Settlement Works: What the Evidence Says About Refugees in Alberta 

Seventy-five years after the Refugee Convention promised protection to those forced to flee, Alberta is debating what welcome means. The data offers a clear answer. 

On June 20, 2026, the world marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the foundational international agreement that established the right to seek asylum. The milestone arrives at a charged moment in Alberta. With a provincial referendum scheduled for October 19 that includes questions directly targeting newcomer access to public services, immigration has become a flashpoint in a wider debate about provincial identity, public resources, and who belongs. 

Amid this debate, a body of evidence, from Statistics Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and peer-reviewed research, offers grounding. The data is worth understanding now as discourse surrounding immigration in Alberta risks conflating the systemic pressures of housing, healthcare, and infrastructure, areas of provincial responsibility, with the presence of newcomers themselves. 

Who Refugees Are and What the Data Shows 

Government-assisted refugees (GARs) arrive in Canada through the Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP), which provides immediate essential services and financial support from the moment of landing. In Alberta, RAP is delivered across eight designated communities: Calgary, Edmonton, Brooks, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Grande Prairie, and Fort McMurray, a network coordinated provincially by AAISA’s RAP National Coordinating Body. 

The profile of refugees resettled through these programs challenges the dominant narrative of economic dependency. According to UNHCR Canada, refugees in this country are employed at rates comparable to Canadian-born workers. Between 1980 and 2024, Canada welcomed approximately 1.5 million refugees. For those who arrived before 2010, the unemployment rate is nearly identical to that of Canadian-born citizens (approximately 10 percent compared to 8 percent) a clear indication of sustained labour market integration over time. A higher percentage of refugees than Canadian-born citizens work in healthcare occupations, filling critical roles in hospitals and long-term care homes at a time when federal labour market projections identify nursing and health support services as among the sectors facing the most acute shortages. 

The 2024 IRCC Annual Report to Parliament confirms that while refugees and family class immigrants report lower initial employment rates than economic immigrants, their economic contribution increases consistently over time. It is important to note that integration is a process, so this tracks that their positive economic contribution progresses overtime. 

Overall, the immigration and employment trends are clear. In 2025, Alberta’s landed immigrant population reached 1,095,000 people, representing 27 percent of the working-age population, with an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent, equal to the provincial average. If refugees and newcomers are integrating successfully, the next question is where that capacity is most needed? Alberta’s own labour market data offers an answer. 

Alberta’s Labour Market Needs Newcomers 

The argument that refugees take jobs from Albertans runs directly counter to the data on what Alberta’s labour market needs. Alberta’s Ministry of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration projected a shortage of 8,000 to 11,000 workers in 2025 alone. The province’s 2023–2033 Occupational Outlook identifies registered nurses, nurse aides, orderlies, patient service associates, skilled tradespeople, and applied sciences professionals as facing projected shortfalls exceeding 4,000 workers each. BuildForce Canada has forecast a potential construction workforce shortfall of 22,000 workers in Alberta by 2033. 

The sectors facing the most pressing pressures include: 

• Healthcare and social assistance: Employment in this sector grew by 15.7 percent, over 52,000 jobs, between February 2025 and February 2026. Registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and healthcare support workers are among the most needed occupations in the province. 
• Skilled trades and construction: Of 62 trades and transport occupations tracked in Alberta’s Short-Term Employment Forecast, 45 are projected to have too few qualified workers, with a construction vacancy rate nearly double pre-pandemic levels. 
• Transportation, agriculture, and technology: Canada-wide transportation shortfalls are projected at 70,000 to 130,000 workers by 2035; over 28,000 agricultural positions went unfilled in 2022; and IT roles are consistently cited as a labour shortage area through 2033. 

Refugees and other newcomers are the solution. UNHCR Canada notes that a higher percentage of refugees than Canadian-born citizens work in healthcare occupations. Refugees regularly fill roles in precisely the industries that face the most persistent shortfalls. Immigration now contributes to nearly 100 percent of Canada’s labour force growth, and without it, the province’s ability to sustain economic activity, fund public services, and support an aging population would be significantly constrained. 

It is worth noting the contradiction embedded in the current political debate: the Government of Alberta has, in recent years, requested additional immigration spaces from Ottawa to address labour shortages in construction, healthcare, and energy. Yet, there is tension between requesting additional newcomers to fill labour gaps and, at the same time, attributing broader economic pressure to their presence. 

Addressing Common Misconceptions 

Public debate in Alberta has been shaped by several persistent misconceptions about refugees and newcomers. 

Misconception: Refugees are an economic burden and rely on government support indefinitely. 

