Making the Match: Understanding the Destining Process of Government-Assisted Refugees in Canada

Abstract

Canada occupies a leadership role in resettling refugees as part of the United Nation’s durable solutions to the global refugee crisis. Although resettlement is an important demonstration of international solidarity, it also poses many challenges for policymakers in terms of optimizing integration and settlement outcomes for refugees. Under the Canadian Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP), government officials are responsible for choosing the communities to which Government Assisted Refugees (GARs) are matched and destined. While a significant amount of research has focused on the socio-economic outcomes of resettled refugees, there is a dearth of contemporary research outlining the substantive aspects of matching and destining GARs to their new homes in Canada. Mismatches can lead to refugees’ secondary migration, resulting in complicated trajectories of resettlement and integration. Based on interviews with key government officials and settlement providers, this study investigates the factors considered by the Canadian government, specifically, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), when making the match and assesses how they play out in the destining process by focusing on Ontario as a case study. The findings suggest that while factors such as availability of specialized medical services, family and friend connections, and a community’s settlement capacity are deemed important, the resettlement process lacks consideration of refugees’ individual characteristics and neglects to look at refugees’ human capital. The study has strong policy implications for designing and crafting an optimized destining and matching process that gives due consideration to refugee empowerment.