Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning. My name is Karen Shortt. I'm president of the faculty association at Vancouver Community College. I represent the 650-plus faculty who teach at the college.
I'm here today to request adequate funding for English-language training. At this moment, there are 921 students on our English-language wait-list. That's 921 students who are stalled and not able to proceed with their economic and social ability to integrate into Canadian life. That number of 921 will likely increase to well over 1,000 by Christmastime, and 45 of the 921 students on our wait-list have priority status. This indicates that they are refugees. Many are from Syria.
Mr. Chair, the invitation letter I received to speak to this committee stated that you would welcome views on what federal measures would help the country's economic growth for both Canadians generally and Canadian businesses. As an educator for over 30 years, I cannot imagine anything more fundamental to the success and inclusion of new Canadians than the ability to communicate. The need for ESL funding is tremendous, as evidenced by our long wait-list.
Vancouver Community College has the resources in place to meet this need. VCC has proven curriculum, and can offer classes from basic literacy to the highest levels of Canadian language benchmarks. We can offer classes in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, and on weekends. We can meet any need. We have experienced faculty who have a deep understanding of immigrants' needs. We have empty classrooms, and campuses that are centrally located on the SkyTrain routes. We can provide occupation-specific language training, credential recognition, and Canadian work experience. We have in the past offered combined skills programs, such as ESL for engineers, English for health sciences, and communications for accountants.
We lack the funding to offer enough of these programs to meet the need. Cuts to LINC, the language instruction for newcomers to Canada program, in the 2016-17 budget resulted in 220 students not being able to return to class in April. Those 220 students are still sitting on the wait-list. They can't get on with their lives, and many can't work up to their level.
Minister McCallum has stated that there's very little in terms of welcoming newcomers that is more important than language. I ask this committee to recommend that funding for English-language programs be increased to meet the need so that we can help immigrants become fluent and they can contribute to this country's economic growth.
Thank you.