Understanding Canada's Private Sponsorship Program: Its origins, features, and consequences

This article highlights features of Canada’s private sponsorship program and explains its consequences and performance. It explores which actors were involved in the private sponsorship, how domestic circumstances stimulated the application of the program, and it iscusses its intended and unintended consequences. The author examines the profile of the Syrian refugees and discusses how personal characteristics may affect integration trajectories. Private sponsorship is considered more effective than government-assisted sponsorship as it ensures a smoother, faster, and long-term integration of refugees. However, the author argues that personal profiles could play a critical role in integration process, and therefore, measuring the program’s performance by only comparing it with a government-assisted program could be challenging.