Study of income support benefits offered to government assisted refugees under the Resettlement Assistance Program

The research and recommendations are the responsibility of the authors of the report and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIC. [...] The goals of this project were twofold: (1) to review the comparability of the basic RAP rates in 15 of the settlement locations to the corresponding basic Social Assistance (SA) rates; and (2) to examine the adequacy of the RAP regular monthly income supports in meeting actual living costs in 15 settlement locations. [...] John, the six Ontario cities and Vancouver) have RAP rates that are exactly the same as the corresponding provincial SA rates for the reference family.9 The RAP rates in Regina are also almost exactly the same as Saskatchewan’s SA rates, with the RAP rates being only $4 higher than the SA rates. [...] The difference between the RAP reference family and the SA reference family in each of the locations demonstrates the impact on overall income of the additional supplements received by RAP recipients. [...] The table below outlines the supplements provided in each province and those services covered by the IFH Program.25 Descriptions of health and dental supplements in each of the provinces and the IFH Program are available in Appendix K. 24 Details of the provincial earnings exemption policies can be found in Appendix J. 25 The table does not include Prince Edward Island because the needs of all soc