Implications for Practice.” Journal of Social Inclusion 3 (2): 55–78. ircc (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada). 2016. Rapid Impact Evaluation of the Syrian Refugee Initiative. Ottawa: ircc. https://www .canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/migration/ircc/english/resources/evaluation/p df/evaluation-syrian-refugee-initiative.pdf.

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– 2017. Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative – Looking to the Future. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services /refugees/welcome-syrian-refugees/looking-future.html. – 2018. Canada – Admissions of Syrian Refugees by Province/Territory and Census Metropolitan Area (cma) of Intended Destination and Immigration Category, 4 November 2015–30 November 2018. https://open.canada.ca /data/en/dataset/01c85d28-2a81-4295-9c06-4af792a7c209. Kim, Yeunhee J. 2016. “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a Mediator between Trauma Exposure and Comorbid Mental Health Conditions in North Korean Refugee Youth Resettled in South Korea.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 31 (3): 425–43. Lindencrona, Fredrik, Solvig Ekblad, and Edvard Hauff. 2008. “Mental Health of Recently Resettled Refugees from the Middle East in Sweden: The Impact of Pre-Resettlement Trauma, Resettlement Stress and Capacity to Handle Stress.” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 43 (2):121–31. doi:10.1007/s00127-007-0280-2. Masten, Ann. S. 2015. Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development. New York: Guilford Press. mhcc (Mental Health Commission of Canada). 2016. Supporting the Mental Health of Refugees to Canada. Ottawa: mhcc. https://www.mentalhealth commission.ca/sites/default/files/2016-01-25_refugee_mental_health _backgrounder_0.pdf. Mitschke, Diane. B., Regina T. Praetorius, Don R. Kelly, Eusebius Small, and Youn K. Kim. 2017. “Listening to Refugees: How Traditional Mental Health Interventions May Miss the Mark.” International Social Work 60 (3): 588–600. Moorthi, Gayatri, Lisa Elford, and Julie Drolet. 2017. Alberta Syrian Refugee Resettlement Experience Study. Alberta Association of Immigrant Sector Agencies (aaisa). rhsrc (Rural Health Services Review Committee). 2015. Rural Health Services Review Final Report. Government of Alberta. https://open.alberta.ca /dataset/18615231-d9c2-47c7-83d2-06f24c099742/resource/df60d240-7b024f42-8e62-6364b2ad4ba4/download/2015-rural-health-services-review.pdf. Shannon, Patricia. J., Elizabeth Wieling, Jennifer Semmelink-McCleary, and Emily Becher. 2015. “Beyond Stigma: Barriers to Discussing Mental Health in Refugee Populations.” Journal of Loss and Trauma 20 (3): 281–96. doi:10.1080/15325024.2014.934629. Simich, L., M. Beiser, and F.N. Mawani. 2003. “Social Support and the Significance of Shared Experience in Refugee Migration and Resettlement.” Western Journal of Nursing Research 25 (7): 872–91.

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Smeekes, Anouk, Maykel Verkuyten, Elif Çelebi, Ceren Acartürk, and Samed Onkun. 2017. “Social Identity Continuity and Mental Health among Syrian Refugees in Turkey.” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 52 (10) 1317–24. Statistics Canada. 2016. Focus on Geography Series, 2016 Census. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/assa/fogs-spg/Index-eng.cfm. Ungar, Michael. 2013. “Social Ecologies and their Contribution to Resilience.” In The Social Ecology of Resilience: A Handbook of Theory and Practice, edited by Michael Ungar, 13–31. New York: Springer. unhcr (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). 2017. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2016. http://www.unhcr.org/global trends2016/.

3 Health Needs and Service Use of Newly Arrived Syrian Refugees Andrew Tuck, Anna Oda, Michaela Hynie, Caroline BennettAbuAyyash, Brenda Roche, Branka Agic, and Kwame McKenzie

introduction Currently there are more than sixty-eight million internationally displaced people in the world (unhcr, 2018). Canada’s part in accepting refugees may be small compared to some other countries, but it is still significant. In most years, Canada welcomes around 25,000 refugees (cic 2007; ircc 2016). However, following the crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic, Canada’s federal government made a decision to increase these numbers significantly. The government committed to open its borders in November 2015 and, in just four months, accepted as many refugees from Syria alone as they normally accept in one year from all countries. In fact, between November 2015 and January 2018, Canada welcomed over 51,000 Syrian refugees (ircc 2018) while still accepting refugees from other countries. This unprecedented influx has allowed researchers to develop projects to explore areas of research with refugees – projects not typically possible as it is unusual to have access to large national cohorts of refugees in Canada. Refugees have unique experiences; they are not economic- or family-class immigrants who have sought to migrate to another country. Rather, refugees have been forced from their homes because of violence, conflict, and social or political revolutions, and these experiences contribute to shaping and altering their health (both physical and mental) (Bogic et al. 2012; Bogic, Njoku, and Priebe 2015; Fazel et al. 2012; Porter and Haslam 2005). The escape

