What Should You Do If You Are Not Receiving Enough Support From Your Sponsors?
If you believe that your private sponsors are not providing you with the support that they are supposed to provide, talk to your sponsor about your concerns if you are comfortable enough to do so. If they sponsored you through an organization (for example, a Sponsorship Agreement Holder), share your concerns with the organization. If you are still not receiving support, or if you are afraid to approach your sponsors, you should contact Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). There are no consequences to contacting IRCC, and your Permanent Resident status will not be impacted. IRCC will try to find a solution to the problem. It is IRCC’s Resettlement Services Assurance Team (RSAT) that deals with any questions that may arise after your arrival.
You can contact RSAT by email by writing to: IRCC.PSRCaseReview-RevuedecasPSR.IRCC@cic.gc.ca
A staff person at RSAT will ask you questions about the situation, and may also speak to your sponsoring group. They will try to gather information, such as how much financial and settlement support you are being given, and reasons why you may not be receiving enough support. While they are doing this research, if RSAT finds that you require financial support urgently, it is possible that they may provide you with some emergency funds. RSAT will also make a final decision about who will provide you with financial and settlement support. If they find that it is true that you are not receiving enough support, and your sponsoring group is unable or unwilling to provide you with more support, they may declare a “sponsorship breakdown.” This means that your sponsoring group would no longer be responsible for providing you with financial and settlement support for the rest of the sponsorship period. In this case, you may:
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- be given another sponsoring group, or
- be given government funding, or
- be told that you can apply for provincial social assistance.
Depending on the circumstances of the case, there may be some consequences to the sponsoring group. For example, they may have to pay the government back for the government funding or provincial social assistance that you receive.
It is important to remember that solutions and consequences are determined on a case by case basis by RSAT.