The evidence does not support this. Financial assistance for government-assisted refugees through RAP is set at provincial social assistance rates, the minimum required to cover basic sustenance and housing costs and is limited to approximately one year after arrival. Refugees are required to repay the cost of their travel to Canada through a loan program. Over time, refugees integrate into the workforce, pay taxes, and contribute to the public finances they initially drew on. Studies have found that refugees contribute more to Canada through taxes over their lifetime than the value of services they receive. In 2021, up to 79 percent of asylum-seekers in Canada reported employment income. 

Misconception: Refugees cause housing prices to rise and strain housing supply. 

UNHCR Canada’s myth-busting resource is direct on this point: there is no research to suggest that refugees or asylum-seekers are the primary drivers of Canada’s affordable housing challenges. In the first quarter of 2024, asylum-seekers represented just 0.46 percent of Canada’s total population. Government-assisted refugees are a small and specific subset of that already small group. Housing affordability challenges in Alberta and Canada reflect decades of underinvestment in social housing, zoning constraints, and infrastructure lag, which are problems that predate the current period of elevated immigration and cannot credibly be attributed to newcomer arrivals. 

Misconception: Refugees take jobs from Albertans. 

Refugees and immigrants do not reduce the total number of jobs available, they expand the labour force, generate consumer demand, pay taxes, and start businesses, all of which create additional employment. Immigrants commit to jobs that Albertans are not filling. As noted above, Alberta faces documented shortfalls across healthcare, trades, transportation, agriculture, and technology. Refugees are underrepresented in unemployment statistics relative to their share of the population, and their employment rates converge toward those of Canadian-born workers within a decade of arrival. 

Misconception: The refugee resettlement process is not rigorous or secure. 

Government-assisted refugees are among the most thoroughly screened individuals who come to Canada. The resettlement process involves multilateral assessment through UNHCR, followed by Canadian security screening by CSIS and the RCMP, medical examination, biometric collection, and interviews. Any individual found to pose a security risk, to have engaged in serious criminality, or to have committed human rights violations is inadmissible. Refugee claimants who make inland asylum claims undergo separate but similarly rigorous processes. The claim that refugee resettlement creates security vulnerabilities conflates vastly different legal streams and ignores the documented screening regime that governs each. 

Misconception: Refugees receive more support than Canadian pensioners or seniors. 

This claim, which circulates persistently in social media, is false. Financial assistance for government-assisted refugees does not exceed provincial social assistance rates for any family composition. In Ontario, for example, an individual GAR receives approximately $781 per month, the same as a social assistance recipient, plus a one-time allowance for clothing and household basics. Privately sponsored refugees receive no government support at all; their sponsors cover all costs. The claim that refugees are preferentially resourced over Canadian seniors or persons with disabilities is not supported by the actual structure of the RAP program. 

The Role of Settlement and Why It Matters 

What distinguishes successful refugee integration from unsuccessful integration is almost always the quality and availability of settlement services. Research published in the International Journal of Migration and Integration (2025) found that access to employment-related settlement services and language training are among the strongest predictors of early labour market outcomes for resettled refugees in Canada. The size of the destination community also matters: larger centres with more developed service networks tend to produce stronger short-term economic outcomes for government-assisted refugees. 

IRCC’s 2023–24 Settlement Quick Facts for Alberta confirm that settlement and resettlement services in the province are delivered through a network of IRCC-funded service provider organizations, supporting permanent residents, including refugees and protected persons, to contribute economically, socially, and civically to their communities. This is an investment in people that yields demonstrable returns over time. 

AAISA’s role as the RAP National Coordinating Body in Alberta is to support the agencies delivering this work, through data collection, collaborative governance, capacity building, and sector advocacy. The quarterly RAP Dashboard, developed with service providers across all eight designated communities, tracks client outcomes and service delivery trends in real time, providing an evidence base for continuous improvement in how Alberta’s resettlement system functions. 

What Welcoming Actually Looks Like 

World Refugee Day is sometimes marked with ceremony and symbolism. What it calls for, practically, is less abstract: sustained political will to fund settlement services adequately, protect access to healthcare and education for newcomers regardless of status, and resist the temptation to use newcomers as scapegoats for structural problems that long predate them. 

The CCR’s national Week of Action, running June 16–20, has rallied thousands of Canadians behind an open letter to Prime Minister Carney urging Canada to uphold its commitments to fair and welcoming refugee policy, at a moment when those commitments face pressure from multiple directions, including Bill C-12, recently passed federal legislation that has drawn criticism from the UN Human Rights Committee for undermining procedural protections for refugee claimants. 

