Settlement: We Can All Help

Deborah Tunis, former Director General of Integration and Special Coordinator for Syrian Refugee Resettlement at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, talks about working with settlement providers, provinces and territories to plan for the arrival of Syrian refugees.

Transcript:  We Can All Help

Video length: 1:57

Light music plays.

An image fades up of various directional signs at the refugee welcome center.

Text appears: Operation Syrian Refugees – Phase 4

The image fades to black and turns into a blurred background.

Text appears: We Can All Help

Screen fades to black and music stops.

Transition to a women speaking on camera, against a blurred background.

Text appears: Deb Tunis, Former Director General of Integration and Special Coordinator for Syrian Refugee Resettlement, IRCC

deb tunis: At the end of November [2015], I co-chaired with Chris Friesen from Immigrant Settlement Services of B.C., who at that time was the co-chair of the National Settlement Council, a session in Toronto where we brought together over 100 representatives from provinces, territories, municipalities [and] the settlement/resettlement sector, and began to put together a plan. So, one of the things that I brought with me today was this photo.

The image cuts to Deb holding a picture frame of herself and a man. They’re holding a copy of The Globe and Mail. The image then cuts back to Deb.

deb tunis: This was the … Chris and me at the session at the end of November in Toronto, and the headline in the Globe and Mail says: “Refugee Resettlement Plan Remains a Work in Progress.” So, what the Globe and Mail intended with that was that we sort of hadn’t worked everything out, and to me, that was a success because it meant that there was still opportunity to shape the resettlement part of this.

The image fades to images of IRCC employees working on computers in a control center. The last image then cuts back to Deb.

deb tunis: There were lots of people in the department working on bringing people safely and securely to Canada … getting them here, but the real part about welcoming them and worrying about their longer-term settlement and integration … it’s a part that just takes longer, and it needs educational institution[s] and the local immigration partnerships and the settlement agencies and the schools and the medical system and getting everybody working together towards the same goals. It was a tremendous opportunity. It was … it was a great project.

The screen fades to black.

The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada corporate signature along with the copyright message “Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2020.” are shown on screen followed by the “Canada” wordmark.