How to Sponsor a Refugee – Ratna Omidvar on Canada’s Unique Program

Summary

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Episode Overview

Episode Title: How to Sponsor a Refugee – Ratna Omidvar on Canada’s Unique Program
Podcast: The CGD Podcast
Host: Rajesh Merchandani (Center for Global Development)
Guest: Ratna Omidvar, Canadian Senator, founder of Global Diversity Exchange, and former chair of Lifeline Syria
Date: August 2, 2016

This episode dives into Canada’s distinctive approach to refugee sponsorship, particularly the private sponsorship model that enables ordinary citizens to support refugee resettlement. Senator Ratna Omidvar explains why Canada’s migration policies stand out in a global context marked by political backlash against refugees and migrants, detailing the country’s political culture, demographics, and the practical nuts and bolts of private sponsorship. She contrasts Canada’s approach with that of other nations and explores what the world might learn from Canada’s experience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Canada’s Migration Narrative vs. Global Trends

• Global Context:
  Europe’s refugee crisis and political events like Brexit have stoked anti-migrant sentiment and restrictive policies across much of the West. In contrast, Canada projects a more welcoming image, epitomized by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly welcoming Syrian refugees ([00:00]-[01:47]).

• Canadian Exceptionalism:
  Ratna Omidvar attributes Canada’s distinct approach to a national self-image deeply tied to immigration, unlike the increasingly exclusionary narratives seen in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia, and others ([01:59]-[02:30]).

2. Underpinning Factors of Canada’s Attitude

• Historical & Demographic Realities:

  • A significant portion of Canada’s population is foreign-born (20% nationwide, 51% in Toronto).
  • The country faces demographic challenges including a low and declining birth rate and an aging population, creating economic reliance on newcomers ([05:14]-[05:32]).
  • “We are aging out. We are worried about who’s going to provide our services, who are going to be the doctors, who are going to be the teachers.” – Omidvar ([05:32])

• Role Models & Symbolism:
  Canadian leadership, at both national and local levels, prominently celebrates immigrant success stories as a deliberate choice to foster social cohesion ([03:13]-[03:51]).

• Data-driven Advocacy:
  Anecdotal and scientific evidence in Canada highlights immigrants’ positive contributions to the economy and society, reinforcing public support ([03:52]-[05:14]).

3. Limits of Exceptionalism

• Geography as Protection:
  Canada’s large landmass, relative isolation (flanked by oceans), and proximity to the US limit the influx of spontaneous refugee arrivals, making large-scale crises like those in Lebanon or Turkey less likely ([06:18]-[06:52]).

  “The story of Canadian exceptionalism … is very much grounded in our geography, which protects us.” – Omidvar ([06:18])

4. Private Sponsorship: Canada’s Unique Model

• How It Works:

  • Groups of private citizens (never individuals alone, to prevent exploitation) commit to supporting a refugee family by providing a year’s worth of financial and practical assistance ([09:20]-[09:53]).
  • Financial requirements are significant (e.g., $27,000 for a family of four; $80,000 for twelve as Omidvar’s group did) but attainable via group fundraising ([09:20]-[09:53]).
  • Sponsors become personally involved in the newcomers’ lives—providing tutoring, organizing recreation, and even accompanying children to school events ([10:13]-[11:46]).

  “We want a personal connection. We want to play more than a passive role in settlement.” – Omidvar ([10:13])

• After the Sponsorship Period:
  Refugees become permanent residents immediately, with access to social supports if needed post-sponsorship. Omidvar notes that most sponsorships are successful, with privately sponsored refugees often integrating more quickly ([11:48]-[12:41]).

  “Sponsored refugees succeed better, faster, quicker than other refugees.” – Omidvar ([12:41])

• Who Sponsors Refugees:
  Initially faith-based groups, but now a wide range of community organizations: dog-walking clubs, choirs, book clubs, entire schools, and neighborhood associations ([12:56]-[13:44]).

  “People have come together with this idea of sponsoring as something they can do that helps refugees where they have skin in the game and where they can get personally engaged. … That’s the magic, the personal engagement.” – Omidvar ([13:44])

• Prevalence and Uniqueness:
  Private sponsorship has become a widespread, almost celebrated cause in Canada; few other countries have developed similar programs despite interest in Australia, New Zealand, and the US ([13:46]-[14:16]).

5. Challenges and Policy Limits

• Economic and Budgetary Constraints:
  Concerns are raised about government deficits and competing social priorities, but Omidvar stresses the importance of inclusive policy:

  “There is no either or in this. We must do this and we must do this. And by doing this we are also helping other excluded groups.” ([14:42]-[15:36])

  • The government is careful to avoid portraying refugees as a privileged group.

