Will Canada accept more Syrian refugees?

Since 2015, more than 100,000 Syrian refugees have been resettled across hundreds of Canadian cities and towns.

Alex Dhaliwal
  |   December 11, 2024   |   News Analysis   |   1 Comment

Trudeau’s immigration minister would not clarify Tuesday if Canada would accept more Syrian refugees, following the end of a brutal, 14-year civil war in the country. 

“I think some countries face asylum-seeking levels from Syria in much higher quantities than we do,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters. 

Since 2015, more than 100,000 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Canada, reported CTV News.

Canada has just shy of 1,600 pending refugee claims from Syria as of September 30, while certain European countries like Germany have more than 47,000 pending claims.

“We don't face that flow in Canada,” said Miller, who notes his department will continue evaluating asylum claims by Syrians.

Several European countries paused those claims after the Assad regime fell Sunday, ending their rule which spanned more than 50 years.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly fled the country to Russia, after alleged terror groups seized the capital Damascus.

From 2016 to 2022, the Canadian government accepted 88,838 government-assisted refugees, and another 119,000 were privately sponsored, reported Blacklock’s. Two-thirds of these were men under the age of 29 from Syria and Afghanistan.

A recent study by Statistics Canada revealed that 42.3% of government-assisted Syrian refugees in 2014, aged 15 to 54, still rely on social assistance.

The situation worsened for subsequent cohorts, with 2015 arrivals showing a 50.4% reliance on social assistance after five years. That jumps considerably to 69.5% for the 2016 cohort.

In 2016, taxpayers had spent $743 million to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees. The Trudeau government allocated an additional $33.5 million to resettle 10,000 more government-sponsored refugees that same year.

Blacklock’s learned in March 2017 that 90% of Syrian refugees let into Canada were unemployed. Then immigration minister Ahmed Hussen said provinces must still provide welfare costs for unemployed refugees.

Resettlement costs for government-assisted refugees are covered entirely by taxpayers, reported True North. At the time, Canada resettled Syrian refugees across 274 towns and cities nationwide.

“There are always growing pains,” Hussen said at the time. “It’s common for government-assisted refugees to lose their income support after the first year of support by the federal government. The responsibility after that falls to the provincial governments.”

Roughly a third (31%) of refugees rely on food banks, with more than half (53%) pocketing social assistance for at least five years, according to a new report from the Department of Immigration.

Owing to legislative amendments in 2001, the federal government waived requirements for refugees to prove their economic independence. 

In-house Canada Revenue Agency research, which interviewed Syrians, among others, said that “taxes in Canada are expensive.”

Only 56% of government-assisted refugees from Syria directly participate in the Canadian labour market, according to recent Statistics Canada data.

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Alex Dhaliwal

Calgary Based Journalist

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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  • Bruce Atchison
    commented 2024-12-11 19:02:10 -0500
    The last thing we need is more fake refugees. Assad’s regime was bad but who can tell what these new rulers will be like