Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 26th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Madam Faille, go ahead, please.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I’d like to welcome Stephan Reichhold here today. It’s a pleasure to welcome you to the committee. The work you do with immigrants is remarkable.

In Quebec, the Canada-Quebec Agreement applies to immigrant settlement. I would like you to describe to us the impact of the growing percentage of young people. This aspect of the question must be examined; it’s becoming more and more important. We can see it in our offices. People who apply for permanent residency or who request a work permit are often accompanied by young children. When they decide to remain in Quebec, their children have learned to speak French with other Quebec children or in day care.

Is this problem one that is unique to a particular province? Has Quebec gone forward in its treatment of young immigrants?

As for the other participants today, what steps have you taken with the federal government? You have surely met certain officials from Citizenship and Immigration. I certainly hope that the federal government didn’t dismiss your request and that you were provided guidance. Could you describe for us some of the progress that has been made with Citizenship and Immigration?

[Stephan Reichhold]

I can try to answer that. The Canada-Quebec Agreement gives Quebec power over all aspects surrounding the reception and integration of immigrants and also provides for a generous financial compensation. Unfortunately, we are in approximately the same situation as the other provinces. Our immigration and linguistic services budgets have been frozen for the past three or four years, even though the sums provided by the Agreement have increased over the last three years from 156 million to 197 million dollars. By way of indexation, Quebec has received 30 million more dollars during the last three years but we have seen no increase in services during that time. That is the situation right now.

The problem of immigrant youth, and this is becoming more and more evident, is a serious one. There are very few resources and measures available to organizations. As Chris pointed out, our services are mainly aimed at adult immigrants inasmuch as language, support, integration, and employment-seeking services are concerned and very few services are designed specifically for young people. The language question is perhaps less of a problem because they go to school and learn the language rather quickly although in the regions, there are some problems with language courses given in schools outside Montreal. The linguistic question is therefore less of a problem for young people.

On the other hand, young immigrants are faced with various problems including integration within the school, dropping out, poverty and family conflicts et there are no services for them. They fall between the cracks whether it be with social services, the Department of Education or the Department of Immigration. No one seems to be responsible for exercising leadership. The Department of Education says that Immigration is responsible and the Department of Immigration says that it is not responsible for youth, that the responsibility rests with social services and social services say that the youth are immigrants and that, therefore, they are the responsibility of the Department of Immigration. In the end, no one is responsible. That is basically what we see. Other provinces have approximately the same problem.

It’s important that all these institutions apply the same approach, but this is not the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Madam Faille, you have two minutes left for a supplementary.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I have no other questions for the others.

[Reza Shahbazi]

I have a response to the second one. In terms of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the way this actually has come about is that our sector has felt that even though we have grassroots knowledge about the problems and issues and challenges, we also have expertise to offer in terms of solutions. That's the whole concept behind CISSA. We are not here to just identify issues and problems. We are also here to offer our expertise and see how we can deal with those issues, and that has been received very positively by the stakeholders, government departments, and anyone we have talked to.

We have been around as a formal umbrella body about six or seven months, and in this short period of time we have been able to.... Yesterday we met with the minister, Minister Solberg. We had a very good meeting and raised some issues and also provided some suggestions and ideas. Last night we had a meeting with a group of MPs. We are planning to have an MP briefing forum some time in March or April of next year, and we have a constant relationship with Citizenship and Immigration Canada through a committee we have formed, SIJPPC, Settlement and Integration Joint Policy Planning Council. But our work also goes beyond Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Stephan mentioned that we are looking at working with all government departments and all different levels of government. So it is very much a collaborative effort, but in a nutshell we have had a wonderful relationship with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and we have been able to communicate many of our ideas and some of the solutions that we think could help us through the process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Good. Thank you.

That completes the seven minutes.

Mr. Siksay, please.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the folks from CISSA this morning. I think we've all greeted the formation of this national settlement organization with some celebration because I think it's an important development and one that's going to assist us in our deliberations around citizenship and immigration policy in Canada. So thank you for undertaking this project and for all the work you do in your regional organizations as well.

I want to ask a question, and it might be a little unfair because I think we're all still grappling with the question of the $1 billion in cuts that were announced yesterday by the federal government. One of the things you've been talking about this morning is youth and children services and one of the things I'm concerned about, as I look at the list of those cuts, is the cuts to Human Resources and Social Development, HRSD, programs around investments for youth employment and workplace skills strategy. I was wondering if you have any sense of the funding that organizations that do settlement work get from other departments, other than Citizenship and Immigration. Is that a major source of program funding for your agencies?

