Mennonite Central Committee: Winnipeg Manitoba

Immigration Category Dept: Groups who sponsor refugees into Canada have an extra challenge. The Harper government has placed an embargo on submission of new sponsorships for 2012 and perhaps longer that will restrict the national new-case target to only 1,350 refugees next year. Winnipeg's Hospitality House Refugee Ministry alone filed sponsorships for that many in the first eight months of this year, according to Winnipeg Free Press. Winnipeg alone accounts for half of all new private refugee sponsorships being started by sponsoring groups across Canada. This is not only a reflection of activity among sponsors here, but also reflects the provincial government's aggressive immigration policy and the City of Winnipeg's own population-building strategy. The city insures most of these sponsorships against default. It has been doing so for the past eight years. Winnipeg is the only city in Canada with such a strategy and is a principal reason for the city's dominance of the national refugee sponsoring field and more than one million are waiting overseas, documents filed, to come as immigrants to Canada, Ottawa has disclosed -- this against an annual admissions target of 250,000. Every immigration category has its own queue. There are 90 groups across Canada with agreements with Ottawa empowering them to sponsor refugees here. Most are regional organizations of the mainline churches. Four of the biggest sponsors are in Winnipeg -- Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, the Anglican Diocese of Rupert's Land, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Winnipeg and the Mennonite Central Committee. Hospitality House, probably the most active sponsor in Canada right now, sponsors through both the Anglicans and the Roman Catholics. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.