6. Lessons for Other Countries

• Over-Institutionalization of Refugee Response:
  Omidvar observes that global responses have prioritized multilateral organizations and government structures, sidelining ordinary citizens, local communities, and municipalities, who are vital to successful integration ([15:47]-[16:56]).

  “We have to bring refugee resettlement acceptance importance down to that local level and bring people to the table in the discussion who have been excluded … at its heart, it’s a human construct.” – Omidvar ([16:56])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Canada’s National Identity:
  “We define ourselves so much as a nation … made up by waves of immigrants.” – Omidvar ([02:33])

• On The Desire for Personal Connection:
  “We want to play more than a passive role in settlement … this family has become our extended family.” – Omidvar ([10:13]-[11:46])

• On Integration Outcomes:
  “Sponsored refugees succeed better, faster, quicker than other refugees.” – Omidvar ([12:41])

• On Local Engagement:
  “We have to bring refugee resettlement acceptance importance down to that local level and bring people to the table in the discussion who have been excluded.” – Omidvar ([16:56])

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | [01:59] | Canada’s migration approach vs. rest of the world | | [03:13] | How Canada addresses native worker anxieties & celebrates immigrants | | [05:14] | Demographic challenges and economic rationale for immigration | | [06:18] | Canada’s geographical barriers to mass refugee influx | | [09:20] | Overview of the private sponsorship scheme | | [10:13] | Sponsors’ motivations and forms of support | | [11:48] | What happens after the first year of sponsorship | | [12:56] | Who participates in private sponsorship | | [13:46] | Popularity and uniqueness of the program | | [14:42] | Budget pressures, competing priorities, government positioning | | [15:47] | Lessons for the US, UK, France and other G20 countries from the Canadian model |

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Conclusion

Senator Ratna Omidvar’s insights paint a picture of an immigration and refugee policy deeply rooted in Canadian identity and practical necessity. Canada’s private sponsorship program empowers ordinary people to directly participate in the integration process, building lasting social connections and demonstrating effective, scalable ways to welcome refugees. She suggests that the rest of the world could benefit by involving local communities and making refugee support a human, not just institutional, priority.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign hello, I'm Rajesh Merchandani. Thanks for joining me for this edition of the CGD podcast. Now, Europe's refugee Crisis and the UK's Brexit vote have sent waves of uncertainty through global economies and put immigration migration at the heart of the political debate in many countries. One of the arguments used by the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum was that leaving the EU would would help Britain better control immigration. But it's a claim that ignores the fact that a large number of people heading to the UK don't come from the eu. It's a policy solution based on fear. Fear of potential jobs lost among British people, fear of a breakdown in social cohesion, fear of the other. Several European countries, in fact, have considered or introduced new laws to keep refugees out or down. And the US presidential election has a similar flavor, built on claims of migrants taking jobs and benefits from from U.S. citizens and bringing crime to America's apple pie towns. One country where there seems to be a different narrative is Canada, whose Prime minister happily hugged Syrian refugees arriving in his country to begin a new life. Was that just a photo op by a hip new leader, or is Canada really so different? Ratna Omidvar has decades of experience and expertise in immigration, diversity and inclusion in Canada. She founded Global Diversity Exchange, a think tank at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. And she's the former chair of Lifeline Syria, a group that helps private citizens sponsor refugees to come to Canada. Last year, she was personally phoned up by Prime Minister Trudeau and appointed as an independent Senator for Ontario. So, Senator Omidvar, welcome.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

How much is Canada's approach to migration more than a photo op of the photogenic Justin Trudeau greeting Syrian refugees at the airport? What's the substance?

[B]

Canada's approach to migration is increasingly different from that of the rest of the world, at least parts of the world where people aspire to come from. We used to be in the company of many other nations, like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia, New Zealand. This group has decreased more and more, with more right wing elements emerging in all political parties in most jurisdictions.

[A]

So how come that hasn't happened in Canada?

[B]

I think that has not happened in Canada because we see ourselves so much and we define ourselves so much as a nation in some great part, not in its entirety, but in some great part as a nation that has been made up by by waves of immigrants.

[A]

But this is the same narrative that is told by politicians in the US as well, that this is a country of Migrants. That waves of migration have benefited the U.S. still, that doesn't help a white male who is facing competition from a migrant worker. How do you get over that? Domestic politics? What do you tell that worker?

[B]

We're not absolutely immune from that discourse either. It has raised its head and it will, I think, always raise its head, particularly in times of recession. But we take great trouble and pain to do two things. One is to put forward role models and celebrate them as symbols. Our national symbols, our local symbols. Our mayors do this, Our prime minister does that. It wasn't just a photo op, by the way. It was a political commitment that was made. And it was telling the Canadian people, we are delivering on the promise of compassion.

[A]

It was an election promise, wasn't it?

