Speech: Why Australia Should Support the Private Sponsorship of Refugees

Thank you so much for inviting me to speak to you.  I had so hoped to do this in person but as we all know, the world around us has changed because of the crisis. Some people say that we are all in this COVID crisis together, but the truth is that we are all in the same ocean together, but some are in luxury yachts and others in life jackets.  The crisis has been unequal in its impact and this is where your role as philanthropists comes into play.  And I know that Australian philanthropy is stepping up to the plate just as Canadian philanthropy is too.  At time of national stress, philanthropy plays a special role.

So here I am from Canada talking to a group of Aussies over the web.  We are such different places and people:  you are hot, we are cold.  You are located, in glorious isolation as one of the world’s biggest island far down south. We occupy a perch at the top of the world and share the world’s longest border with the US (which is frankly a mixed blessing.)  We are polite and risk averse, whereas you come across as bold and sometimes brash.  Your stance against China and Facebook serve as one example.  You are happy to go it alone, whereas we find comfort in multilateralism. 

But there is a lot that we have in common as well.  As a first, the English language, although we are also bilingual.  Our shared past as colonies of Great Britain and our present as constitutional monarchies.

But we also share a significant feature in our geography and our population.  We occupy vast spaces and we both have relatively small populations.  Both are concerned about our aging populations.  In a sense I can say that we are both emerging nations still engaged in a critical stage of nation-building. 

Traditionally both countries have viewed nation-building through the lens of hard infra-structure – the national railway in Canada, the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric project in Australia. There can be no doubt that their audacity, scale and impact have shaped the souls of our nation.

In today’s context however, we need different tools to nation-build – not just through hard infra structure, but more imaginatively with people infra structure, because we live in a time when  social cohesion is more and more frayed for different reasons – politics, ideology, populism and of course social media.   

I come to you then today bearing a gift.  A solution both for nation building and social cohesion. And it has people right in the center of it. There is a very personal story at the heart of this.  

In 2015, I had an extraordinary experience.  As you will recall, the Syrian refugee crisis was overwhelming all the news.  I felt that as one individual, I could not simply stand by and let the forces surrounding this crisis unfold without undertaking my own small personal effort. Yes, of course I could simply donate money to the cause, but I wanted to go beyond and personally engage. Get my hands into the soil so to say.

 So I signed up to sponsor a family of Syrians to come and settle in Canada.  This is an initiative where citizens work with the government of Canada to bring in refugees in addition to those that government settles.  But there are requirements and criteria. 

In order to meet the criteria, I would need to pull together a team of others.  I put out a call through my networks and was quickly able to pull together a group of 10. They included a film producer, a banker, a public servant, a professor, an entrepreneur, a housewife.  We studied the process of becoming private sponsors, the criteria, the rules etc.  We all undertook to take the training that was provided by an NGO.  We pulled together the finances – and this was in fact the least troublesome part.  We were able to raise roughly 100k as private citizens quite easily.

 The hard part was choosing the refugee family we would resettle.  I remember being given a list of choices by the government.  And I remember feeling like God making that choice.  We could have chosen a simple case – there was a young couple on the list, but we decided – in all our wisdom that we wanted to set a stretch target – to help the family that would not be easy.  And this was a family of 11. A mother and the father, their seven children and the father’s two single sisters.  

In retrospect, that was the easy part.  There was great excitement when they arrived on a cold winter morning in December at Toronto airport.  The hard part started immediately: finding an affordable  home big enough for the family, getting their vaccinations up to date, signing them up for health care, and oh the dentists! Because the kids had lived in a refugee camp for four years and clearly eaten too much hard candy.  Getting them started with English classes, setting up the kids in school.  We assigned one sponsor to each child to make sure that their start in school was as smooth as could be.  We had to teach the mother that no – a bag of potato chips was not an appropriate school lunch by Canadian standards.   We were able through our connections to get the father an apprenticeship in his trade of brick laying. It was all enormously exhilarating and challenging.  And very very emotional.    We laughed a lot, but we cried more.

In the middle of all this we decided to sponsor another family of four and recruited more members to our team.   I think we got kind of addicted because we are now on to our third. 

What has been the result?  Well, our first family has bought a home, the father is a working member of a union, the kids of doing well in school.  The second family, a more urban family has required less of us – the kids are in university, both parents are self employed following their dreams. 

 When I think of this whole experience I am left with one overwhelming emotion.  I have done many many things, but this, THIS is the best thing I have ever done.  Not just because our refugee families have succeeded as new migrants, but because we – our group of 17 – has a new bond which will always be with us as a  shared experience, despite the many differences between us.  We have found a whole new social network as well as we are now linked with other sponsor groups – there is a group who came together because they walk their dogs together, there is a choir club, there is a wonderful group in rural Ontario whose sponsored family now has bought one of the farms to till, there are moms’ groups, there are school and university groups, groups of accountants and so on.  There is even a group of Indigenous people in British Columbia who have sponsored a family.  Most heart-warming is the role of the Vietnamese –  who themselves were privately sponsored by Canadians in 1979 – they have come together to sponsor Syrian refugees.  Paying it forward in grand style.    

