This chapter directly addresses two of the most central research questions in this study:
We begin by examining the refugee "retention rates" for each of the seven host communities. We then compare the level of geographic mobility among refugees to Census data for the Alberta population as a whole, to determine whether refugees, on first arrival in Canada, are unusually mobile. The specific mobility patterns of refugees who did leave their first host community are also discussed (e.g., How long did they stay in their destined community? Where did they go?). The chapter then turns to a discussion of the explanations provided by adult "leavers" for moving away from the first city in which they lived. Findings from other parts of the larger study are examined to see if they can help us interpret these explanations. In addition, an analysis of the future mobility intentions of refugees currently living in each of the host cities is presented.
The focus then shifts to settlement service providers’ explanations of why refugees leave their first community. Finally, opinions of residents of the seven host communities regarding the relationship between city size and satisfactory refugee adjustment to life in Canada are discussed.
Table 5-1 identifies the destined community and the current city of residence for the total "target sample" of 956 refugees. Sixty percent (576 individuals) were still living in the first community to which they had been sent on arrival in Alberta. Comparing across host
communities, we observe that retention rates are highest in the two largest cities (Edmonton and Calgary) and lowest in the two smallest cities (Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie). For example, 178 of the 231 refugees destined to Calgary were still living in Calgary when located by the research team (a retention rate of 77%). In contrast, only 14 of the 45 refugees destined to Grande Prairie were still living there (a 31% retention rate). The mid-sized communities of Lethbridge, Red Deer and Medicine Hat had retention rates of 43%, 55%, and 59%, respectively. It is noteworthy that Lethbridge, the largest of these three mid-sized host communities, had the lowest retention rate of the three. In short, refugees destined to larger communities are more likely to stay, although Lethbridge appears to be an exception to this pattern.
While unlikely, it is possible that the different retention rates simply reflect the fact that most of the refugees destined to the smaller communities arrived early in the 1992-97 study period, while most of those sent to the larger cities arrived there in the middle of the decade. In other words, the "time at risk" for leaving a host community might vary across cities, leading to the pattern of differential retention rates observed in Table 5-1.
An examination of Alberta data from the CIC Landed Immigrant Database discounts this explanation. Table 4-9 and Figure 4-10 (Chapter 4) showed that the two cities with the highest refugee retention rates also received higher proportions of their refugees in the beginning of the 1992-97 period covered by this study. For example, 48% of all the refugees destined to Edmonton and 45% of all those sent to Calgary arrived in 1992 and 1993, compared to only one-third of all the refugees destined to Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray. In fact, these two small cities (with the lowest retention rates) received a higher proportion of their refugees in 1996 and 1997, compared to about one-quarter for the other five host communities. Thus, the higher proportion of "leavers" among refugees destined to small Alberta cities (Table 5-1) cannot be explained by arguing that they arrived earlier and, hence, had more time to leave.
Table 5-1 reveals that 40% of the 956 refugees in the original "target sample" were "leavers" (including the 47 individuals who could not be located). In other words, four out of ten refugees destined to the seven host communities between 1992 and 1997 were no longer living there when this study was conducted in mid-1998. It would be interesting to compare this statistic with data on mobility patterns among non-refugees who had moved to these same cities during this time period, but such comparison information is not available.
However, the profiles of the seven host communities presented in Chapter 4 do contain some 1991 Census information on the geographic mobility of residents of these cities and of the total Alberta population (see Tables 4-19 and 4-20). In 1991, 24% of Albertans indicated that they had been living in a different city, different province, or different country five years earlier. While this statistic is clearly not directly comparable to the 40% "leaver rate" in our target sample of refugees (it covers a different time period, and it measures "new arrivals" rather than the proportion of "leavers"), it does suggest that, in their first few years in Canada, refugees to Alberta are likely to be more geographically mobile than the population as a whole.