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Intact donating $75,000 to help Syrian refugees get jobs in Canada

posted on December 17, 2015

By Canadian Underwriter |

Two days after The Co-operators Group Ltd. announced its intent to provide $250,000 towards helping Syrian refugees find jobs in Canada, Intact Financial Corp. said it is donating $75,000 to immigrant employment centres across Canada, with a goal of helping Syrian refugees.

By Canadian Underwriter |

Two days after The Co-operators Group Ltd. announced its intent to provide $250,000 towards helping Syrian refugees find jobs in Canada, Intact Financial Corp. said it is donating $75,000 to immigrant employment centres across Canada, with a goal of helping Syrian refugees.

The federal government will have brought in “15,000 government-sponsored Syrian refugees by the end of February 2016,” Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith told the House of Commons earlier this month.

The civil war in Syria “has displaced 11.6 million people, including 7.6 million people internally, making the situation in Syria the largest humanitarian crisis worldwide,” the United States Central Intelligence Agency notes in its World Fact Book.

Toronto-based Intact stated Wednesday that the Intact Foundation will be donating $75,000 to immigrant employment centres in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver.

“The intention is to focus on Syrian refugees,” an Intact spokesperson told Canadian Underwriter, adding that the employment centres receiving donations would be registered charities.

Known until 2009 as ING Insurance Company of Canada, Intact Financial’s companies include: Intact Insurance; non-standard Ontario auto carrier Jevco; direct writer belairdirect; Equisure Financial Network Inc.; and Canada Brokerlink Inc., which operates brokerages in Ontario and Alberta plus Macdonald Chisholm Trask in Atlantic Canada.

Intact’s donation is intended to “help support immigrant placement through mentorship programs,” Intact said in a release. “Intact Insurance and belairdirect will also work with the centres to provide employees the opportunity to mentor immigrants who have expressed an interest in finding employment in the insurance industry.”

On top of that, Intact said it has donated $100,000 to UNICEF Canada to help Syrian refugee youth.

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