[B]

It was an election promise that he would welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees. And that was the first display of success. We do something also else also, and I'm sure that other countries do it too. But somehow, for us, it seems to work. We have evidence and we have data that prove proof that immigrants buy homes. They buy homes at a faster rate than others. They send their children to school and to university. That more children in Canadian universities, especially in our urban universities, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, more children are children of immigrants than not. We have multiple levels of information, anecdotal as well as scientific, that show over time, immigrants will contribute to not just the hard dollars and cents of our country, but to the social fabric of our country. This is not different from other liberal democracies. We just give greater play to it because, after all, 20% of our population was not born in Canada. The town I come from, Toronto, 51% of our population, was not born in Canada.

[A]

Is it easier in Canada politically because it's a country with a relatively small population? You're not overcrowded, 35 million people.

[B]

I think we have 36 million people in a huge land mass. We also have a domestic birth rate that is declining.

[A]

Yeah, you're aging out.

[B]

We are aging out. We are worried about who's going to, you know, provide our services, who are going to be the doctors, who are going to be the teachers. We worry about labor market shortages, whether they are high skilled or low skilled. We worry about the fact that.

[A]

Most.

[B]

Of our trade is with the United States, where we know we should be globalizing. All of this makes us more immigrant friendly.

[A]

How do you think you'd cope? I mean, Canada's taken 25,000 refugees, which is much, much more than, say, the U.S. has in terms of Syrian refugees. But if you look at Lebanon or Turkey or Jordan. I mean, Lebanon's population has swelled by 25%, a third almost in Syrian refugees. That would be 10, like 10 million Syrians arriving in Canada. How would you cope then?

[B]

I don't think we would cope. We are who we are. And the story of Canadian exceptionalism, as I call it, is very much grounded in our geography, which protects us. We have two large oceans on either side of us. We're perceived to be a cold, unaccessible country. We have a very long border with the world's most prosperous society. More people want to get into the United States than want to get out of the United States. So we are protected by all these factors. I think if we were in the middle of Europe, the narrative would have been different.

[A]

That protection, that relative kind of geographical isolation, and the fact that Canada, for many people, is slightly under the radar. Did that affect how you took Syrians, how you approached the taking of Syrian refugees, inviting of Syrian refugees? Did they want to come?

[B]

I think they had not thought of Canada. I mean, I've talked to a lot of Syrian refugees for ever so long. They hung out in those camps, waiting and hoping that, after all, things in Syria would improve. That was the first thing. I mean, I don't know. I have not talked to any Syrian refugee who has not said to me if things that they would never have left if the situation hadn't turned the way it did. You know, lots of them stood out. And in fact, I know of Syrian families who approved to come to Canada, who thought about it and said, no, if I leave this camp in Jordan and Turkey and Lebanon, it means I will never go back to Syria again. And they weren't prepared to do that. There was something else. They hadn't thought about Canada. They had thought about Germany. They had thought about eu. That was the quick route. They had even thought about the United States. People don't think about Canada. We sort of are this, you know, this middle power, these, you know, this country far away, and people don't think of us. And when we actually said we want to take 25,000 Syrian refugees for a couple of months, then there was no uptake, and we thought nobody liked us. The truth of the matter is paper takes its own time, communications takes its own time. And now, you know, we have our. We have more than 25,000. I think we have roughly 28,000 that arrived and another 18,000 in the process of arriving.

[A]

So the Syrians were scratching their heads, going, where? It's cold, isn't it cold? Is that what they were saying.

[B]

They. The family that I sponsored, they arrived on the 18th of December, and they looked very worried. I picked them up in the hotel with our team. You don't do this alone. As a private sponsor, you're not allowed to sponsor. An individual is not allowed to sponsor because that's too fertile a ground for exploitation.

[A]

So you're starting to talk about what I was going to move on to, which is great. So thank you for moving us on. But this is about the private sponsorship scheme that Canada has.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So just explain a little bit about that to us. So you get together in groups.

[B]

We get together in groups. We decide to sponsor a family, which means we have to fulfill certain obligations. The first one of the obligations is we have to have money. We have to either have financial commitment or money in the bank, depending on the situation. So for a family of four, you need to show a minimum of $27,000 and so on and so forth. We decided to sponsor a family of 12. So we needed much, much, much more. We actually were able to raise, As I said, 80,000 dol without any trouble at all.

[A]

And that money goes to that family.

[B]

Towards helping them pay for the cost of housing, food, transportation, et cetera, in the first year of arrival to get settled. To get settled.

[A]

Why would people do that? Where does that money. That money can be your own money.