[Reza Shahbazi]

I can respond to part of it, and then I'll let Chris talk about the other portion of it.

For the past ten years, as Chris mentioned, our sector has grown and newcomers have come, but the base of the funding has never grown and we have not had a large share of the funding that has been cut. So we haven't been impacted in that way because we never had it to begin with, but that was always a challenge and a problem.

In a nutshell, any cut to programs for youth and children definitely hurts immigrant youth and children in a profound way, because in addition to the regular needs that they have, immigrant children and youth have additional needs as newcomers.

Chris can talk about some of our initiatives to deal with issues of immigrant youth and children.

[Chris Friesen]

There are other funders, such as United Way of Canada, Community Foundations of Canada, the Vancouver Foundation, and all of these funding agencies have addressed or identified children and youth as a priority. Again when we're looking at, for example, the skilled labour shortage, part of the solution is supporting the immigrant children and youth to be able to academically succeed.

If we don't have adequate supports to support children and youth.... In the context of B.C. as an example, 40% last year were children and youth. Significant numbers of children and youth are coming into the department. Citizenship and Immigration Canada has just identified youth as a priority for the first time. We have huge complex challenges here that speak beyond just the mandate of this committee to the whole issue of social cohesion, Canadian citizenship, civil engagement.

So it would be a tremendous concern for us to see any erosion of supports to prepare immigrant and refugee children and youth for their future.

[Fariborz Birjandian]

I think the specific answer to your question is that CIC money has always been focused on the adult. There are very few programs designed or funded for youth. Actually the only source of funding we had for youth was through Service Canada, HRSD, the former HRDC.

The announcement.... I don't know exactly where this cut is going to have an impact, but that would be very unfortunate, because HRSD is the only source of funding for programs specifically for immigrant youth. I'm hoping that within the priority they would not eliminate this area, because that would be quite negative.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I wonder if I could ask Chris to say a bit more about the 2004 report card and the findings.

Chris, I know that you were one of the researchers on that project. Have there been any noticeable changes since the report card came out?

[Chris Friesen]

Since the report card was released in February 2005, we've been seeing a further erosion in the capacity to adequately support immigrants and refugees coming to the country. This translates into increased wait-lists, and there are cuts in adult ESL programming.

As another example in British Columbia, all of the provincial immigrant and refugee service agencies had their current contracts for the provision of adult ESL and settlement services extended by one year, but at a status quo budget going back 18 months, which on average meant a 10% cut in service outputs. Again, this is the erosion of the infrastructure. Agencies across the country are being stretched to provide adequate supports. So that's the background.

Of course in the other context, research done by Metropolis and the department itself points to increased poverty rates, decreased labour market attachment, and an increasing inability to access free French and English-language services, which are key to successful settlement.

I guess the main point from CISSA is that if we are going to increase the levels of immigration, we've got to have the capacity and the infrastructure, and this means smart investment. We've been struggling to provide adequate supports for over a decade with the same level funding. In the meantime, close to two million immigrants and refugees have entered the country.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Could I ask one last quick question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thirty seconds.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Go ahead, Stephan.

[Stephan Reichhold]

To give you a figure on Quebec, because Quebec is also concerned, the Ministry of Immigration and Cultural Communities lost 20% of its overall budget in three last years, which gives you the priorities in Quebec.

[Bridget Foster]

If I might add, one of the pieces I believe is missing across the country is that for a long time, Canadian Heritage was a key funder for many of the programs dealing with youth and some community issues. Canadian Heritage is just not coming to the table now. So I think that's a department that needs to be looked at.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Thank you, Bill.

Mr. Komarnicki.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I certainly appreciate the members attending here and inviting us to last night's reception. A lot of your work has to do with educating members of government and members of Parliament, so we appreciate the effort you've made and also your appearing before this committee. We look forward to a long-lasting and good and favourable relationship with you.

I noted when we looked at the material that you provided that your research indicates that we will need to have and attract and go out there to actually get more immigrants into our country. All the reports seem to show that this is what's likely to happen. Of course, we need the infrastructure below that to support the people who do come in and to capitalize on their skills and abilities, and we have been somewhat lacking in that area. I appreciate that since 1994 or thereabouts, funding has not been provided for the infrastructure, even though we had a $975 landed immigrant fee, which could have gone directly to that project but didn't. As you know, we reduced that to half and committed $307 million, a somewhat significant amount, towards that.

