Left out of the Levels Plan: A Call for Accessible Statistics for the Joint Assistance Sponsorship Program to Facilitate Research and Evaluation

By Rachel McNally

December 2024

With the news in recent weeks highlighting the changes to Canada’s 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan (released October 2024), there is one refugee sponsorship program that does not appear in the levels plan: the Joint Assistance Sponsorship Program. In March 2023, I published the paper “Equally Public and Private Refugee Resettlement: The Historical Development of Canada’s Joint Assistance Sponsorship Program” in Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees. In this post, I explore newly available numbers I received since publishing the paper. The numbers show that from 1980 to 2022, 15,305 refugees received government and sponsor support through the program. Though small in comparison to the numbers for the other resettlement programs in Canada, Joint Assistance Sponsorship has still made a significant contribution to Canadian resettlement.

The Joint Assistance Sponsorship (JAS) program is designed for refugees referred to Canada by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees with “special needs” such as “trauma from violence or torture, medical disabilities, the effects of systemic discrimination, or a large number of family members.” Refugees arriving under this program are counted as Government-Assisted Refugees in most official records, which is why the category does not appear in the immigration levels plan or the public statistics on resettlement. The idea of the program is to provide sponsor settlement and emotional support for refugees with specific needs on top of the settlement and financial support (Resettlement Assistance Program) these refugees are receiving through the Government-Assisted Refugees program, which is why JAS is sometimes known as “GAR-plus” (McNally 2023, 8). In contrast, refugees arriving under the Blended Visa Office-Referred sponsorship program receive the initial orientation from their sponsors instead of settlement workers, and their financial support is split between sponsors and government. Meanwhile, under the Private Sponsorship of Refugees program, sponsors select refugees and provide financial and settlement support for the first year in Canada.

Researching the Joint Assistance Sponsorship program has been challenging because of the lack of public information and statistics. As I wrote my paper for Refuge, it was difficult to find any information. Before publication, I had to tell my reviewers that unfortunately, the comprehensive statistics they hoped to see were simply unavailable. I included in the paper what I could find after a long process of searching and asking for information. In 2020, I submitted an Access to Information request to IRCC for information and statistics related to the Joint Assistance Sponsorship program. I got the response: “Following a thorough search of our information holdings, I regret to inform you that no records were found that respond to your request.” I was shocked. How did IRCC not keep statistics or information regarding one of their programs? They suggested that I could request a customized report for immigration statistical data from another branch of IRCC. A few months later, the IRCC Statistical Reporting Group sent me some JAS statistics, but only covering the time period from 2014 to 2019. I managed to find some statistics for other limited time periods from other sources, but no comprehensive statistics covering the whole lifespan of the program as the reviewers hoped. I also sought information about the program through interviews with individuals who have been involved. It was difficult to find out who in IRCC was administering the program to interview, which I only found out through a connection with a PhD colleague.

More recently, Brian Dyck, a CARFMS Executive member, was doing an international presentation on Canada’s behalf about the topic of refugee sponsorship. In preparation for his presentation, he requested more information about the different sponsorship programs from IRCC. To my surprise, he received comprehensive statistics for the Joint Assistance Sponsorship program from 1980 to 2022 and shared them with me, the very statistics I had been previously told were unavailable. I have graphed these statistics he shared with me below.

As the graph shows, 15,305 refugees were sponsored under JAS from 1980 to 2022, with clear variations in numbers in different years and time periods. In each of the years from 1980 to 2009, over 90 refugees were sponsored through JAS, including many years in which more than 250 refugees were sponsored. There is an obvious jump in the numbers in the years 2000 and 2001, with 3,800 refugees and 1,990 refugees respectively. In these years, a decision was made to use the program for essentially all Kosovar refugees coming to Canada, the only time the program has been used to accept a group of refugees rather than individual referrals. Since 2010, the program has continued to be used to provide intensive support, but to a smaller number of refugees. From 2019 to 2022, five or fewer refugees were sponsored through JAS each year, in part due to the pandemic. 

 

Source: Shared with the author by Brian Dyck. From Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data request CDO-23-0341. 1980-1997 IRCC, RDB, RDM, Permanent Residents Oct 2015 extract.; 1998-2022 IRCC, RDB, Permanent Residents, April 30, 2023 Data. All values are rounded to the closest multiple of 5 to prevent individuals from being identified. Full numbers are available from the author upon request.

Given the numbers above, the program has made a notable contribution to Canadian resettlement over time. However, many things about the program are still unclear or unknown, making it difficult to research or evaluate the program. The statistics do not provide any information about why refugees were referred to the program, for example what percentage of refugees were referred because of medical needs or trauma. The statistics do not show the experiences of refugees and sponsors within the program. The statistics end in 2022 and do not give an indication of post-pandemic resettlement, the current use of the program, or future directions.

In my paper, I recommended that “the government should consider publishing JAS statistics each year and formally evaluating the program to recognize the contributions of sponsors, publicize the program, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and clarify its role within the Canadian resettlement system.” I still have not seen any public JAS numbers or any evaluation of the program. I reiterate my call for transparency related to the JAS program, not just annual statistics, but also other information that could help researchers, the government, and the sponsorship community understand the impact, strengths, and shortcomings of the program. With the target for Government-Assisted Refugees set to drop from 21,115 in 2024 to 15,250 in 2025 and 2026, and the 2025 and 2026 targets for Privately Sponsored refugees reduced from the previous levels plan by more than 11,000 over two years, it is even more important to assess how all of Canada’s resettlement programs work together to provide protection and settlement support to refugees. The Joint Assistance Sponsorship program may have future potential in Canada or even as a possible model for other countries, but with so much information hidden, its potential is hard to assess or achieve.

Bibliography

McNally, Rachel. 2023. “Equally Public and Private Refugee Resettlement: The Historical Development of Canada’s Joint Assistance Sponsorship Program.” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 39 (1): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.40941.