The available literature on refugees in Canada tends to be limited to research reports on one or another specific national group of refugees, or to research focusing on a narrow range of refugee experiences in the host society. There are no published studies comparing refugees from different national origins, or comparing refugees settled in different Canadian cities, or describing and comparing the broad range of refugees’ settlement experiences.
This research report is the first attempt to collect and analyze detailed information on a wide range of settlement experiences of refugees in Alberta. It covers a large sample of refugees, both adult and youth, who arrived in Canada in the six-year period 1992-1997. It also includes refugees who were encouraged to settle in centres other than the large metropolitan areas of Edmonton and Calgary. The five smaller centres to which they were destined are Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Grande Prairie, and Fort McMurray. The data collected in this study allow us to compare the adaptive experience of Alberta-bound refugees from different national origins who were settled in these smaller centres, as well as in Edmonton and Calgary.
The study is timely and important because of the absence of reliable information on the consequences of the practice of destining refugees to smaller urban centres. For example, do refugees stay in the smaller centres, or do they migrate to larger cities in Alberta or elsewhere? Are smaller urban centres better, similar to, or less effective than larger centres in integrating refugees into the social and economic fabric of Canadian society? Is the policy of encouraging refugees to settle in smaller urban centres working, or does it need to be discarded or modified? These questions are of particular interest to policymakers. This is why the study was commissioned by the Citizenship and Immigration Centre in Edmonton, and strongly recommended by Alberta Advanced Education and Career Development, the department responsible for the immigration and integration portfolio.
This chapter addresses these and other related research questions and elaborates the purpose of the study and its research objectives. It opens with a brief account of Canada’s experience with refugees, followed by a discussion of Alberta’s experience with settling refugees. Next, the chapter delineates the purpose of the study and related research objectives, and provides a brief summary of the factors which might facilitate or impede the integration of refugees into Canadian society. The final section briefly describes the organization of this report.