In the days after the Trump administration imposed a temporary ban on Syrian refugees coming to America,
the Prime Minister of Canada announced that his country would be happy to take them in.
But Canadian generosity is more than a government initiative.
In the city of Guelph, Ontario, one man is going to extraordinary lengths to help people resettle.
– Morning, Abdu. How are you?
Morning, Feta. Morning, Rezwan.
Morning, Zima.
How are you? Excellent.
– Jim Estill is the CEO of Danby, an Ontario-based company
that makes refrigerators and other home appliances.
It did $400-million in sales last year.
There are 150 people who work at Danby’s warehouse in Guelph, and 16 of them are Syrian refugees.
Estill has put aside $1.5-million to sponsor 58 Syrian families.
He covers their rent, food, and living expenses for a year as they settle into their new lives.
And if they need a job, he offers them one at Danby.
The pay starts at $12-an-hour.
– Will you tell me how this whole program got started?
– One of my mantras I always say is “do the right thing.”
And that’s actually a good way to run a business. So I tell all my staff at Danby, “do the right thing.”
How do you treat your coworkers? Well, you treat them well—you do the right thing.
How do you treat your customers? You do the right thing.
– Estill’s a numbers guy.
He wakes up every morning at 6 a.m. and carries out a series of rituals throughout the day,
tracking his steps on a wrist monitor, pre-work pushups.
So when he saw the refugee crisis unfolding in the Middle East last year,
he applied the same kind of methodical precision to that problem.
– You can’t really go and say, “We do the right thing,” and,
“Oh, this thing's happening across the road and we’re just not going to do anything.”
I didn't actually think it was a big deal— Guelph has a population of 120,000—
to bring in 50 families—maybe 250, 300 people.
That's very absorbable.
– It was logic-based approach to a problem that has recently been characterized by ugliness and fear.
America is closing its doors out of worries of terrorism.
Europe is struggling under the weight of a refugee influx.
For now, Canada is holding firm. It’s letting in 25,000 refugees this year.
– Okay, so I’d like to get this started. First part of the presentation, next meeting’s February...
Estill took in his first refugee last January.
He goes through stacks of emailed pleas to chose who to invite,
and then, after a government security check, helps organize English classes and a welcoming committee.
He’s one of hundreds of Canadians who have volunteered to privately sponsor Syrians.
It’s a system that places a lot of burden, and a lot of power, with the volunteer hosts.
– Is there an incentive for you to take people who could actually benefit you in the business
and then to, sort of, cast aside people who wouldn't be able to work or wouldn't be interested in working?
– Oh, yes. There is an incentive to bring in people that are whatever I want to bring in.
But the key is it's a free country, you don't have to work here.
And you're not indentured when you come in.
– Ahmed Abed has been at Danby since November.
– So tell me, when did you leave Homs?
2014. What did you do for work before the war?
For many years were you doing that?
25 years. What’s happened to the factory? Do you know?
It's gone.
Do you imagine going back there ever?
What did you think when you met Jim the first time?
Do you get pushback from people for doing this?
– I do get some pushback from people for doing it, yes.
In what way?
Well, the most obvious is there is some xenophobic people who think I'm bringing in terrorists.
And so, I get a little bit of that.
I don’t get as much of that in Canada as I do from the Americans.
Are you worried that, if there were a terrorist attack, this would become harder to do?
Of course, I worry about that. I worry about that.
But the people that we're helping are people who fear the same terrorists that we fear.
Because you think it would make the program harder to do?
It would make the program harder to do and it would make more people turn against the program.
That's the concern.
But not if people think rationally about it.