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from their country of origin, taking refuge in camps or in other countries, and the final journey to a new host country all may affect health outcomes. Many, but not all, refugees experience hardships and traumatic life events; they may have lost family members or had to deal with injuries and poor nutrition, and these factors can increase the risk of physical and mental health problems (Hansson et al. 2010; Pottie et al. 2011). However, risks of poor health outcomes continue to exist even after resettlement (Hynie 2018; Li et al. 2016). Evidence suggests that refugees experience numerous barriers (e.g., language, discrimination, lack of healthcare knowledge) to accessing healthcare services in the country of resettlement (Hansson et al. 2010). These can greatly impact both short- and long-term health and result in unmet healthcare needs (Bogic et al. 2012; Bogic et al. 2015; Fazel et al. 2012; Hansson et al. 2010; Hynie 2018; Li et al. 2016; mhcc 2016; Porter and Haslam 2005). The Canadian healthcare system is based on a policy of ensuring that all Canadians have access to care through a government-insured health system, free of financial or other barriers (Government of Canada 1985). Protecting, promoting, and restoring both the physical and mental health of all Canadian residents are also key components of this policy (Government of Canada 1985). Refugees to Canada have access to these rights, at first temporarily through the Interim Federal Health Program (ifhp) and subsequently through the health system of the province or territory in which they settle. The ifhp also ensures that they have access to supplementary health services such as some necessary dental and vision care, commensurate with what is typically available to Canadians living on low incomes. Trying to ensure all Canadians have access should reduce unmet healthcare needs; however, equal access is not necessarily equitable access, and many Canadians report that their healthcare needs are not always met (Statistics Canada 2015). In this chapter, our aim was to better understand and evaluate, through quantitative surveys, the response of a local health and social support system for Syrian refugees. Specifically, the focus was on their access to health services when first arriving and over time, and whether their needs were being met by healthcare services. In 2015, the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network (tclhin) provided funding to our multidisciplinary research group and community partners to develop a small six-month pilot study to explore the initial response of the healthcare system in the city of Toronto (see Oda et al. 2017; Oda et al. 2018); subsequently, a follow-up study was

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supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (sshrc). Previous researchers have provided us with important insights into refugee resettlement and the needs of individuals and families as they resettle over months and years in Canada (Beiser 2006); however, little attention was focused on health needs and service use over time. Periods of initial placement are usually temporary in nature and, once refugees move, the opportunity for engagement becomes challenging if not impossible. Without the introduction of rapid data collection mechanisms, we are left with insufficient information about existing needs, patterns of service utilization, and the barriers for newly arrived refugees (Gabriel et al. 2011). Over time, this gap in information puts health planners at a disadvantage in understanding the health and social trajectories for refugees and comprehensively responding to their needs. This chapter will highlight some of the work in this initial pilot study (see Oda et al. 2017; Oda et al. 2018), and a subsequent follow-up study that was funded by the sshrc (see Oda et al., unpublished; Tuck et al. 2019a, 2019b). After setting the context, we will provide some of the results from both the baseline study and the follow-up study about healthcare usage, unmet healthcare needs, and self-reported physical and mental health of a group of Syrian refugees during their first two years in Canada. This chapter will be of interest to health service providers, social service providers, and system planners, since a key finding for better services identified through our research is stronger partnerships across sectors.

methodology: a collaborative, mixed methods approach Beginning in March 2016, the research team worked with local community partners in the city of Toronto, including costi Immigrant Services, the Arab Community Centre of Toronto, the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture, and Armenian Family Support Services, to identify potential study participants. This project was a collaboration between the research team and the community agencies. The community partners were key to the success of these research projects. Research staff visited the community centres, visited the hotels where government-assisted Syrian refugees were originally housed after arrival before permanent residences were found, and attended job fairs to recruit participants and introduce the study. Staff at our community partner organizations also directly referred clients to research

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personnel, and other study participants recommended and provided contact information. Using this snowball sampling technique, we successfully recruited and surveyed 400 recently arrived Syrian refugees between April and September 2016. The pilot study sought to describe baseline health and service use by Syrian refugees who had been in Canada for one year or less. During this phase, we asked participants a little about themselves (e.g., gender, age, and education), their experience accessing healthcare services, and their self-reported mental and physical health (Oda et al. 2017; Oda et al. 2018). Refugee participants responded to a set of survey questions asked by a trained researcher fluent in both Arabic and English. These questionnaires took place in the community, at hotels, and in individuals’ homes, usually within the first couple of months after arrival (Oda et al. 2017, E355). Data collection for our follow-up study began in January 2017 and ended in July 2017. The purpose was to build on our previous study to develop a more comprehensive picture of mental and physical health status, unmet healthcare needs, health service use six months to one year after our baseline data collection, and the relationship of these factors to indicators of integration. We wanted to explore and identify changes in perceived mental and physical health and service use, as well as better understand what mental wellbeing meant to Syrian refugees, how it affected their lives, and what strategies they employed to support good mental health. Participants were provided an honorarium for participation in these studies. Our follow-up study contained two components: focus groups and follow-up surveys. The current chapter focuses exclusively on the follow-up surveys (an in-depth exploration of the results from the focus groups can be found in Oda et al., unpublished). For the follow-up study, we planned and successfully re-surveyed half of our original sample face-to-face (n=200). These surveys were longer and more complex than the baseline surveys, as we asked about everyday discrimination and social support, as well as about participants’ socioeconomic position and experiences since arriving in Canada (Tuck et al. 2019a, 2019b). Self-Perceived Health In both the original and follow-up studies, we used the rand-36 tool (Hays et al. 1993) to determine and examine self-rated physical and