[B]

It is our own money. It is. It is all put private money. Why do we do that as opposed to, you know, giving it away to another organization? I think the outpouring of private sponsors who are standing, waiting and screaming at our Minister of Immigration, where is my refugee family? In fact, our Minister of immigration stands up and says he must be the only minister who can't produce refugees fast enough for the Canadian public's appetite. It's because we want a personal connection. We want to play more than a passive role in settlement. So in our case, we visit them once a week. We make sure the children have tutoring. We have teams that we have built around career counseling for the adults, around recreation and sports for the kids. But we've organized a hockey game. We've made sure they're learning swimming. Oh, my God. The conferences with the school teachers. We're organizing a trip to Niagara Falls. We become their Erzatz family, more or less. And I. Even though the financial commitment is for a year, I know that this emotional commitment will continue because in many ways, this family has become our extended family.

[A]

What happens after a year?

[B]

After a year, they are supposed to either fend for themselves or they can then rely on government assistance, provincial government assistance. So they're never without resources. They're never without resources Once they come to Canada, they are Canadians, they are permanent residents like anybody else. But they can go to the police if a sponsor abuses them. There are sponsorship breakdowns. I want to tell you. Sometimes it doesn't work. People don't like each other. Sponsors can be too intrusive. Sponsored refugee families can be non responsive. So there are breakdowns, but they are few and far between. By and large, sponsored refugees and sponsors work very well together. And there is no wonder then that sponsored refugees succeed better, faster, quicker than other refugees.

[A]

What kind of people actually take part in the private sponsorship? I mean, I understand that you would because you spent 20, 30 years working in this environment, but what other people are involved in this?

[B]

Actually, this was the first time I'd ever done this.

[A]

It doesn't surprise me that you would be of that mindset.

[B]

Well, in the past, most private sponsors have been people associated with faith groups and that is no surprise. Today, private sponsorship groups include. I have, for instance, talked to a dog walking club which has become a private sponsor group. I have worked with a choir which sings and sponsors a book club, street association, schools, entire schools. People have come together with this idea of sponsoring as something they can do that helps refugees where they have skin in the game and where they can get personally engaged. I think that's the magic, the personal engagement.

[A]

How widespread is this scheme?

[B]

I can't turn around in Toronto without bumping into someone else who says, oh, I'm on this team. Which team are you? It's really become sort of a cause celebrate. It is unique to Canada though. I understand there is interest in Australia, in New Zealand. There's also interest in the United States. There is interest, but there is no other government that I know of that has said, we are going to do this in the way Canada does this.

[A]

The onus is on the group to raise the money for the first year. And then the there is state funding or provincial funding or government funding at some level, which is fine in good years when the economy's doing fine, but the new government is running a much bigger deficit than it thought it would. It's what it's going to be. 29 billion Canadian dollars. This is extraordinary. Three times as much as they expected and growing. What happens then? What gets cut first? This is the kind of thing that would get cut first.

[B]

Well, I mean, lots of people have asked and put the question, why are we helping refugees when we have home homeless people In Canada? Why are we helping refugees when we have unemployed graduate students in Canada or undergrad students? Why are we helping refugees when the first nations people are suffering? There is no either or in this. We must do this and we must do this. And by doing this we are also helping other excluded groups. But I will also say that our government has been quite deliberate and our Minister of Immigration in particular has been quite deliberate in positioning his help and support for refugees as being within the limits of what we can do without setting up refugees as a specially privileged group.

[A]

What do you think other countries, other big economy, G20 countries. What could the US, what could the UK, what could France, what could learn from Canada's experience here?

[B]

I think we have over institutionalized our response to refugees. We have big multilateral organizations and governments responding. You know, whether it's the UNHCR or whether it's the iom, and they play a really, really important role. But we've done this at the cost of excluding the normal citizen, the ordinary citizen. And we've also excluded cities from this conversation. After all, refugees go wherever they go. They will live in a local community. And we don't talk to the mayors of these communities or the counselors of these communities. We don't talk to the employers or the community centers or the neighbors. And I think we have to bring refugee resettlement acceptance importance down to that local level and bring people to the table in the discussion who have been excluded because it's been thought of as a global, transnational, national construct as opposed to at its heart, it's a human construct.

[A]

Zenita Ratna Omidvar, Great to talk with you. Thank you for joining me on the podcast.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Now, if you'd like to read a little about what CGD has to say on the migration, check out Michael Clemens and Justin Sandova's piece that first appeared in Foreign affairs called A Self Interested Approach to Migration Crises, as well as a blog called Asylum Seekers or Economic Migrants and How Many Angels Can Stand on a Pinhead? That's one piece by Hannah Postel and Owen Barda. All of these articles, blogs, papers are on our website, cgdev.org and look out in the next couple of months for a new paper on survival migration by my colleagues Michael Clemens and Hannah Postel. A growing body of work on and timely topic here at cgd. As ever, I'm Rajesh Merchandani and thank you very much for joining me. And please do join me again for the next podcast from the Centre for Global Development.