About a decade ago, Canada's Counsellor for Immigration at the High Commission in Canberra came to Wellington to explain how Canada's refugee sponsorship programme works.
His discussion of it at The Initiative's event is here.
The basic deal: whenever communities can get together to raise the funds necessary to support a refugee's start, Canada will open the door to another refugee. Outcomes have been very good - or, at least, sponsored refugees have better outcomes than those arriving through the government's quota.
The previous Labour government here set up a trial programme. And it's now being made permanent.
The Government has announced the Community Organisation Refugee Sponsorship (CORS) programme will become a permanent part of New Zealand’s refugee resettlement system.
Associate Minister of Immigration, Casey Costello said the trial of the CORS programme shows it can deliver strong outcomes for refugees in employment, housing, education, and community connection.
“Making it permanent means we can build on the skills, partnerships and knowledge developed through the pilot. This is a positive step and provides a programme that we know works,” Ms Costello says.
The permanent CORS programme will begin 1 July, with organisations able to apply to become approved community sponsors from that date. The introduction of the programme will be scaled, with 50 places available in the first year.
But there are a couple of substantial differences as compared to Canada's regime. Hopefully New Zealand's can evolve towards Canada's in time.
Canada has a high nominal cap on the number of allowed sponsored refugees.
New Zealand will cap the number at 200.
Canada's sponsored route sits on top of the government's route. However many refugees the Canadian government is prepared to support, communities can fundraise to support more. Those sponsored refugees are additional.
New Zealand's will be subtractive. The total number is capped, so whenever a community gets together to sponsor a refugee, one will come through that channel - with no effect on the numbers allowed to come here.
CORS will be delivered alongside New Zealand’s Refugee Quota Programme, maintaining an overall number of refugee resettlement places available at 1,500. Places will be progressively allocated to the community sponsorship pathway as it scales up, with the Quota Programme adjusting accordingly. This allows CORS to be funded from within existing baselines.
The Refugee Quota Programme will remain New Zealand’s primary humanitarian pathway, and any allocated CORS places that are not taken will return to the Quota Programme.
“In the current environment, this is the best way to ensure a programme that we know works well can continue into the future,” Ms Costello says.
“The Government remains firmly committed to an overall resettlement intake of 1,500 people per year. New Zealand currently takes the third largest number of UNHCR mandated refugees internationally, behind Canada and Australia.”
If the concern is resourcing, because the government covers some of the cost in a refugee's travel here, it could make more sense to increase the amount of funding that a community group must raise so it covers the total cost, and then allow it to be additional to the government's quota.
During the Syrian refugee crisis, Canadian communities could work together to help support more arrivals while Kiwis instead had to lobby the government to increase the quota. I'd hoped that the sponsorship regime could provide flexibility that the government's quota can't. It will not do that job under this setup.
