I'm really not sure why people are so surprised by this. It was stated initially that private sponsors were responsible for them for 1 year. What did you think would happen after that?  Did anyone really expect that someone who had a 4th grade education, did not speak English or French, was illiterate even in their own language, had no marketable job skills and 5 to 10 kids would EVER be able to support themselves without government assistance? I would be interested to see if, 5 years from now what percentage of these refugees is actually able to support themselves and their very large families.