Opinion by Beth Smillie

The federal government’s decision to stop new refugee applications from Groups of Five and Community Sponsors until January 2026 is another blow to the once vaunted Canadian private sponsorship program.

The global refugee crisis has more than doubled in scope over the last decade. As a nation, we should be rising to the challenge, not blocking the few paths available to sponsor and support refugees.

Hon. Marc Miller, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said the “pause” was necessary to deal with the massive backlog of more than 90,000 private refugee applications.

Under Canada’s private sponsorship program, groups of five or more people and community organizations are allowed to sponsor UN Convention Refugees. The application process is onerous and the wait times (up to 7 or 8 years) are horrendous, but Canadians and permanent residents continue to suffer the application ordeal.

In 2022, for example, about 22,500 refugee applications were accepted through the three streams that comprise the private sponsorship program: About 10,000 were submitted through Groups of Five and Community Sponsors. And the remaining 12,500 applications were submitted through Sponsorship Agreement Holders, organizations that have signed agreements with the government to sponsor refugees. (Most of Nest’s sponsorships are submitted through SAHs.)

Marc Miller, considered one of the best immigration ministers in a generation, has deftly dealt with many thorny issues in the department since assuming the post in July 2023.

But he missed the mark in freezing private refugee sponsorship applications to deal with the backlog.

The private refugee sponsorship program is not responsible for the backlog. How could it be?

All three streams under the Private Refugee Sponsorship Program (Groups of Five, Community Sponsorships and SAHs) are capped. Before the freeze, the government planned to accept only 22,000 applications annually over the next three years. With the freeze and other reductions, only the SAH stream will be allowed to submit applications in 2025 and number is capped at 10,800.

Ironically, when the Canadian government implemented the caps in 2012, it said they were necessary to reduce the backlog and wait times.

The caps have remained. And, it appears, so has the backlog.

In explaining the reasons for the freeze, Miller said on December 3, 2024 that when it comes to private sponsorships, there is an “oversupply” of applications and Canada does not want to give people fleeing war zones “false hope.”

What Minister Miller did not explain is where the oversupply came from?The Canadian Council for Refugees says the government needs to be transparent about the numbers.

When the government announces special programs to sponsor Sudanese, Gazans or the Uyghurs, does the government count them as privately sponsored refugees?

Without any details, we can only guess where the backlog came from.

It’s a question the Minister should answer.