It's a complex question that is primarily guided by what's called the settlement allocation model that the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has created. That's one of the accompanying documents in our written submission to the standing committee today.
What essentially happens is that the federal government has a sum of funding and then allocates that to the various regions based on the number of immigrants that land in that region, taking into consideration refugee population, official language capacity, and there is a rolling average over three years. It's quite a complex formula that tries to ensure that provinces with fewer numbers of immigrants still have the capacity and infrastructure to continue to provide services but at the same time recognizes--and we could argue whether or not it's adequate--provinces like Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, and increasingly Alberta, all of which have been receiving higher numbers of immigrants in the last five years.
Again, the issue is that the formula has been in place for many years and has been redividing the same sum of money and hasn't been working effectively. This is the point we want to make, that the infrastructure is being stretched considerably across the country. Given the immigrant settlement outcomes that we're seeing, there are alarm bells we should all be aware of. Part of that is how to provide adequate supports at the very beginning, to make sure that immigrants have the best possible start when they come to this country.