Thank you so much.
Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to present today.
My name is Queenie Choo, as mentioned, and I am speaking to you from Vancouver, the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
As mentioned, I am the CEO of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Our organization was founded nearly 50 years ago, and today it’s one of the largest social service agencies in Canada. This past year, we served more than 73,000 people and provided 123,000 services. We offer a wide range of integrated programs and services for newcomers, including settlement, English-language training, employment and entrepreneurship, and community, family, youth and seniors programs. We also operate more than 900 affordable housing units across the Lower Mainland and provide assisted living and long-term care to house seniors through our Multi-Level Care Society.
Given our areas of focus, I would like to share my views on the importance of federal investment in settlement services for newcomers as well as funding for affordable housing and seniors care.
We all know that immigrants to Canada are the engine of our economy. They are even more important in a labour shortage, with a record high of more than one million jobs unfilled across the country and an unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio in Canada at a historic low. We need to continue to increase the number of immigrants we welcome in order to reduce labour and skill shortages as our own aging workers retire at an increasing rate postpandemic.
To address that, last year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada set a historic record by admitting more than 405,000 new permanent residents to Canada and is on target to welcoming 431,000 by the end of this year. These newcomers need wraparound supports upon arrival to ensure they are able to swiftly settle, find a home and find a job. I would encourage the government to invest in critical services for newcomers, such as language, employment and entrepreneurship training, settlement supports and community programming, to ensure that they can enter the workforce smoothly. Targeted programs to help foreign-trained professionals overcome barriers to practise in Canada are also crucial, as well as work permit and residency pathways for temporary foreign workers and international students.
We all know that one of the biggest barriers to settlement for newcomers is finding an affordable home, especially in our larger cities. In the greater Vancouver area, it is nearly impossible for the average family to buy a home. The current benchmark price to purchase an apartment is more than $725,000, and the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in greater Vancouver is more than $2,100.
We need a deep federal commitment to build up our affordable housing stock, and we need federal, provincial and municipal business and non-profit partners at the table together to find innovative solutions and to expedite zoning, permitting and development processes. An example on the local level is our operation welcome home pilot project with Rennie & Associates Realty. We are partnering to identify vacant homes pending redevelopment that can be occupied on a short-term basis to help settle Ukrainian arrivals and their families.
As we plan to accommodate workers and families, we need to be looking at the impact of the “grey wave” and planning to better address the coming care needs of Canadian seniors. There are now more than seven million Canadians aged 65 and older, accounting for 19% of our population. Statistics Canada estimates that by 2051, almost one-quarter of our population, or 12 million people, will be seniors. To accommodate this enormous shift, we need to reimagine what quality senior care looks like in the community. That means we need to find more ways to support healthy seniors to age better at home.
For example, we recently launched an integrated community services for seniors pilot project in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health in B.C., which pairs ethnic seniors who need extra help to live independently with community connectors who refer them to support services, providing them with rapport and mental health support. In long-term care and assisted living facilities, we need to provide culturally appropriate quality services. This requires expert, well-trained and well-compensated staff. Given the severe shortage of health care staff, it is critical that we look at long-term care standards and work towards better wage parity for those roles.
Thank you so much.