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mental health. The physical heath (phc) and mental health (mhc) summary scores are derived from eight scales using a method based on that of the authors of the rand-36 tool to transform and normalize raw scores to the original American sample (Hays et al. 1993; Hays et al. 1998, 55–84). Higher scores on the scales mean better physical or mental health. As part of the study, we wanted to determine whether the composite scores for mental health and physical health had changed for refugees in the follow-up study as compared to their score at baseline, and how they had changed (i.e., did the scores increase, indicating improved health, or did they decrease, indicating worse health?). To assess whether differences in the summary scores had changed significantly over time, we followed the rand-36 suggested method (Hays et al. 1998, 50–4), which determines the extent of a person’s change in health status depending on whether they have “approached a normal population’s responses and diverged further from the response pattern of a dysfunctional population” (Hays et al. 1998, 50). We followed the method to determine if and how an individual’s score in the follow-up study differed (statistically significantly) from the original study’s estimated true score (ets) (Hays et al. 1998, 50–4). Each individual’s composite score, derived from their answers to the rand-36 method during the follow-up survey, is compared to the ets (±sep) to determine if it falls within the range established for their score from the first survey. If it falls in this range, then the change is rated as equivocal and is not statistically significant. If the score is higher than the greatest number in the ets range, then the change is rated positive – statistically higher than the baseline score. If the second score is below the lowest number in the ets range, it is considered a statistically significant decrease and rated as negative (Hays et al. 1998). Multinomial logistic regression models were developed and presented here in this chapter to determine what might predict positive or negative physical and mental health changes. Everyday Discrimination We attempted to determine the level of routine and relatively minor experiences of discrimination that Syrian refugees had experienced since coming to Canada through the use of the Everyday Discrimination Scale (eds) (Williams et al. 1997). The eds is a nine-item questionnaire that is turned into a scale measure ranging from 0 (no dis-

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crimination) to 45 (experiencing every form of discrimination every day) (Williams et al. 1997). Social Support The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (mspss) (Zimet et al. 1988) is a twelve-item questionnaire used to measure individuals’ subjective perception of social support. The mspss is an accepted tool for measuring the adequacy of social support in general and can produce subscales to address different sources of support: family, friends, and a significant other (Zimet et al. 1998). The mspss has been previously evaluated and found to be reliable and valid for measuring social support among Arab Americans (Aroian et al. 2010; Ramaswamy et al. 2009).

syrian refugees’ needs and factors influencing health and mental health after resettlement Demographic and Socio-Economic Comparisons Privately sponsored refuges (psrs) in our full sample of 400 refugees were on average older than government-assisted refugees (gars) by 10 years. Education levels before coming to Canada were low; a majority of our sample reported high school education or less (for more details about the full sample, please see Oda et al. 2017, E356); however, there was a difference in educational attainment, with psrs being more highly educated than gars (Oda et al. 2018). We found no significant differences between refugees who participated in the follow-up study and those from the original sample that were not included – whether for age, educational attainment, having seen a doctor at baseline, baseline self-reported rand-36 physical and mental health summary scores, or reported unmet health needs at baseline. At follow-up, we asked participants a number of questions about themselves and their situation in Canada (see table 3.1 for a descriptive breakdown of the follow-up sample) including participation in government-funded language classes and current schooling, employment, and need for interpretation services. When asked about whether they were currently in school, 17% said they were attending

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Table 3.1 Participant characteristics of follow-up sample (n=200) Baseline variables

GAR (n=100)

PSR (n=100)

Age (in years), mean (S.D.) Female % Education high school or better % Chronic illness or disability % Unmet healthcare need %

33.81 (±10.81) 50 35 16 57

44.68 (±16.40) 56 61 27 39

443.75 (±63.05) 3.70 (±2.04) 15 11 36.7 18

468.67 (±82.87) 1.83 (±1.20) 26 47 37.4 10

40 48 12 53 55.44 (±11.46) 57.33 (±11.96)

17 36 47 32 61.39 (±8.53) 60.00 (±10.80)

Follow-up variables

Length of time in Canada (# of days), mean (S.D.) # of children, mean (S.D.) Never married/previously married % Paid employment (Yes) % Housing is affordable (Yes) % Any discrimination (Yes) % How often do you require an interpreter? Always % Sometimes % Never % Unmet healthcare need % Physical health score, mean (S.D.) Mental health score, mean (S.D.) Source: The authors.

class, with no difference between gars and psrs. The majority were in post-secondary programs (including graduate school). 64% of the refugees were currently enrolled in English-language classes, but 11% reported never having taken any English classes. psrs were more likely to have never taken any English classes, and more likely to have spent less than six months in English classes, than gars (Χ=16.97, p