Private sponsors given choice of swapping delayed Syrian refugees for others

Ottawa is offering certain private sponsors of Syrian refugees whose entry to Canada hasbeen delayed to get replacement families.

"It's a difficult choice," said Don Smith, chair of the refugee working group for the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa.

"Sponsorship ends up being a personal commitment between people here and people there. If you know the people, you're not going to give up on them."

The government has been under increasing pressure to respond to the complaints of private sponsors still waiting for refugees to arrive.

• Syrian refugee sponsorship 'blitz' ends with thousands of arrivals still months away
• Refugee sponsors frustrated by delays hold 'emergency meeting'

The current offer only applies to a small section of privatelysponsoredSyrianrefugees those on the government'sBlended Visa Office-Referred (BVOR) list for whichthe government and private sponsors split the costs.

Since March, about140 SyrianBVOR cases have been delayed.

The government made non-travel-ready cases available to sponsorship groupsto meet the "overwhelming interestin BVOR sponsorship during the Syrianresettlement initiative."Sponsors were warned at the time that their refugee familiesstill had to be screened.

"Some of these cases are currently on hold pending security/criminality and/or medical checks," said Lindsay Wempof the Department ofImmigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, in an email.

The newrefugees will have already passed their medical and security screening.

'We hope they find their way to Canada'

The government has promised to bring over the refugees who have been replaced asgovernment-assisted refugees if their cases are eventually approved.

Many sponsorship groups now have to make difficult decisions.

"Absolutely we would take a substitute family, [but]we'd be disappointed," said John Wright, co-chair of a sponsorship group based in Ottawa that's waited since January for their family to arrive.

"We hope that the first familyfind their way to Canada. We may never know what happens to them."

Wright and his group have no connection with theirrefugee family they selected from a government list.

"Ofcourse we had hoped for the family, the family we've never met, to come here," said Wright, who has mixed feelings about the federal government's offer. "But we have so little information [about the delay], we just have to accept that. And we're really hopeful that we can have someone else in their stead."

Smith says that by offering to replace one refugee family withanother, the government is living up to itscommitment to both refugees and private sponsors.

"They will get a family to sponsor, and the [refugee]families will come," he said. "One way or another. It is a good resolution to what turned out to be a sticky situation."

But other sponsorship groups feel too close to their prospective family to give up on them.

There's no way we can abandon this small family.- Philip English, refugee sponsor

Philip English's group has already sponsored one Syrian refugee family, and isnow waiting for the father's brother, wife and child to arrive from Jordan.

"It doesn't work for us at all," English said. "There's no way we can abandon this small family with their baby, in place of some other group that we don't know at all."

In an email to CBC News, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said sponsors have been told there "are no guarantees that the family will ultimately be approved for resettlement to Canada."

Groups accepting the offer havebeen promised families who matchthe profile of refugees they hadalready committed to sponsor. Only one replacement case will be offered to each group.

The new cases will be offered as they become available, and first choice will go to the groups that have been waiting the longest.