(Image: Supplied)

Hundreds of refugees who have spent up to eight years in Australia’s immigration detention system are set to be quietly resettled in Canada under a crowdfunded scheme supported by domestic and international advocacy groups. 

Under a little-known Canadian scheme, private citizens can sponsor refugees for about A$20,000, allowing them to be resettled in the country. The scheme was established in the late 1970s and has given 327,000 refugees a pathway to resettlement. 

Operation #NotForgotten, a campaign run by the Refugee Council of Australia and several years in the making, coordinating with Canadian migrant service MOSAIC, has raised more than $4.3 million to fund resettlement.

It’s led to a situation where — with almost no input from the Morrison government — advocacy groups and generous individual donors — some of whom provided more than $20,000 — have quietly helped refugees to begin a new life.

So far 11 people have been resettled in Canada. Another 159 refugees and 116 family members are in the resettlement pipeline. They could be in Canada as early as this year. 

With the government finally agreeing to resettle 450 refugees in New Zealand nine years after an offer was first made, the Canadian option will help to significantly reduce the number of people in the offshore immigration system.

The refugees arrived by boat between 2013 and 2014, after the Rudd government announced no maritime arrival would be allowed to stay in Australia. With more than 1300 still in immigration limbo — scattered between Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Australia — a deal with Canada would quietly help solve an uncomfortable political problem for the Morrison government.

For years, the Coalition maintained its zero tolerance approach on border protection and rejected the New Zealand deal, arguing it would create a back-door entry to Australia and restart the people smuggling trade. 

The Canada deal helps hundreds escape from the uncertain immigration limbo, and effectively takes them out of the hands of the government.

People close to the project maintained it happened with almost no government involvement, largely facilitated through private groups in Australia and Canada. Michael Georgeff, an artificial intelligence entrepreneur and one of those initiating the fundraising scheme, told Crikey he didn’t want the government taking credit for things.

“At best, [the government] did not actively undermine it,” he said. “But its success depended on the enormously hard, difficult and time-consuming work of many volunteers (many of whom are Canadians), the support given by the Refugee Council of Australia, UNHCR, PNG and Canadian government departments.”

Refugee Council CEO Paul Power said the project didn’t strictly need Australian government approval;- once Canada firmed as a resettlement option, refugees were free to go.

“It’s been positively received by the government because it suits their agenda,” he said.

Last year, offshore immigration processing cost taxpayers $800 million. And the Novak Djokovic affair brought international attention to the treatment of refugees in Australia’s immigration detention system. 

For years, the government has struggled to find resettlement options for refugees. A refugee swap deal with the United States has been slow and cumbersome; many arrived in the country with little support, and others deemed ineligible.

On the political front, pressure from independents challenging moderates in well-heeled seats could push the government to get more people resettled. Today’s budget is likely to include some form of refugee funding package.

The Canada plan alleviates a lot of that pressure on the government, without subjecting it to embarrassing political U-turns like the New Zealand deal. 

“The problem for the Coalition and Labor is that they can issue a whole lot of tough rhetoric to parts of the Australian electorate about how people who arrived by boat from July 2013 can never resettle,” Power said.

“But a great majority of them are found to need refugee protection, so they can’t be sent home, so Australia has to rely on other countries to come forward and offer resettlement. The [Australian] policy is a major imposition on resettlement in other countries.”

Thanks to the generosity of private donors, and the work of advocates, those problems are quietly being solved.