In Alberta, the referendum scheduled for October 19 will ask Albertans to weigh in on questions that directly affect newcomer access to provincial services. Whatever Albertans decide, the evidence will remain: settlement works, refugees contribute, and the communities that have chosen welcome, in Brooks, in Lethbridge, in Fort McMurray, have built something more resilient and more prosperous as a result. 

Key Questions for the Coming Period 

• Will Alberta’s October referendum questions, if affirmed, restrict access to provincially-funded services for refugees and protected persons and what would that mean for RAP delivery in designated communities? 
• How will federal cuts to government-assisted refugee targets (reduced from 15,250 to 13,250 in 2026) affect service volumes and capacity planning for Alberta’s RAP service provider network? 
• What investments in housing, language training, and employment supports will be needed to sustain integration outcomes as the political environment shifts? 
• How can the settlement sector effectively communicate the evidence base for refugee contributions in a public discourse that increasingly frames immigration through the lens of scarcity? 

What to Watch For 

• Alberta Referendum on Oct. 19: Five of nine questions directly address immigration control and newcomer access to provincial services. Regulatory implications for RAP delivery remain undefined pending results. 
• Federal RAP Funding Levels: Government-assisted refugee targets are reduced in the 2026 Levels Plan. Monitor IRCC CFP implementation and any further adjustments to per-client funding rates. 
• Bill C-12 Implementation: The Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act has passed. CCR and CARL have raised concerns about Charter compliance; watch for legal challenges and regulatory rollout. 
• IFHP Co-Payment Impact: Co-payment changes effective May 2026 introduced added cost barriers for refugees accessing supplemental health services. Monitor uptake and health outcome data as implementation proceeds. 
• CCR Open Letter Campaign: The CCR’s national signature campaign urging PM Carney on refugee and immigration policy reflects growing sector mobilization. Track organizational sign-ons and federal response. 
• Provincial–Federal Jurisdiction: Alberta’s referendum signals intent to expand provincial control over immigration selection and service eligibility. The constitutional and practical limits of this remain untested. 

Sources

Elections Alberta, 2026 Referendum Questions. Government of Alberta, Order-in-Council 110/2026. https://www.elections.ab.ca/elections/referendum/ 

New Canadian Media, “As Alberta flirts with separation, debates over immigration intensify,” June 2026. https://newcanadianmedia.ca/as-alberta-flirts-with-separation-debates-over-immigration-intensify/ 

UNHCR Canada, “Refugees are Good for Canada,” June 2026. https://www.unhcr.ca/in-canada/refugees-are-good-for-canada/ 

IRCC, 2024 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/annual-report-parliament-immigration-2024.html 

Statistics Canada / Job Bank Canada, Economic Scan Alberta 2024-2025. https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/trend-analysis/job-market-reports/alberta/environmental-scan 

Government of Alberta, Alberta Occupational Outlook 2023-2033 / Short-Term Employment Forecast. https://www.alberta.ca/job-market-forecasts 

ALIS Alberta, “Find In-Demand Jobs with Alberta’s Short-Term Employment Forecast.” https://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/find-in-demand-jobs-with-albertas-short-term-employment-forecast/ 

BuildForce Canada, as cited in CBC News, “Construction labour shortage weighs on Alberta businesses.” https://www.cbc.ca/1.7207823 

Government of Canada, CIMM Labour Shortages Briefing, November 2024. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/transparency/committees/cimm-nov-25-2024/labour-shortages.html 

Job Bank Canada, Alberta April 2026 Job Market Snapshot. https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/trend-analysis/job-market-reports/ab/job-market-snapshot 

UNHCR Canada, “Asylum Myths and Facts.” https://www.unhcr.ca/in-canada/asylum-seekers-in-canada-the-myths-and-the-facts/ 

Citizens for Public Justice, “Busting Myths About Refugees in Canada.” https://cpj.ca/refugee-myths/ 

Jumpstart Refugee Talent, “Debunking Common Myths About Refugees in Canada.” https://jumpstartrefugee.ca/blogs/debunking-refugee-myths-canada/ 

Li, Y. & Haan, M., “The Short-Term Labour Market Outcome of Resettled Refugees in Canada,” International Journal of Migration and Integration, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-025-01291-9 

Gure, Y., Picot, G., & Hou, F., “Economic outcomes of government-assisted refugees in designated destinations: The effect of city size,” Statistics Canada, 2024. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2024003/article/00002-eng.pdf 

IRCC, Quick Facts Alberta 2023-24 (Re)Settlement Program. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ircc/documents/pdf/english/corporate/settlement-resettlement-service-provider-information/data-research-reports/alberta-quickfacts-en.pdf 

CCR, Refugee Rights Day 2026 Statement, April 2026. https://www.ccrweb.ca/en/refugee-rights-day-2026-statement