I know that I would be a welcome guest for dinner at any of the sponsor groups spread across our Canada, from big urban centers to small out of the way rural communities.  And they would be welcome guests for dinner at my home because we have so much we can share, talk about, laugh about and yes, cry about. 

Canada’s private public experience of sponsoring refugees is a unique and successful experiment in nation building.  It began in 1978 as a response to the massive numbers of people who were displaced by the aftermath of war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In just two years, Canadians sponsored 35,000 people from Southeast Asia.

Since that time, more than 327,000 refugees have arrived through this unique private public private partnership.  More than 2 million Canadians have sponsored refugees and regardless of where they are, who they are – they share in this.  The movement continues to grow.  In the next few years, we will complement the numbers of refugees brought in solely by the government by an additional 69,000 refugees who are the responsibility of sponsors.

Let me take a few minutes to explain this unique public private partnership. For a first, we are always talking about UNHCR recognized, approved, certified refugees as opposed to others who may not be in genuine need of international protection.  Second, the government plays a role, and the sponsors play a role.  The government approves the visas for the refugees, with national standards in play.  The government then arranges their transportation, likely through the IOM.  The cost of transportation is often covered by a loan to the refugees.  Many sponsors choose to defray this cost.  On arrival, instead of the government stepping in to provide the settlement efforts, the sponsors spring in.  But in both our countries, let’s not forget that we have publicly funded education and health care systems.  The sponsors help the families navigate these systems.  And most importantly they do what government cannot do – share their personal social capital to help in the settlement.  All the data in Canada tells us that privately sponsored refugees are more successful that those who are solely the responsibility of the government.   

Canada is rightfully proud of this initiative and has begun exporting the private sponsorship model to other countries through the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative. Since 2016, at least ten countries have launched or piloted community sponsorship programs, including Argentina, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Australia must come on board and join this global effort not simply from the foundation of compassion, but from its desire to continue building its nation.

I am not an expert on Australian policies but I know the following:  

• Australia is generous, but the numbers of refugees it accepts annually has recently dropped. This year, less than 14,000 places have been allocated for the Humanitarian Program. In comparison, Canada’s target is to resettle 12,500 government-sponsored refugees and 22,500 privately-sponsored refugees.
• Your government is concluding its review this policy area in response to the Shergold review of refugee settlement policies.  And community sponsorship is on the table. 

Your state of readiness is also quite robust.  Through generous support from one your members, the Sydney Myer Fund, the field has been tilled through its funding of the Community Refugee Sponsorship Initiative.  There are close to 20 sponsor groups who have been trained and are ready, willing and able to spring into action.  They include usual and some unusual suspects, such as parish members but also groups of rural Australians keen to welcome refugees into their communities.  There are many Aussies around the country ready to roll up their sleeves. In Brisbane, for example, there is a group of sponsors that know each other from being part of the same children’s play group. In Melbourne, several groups of strangers have found one another, brought together by a shared desire to participate in refugee sponsorship

I don’t want to leave you with simply an aspirational idea, but to leave you with actions that are in your purview, within your reach purview and your authority.

1. First, let’s acknowledge that you have political power. You represent influence and privilege. You also have access.  So I will urge you to roll up your sleeves. Get in touch with the Community Refugee Sponsorship Initiative to find out about the details of what civil society is calling for and then reach out to MPs, write Op Eds, meet with Ministers to weigh in on the decision that they will be making soon.
   
   
2. Secondly, fund civil society organisations such as the Sidney Myer Fund has done. They do the hard work of recruiting, training and preparing sponsors. Ensure that unusual suspects are engaged so just not churches and schools, but also film clubs or book clubs because society not organizes itself differently. This is an area where philanthropic investments enjoy a huge ‘multiplier effect’ by unlocking the resources and networks of ordinary citizens to benefit refugee newcomers.
   
   
3. Third, support the success of an initial program to encourage a larger one in the future. If a new program is introduced in Australia, it is likely to start small and then grow over time. The sponsorship program in Canada has grown in scale over the years so that prior to the pandemic it was supporting the resettlement thousands of refugees each year. If the Australian community can demonstrate support for this program, the government will be more readily persuaded to grow the program over time in addition to the traditional government-funded resettlement program.
   
   
4. Fourth, fund research on impact. Good policy is always evidence based. 
   
   
5. Finally, when the opportunity presents, help a local sponsor group raise funds or better still, create your own sponsorship group made up of your community of philanthropy. Trust me on this, there is nothing quite like digging your hands into fertile soil to experience the joy of the harvest.  

Thank you.