One of the questions I have is whether that type of funding, in your mind, is something that is adequate for giving you the infrastructure you need to meet the existing needs. Or are we playing catch-up with that money? Are we able to go forward with the funds we have, or do we need more funding to get the infrastructure in place? That's a question.

The other aspect I think about, knowing the number of organizations that you represent, is that it's quite a colossal event to get everybody working together. I'm happy to see an umbrella organization that can filter down to the ground where the action really happens. It requires a great deal of partnership, but the funding transfers aren't always the same from province to province. I know that there has been some indication that there should be some conditions attached to the funding transfers that might better nationalize the services across the country. You might want to talk about that intergovernmental transfer and some of the conditions that might be attached to it.

Of course, some provinces add funding to federal transfers, which may cause some differences between provinces and regions. And we'll find that smaller centres--I'm happy to hear not only in the rest of Canada, but in Quebec--find that the services might flow towards the metropolises and not to the smaller centres. So the attraction might not be to have the immigration flow to the areas that perhaps most need it.

How do you deal with all those issues? Do you have some thoughts and solutions?

[Chris Friesen]

Perhaps I can start.

On the issue of the funding, we have to realize that in the context of close to two million immigrants arriving in the last decade and no funding increase, we now are in catch-up mode. We're trying to ensure that the services we have in place are stable, that we can plan on a more long-term basis, that we don't have to deal with the fluctuations of, for example, the context of B.C., where we had one of the highest increases in almost a decade and yet the whole sector had to deal with a decrease in funding. This is really difficult for agencies on the front line who are trying to provide adequate supports. That would be my comment there.

I think the department recognizes as well that this is a starting point. The $307 million is extremely positive, and CISSA/ACSEI has come out publicly in support of this funding. But this is a starting point. Again, if we're going to accelerate the number of immigrants who come in, we need to look at what is currently being provided across the country; this suggestion from CISSA/ACSEI the committee may want to entertain as a white paper on comparable services. That would give us a better insight into what's happening in terms of the infrastructure and the current capacity. That way, if we are in general agreement about increasing the numbers, we have the infrastructure to properly support them.

In the case of intergovernmental relations, I think it's really important. This is part of the federal government's enduring role. As you're aware, Quebec, Manitoba, B.C., and Ontario, more recently, have signed provincial-federal agreements on immigration. From CISSA/ACSEI's perspective, again it's about national standards. How do we ensure that there are national standards? How do we ensure that there are comparable services? Are we in agreement that services provided to immigrants and refugees, who are just starting out in this country, should be provided in a free, universal, accessible manner? Those to us are some of the guiding principles and protocols.

Yes, there must be regional differences, regional approaches--we don't doubt that necessity--but the issue is that if we don't have strong national comparable services, strong national standards, and some strong national directive by the federal government, then we're going to get into a situation, as the skill labour shortage heats up, around interprovincial competition.

For instance, the immigrant landing in Manitoba can acquire free, accessible English language skills to a fully functional level. In British Columbia, currently they can only acquire it up to a level three, an upper beginner/lower intermediate; then they have to pay for it.

Is the intent of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration funding to provide universal, free, accessible, quality programming, or is the intent to now introduce fee-for-service programming? With the precedent-setting that has occurred in British Columbia, what does that mean across the country? For example, what does that mean to immigrants who are just starting out, who may not have the financial means, who are desperate to attach to the labour market, and who don't speak one of Canada's official languages?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That completes the seven-minute round.

We're now going to proceed to our five-minute rounds. Leading off this round is Jim Karygiannis.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Good morning, and thank you for coming.

Over the summer we saw something that we'll have to discuss pretty soon, and that's dual citizenship. There was an instance in Lebanon—I don't have to go into further detail—where we evacuated something like 15,000 people. Just recently there were reports in the press that about half, or 7,000 of them, have gone back. When the reporter was questioned about how he got those figures, the answer was that the external affairs ministry as well as citizenship and immigration officials gave that number of 7,000.

My question to all of you, or to whoever wants to represent the group, is how do you think the people who settle in this country after a little while feel about dual citizenships?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That's kind of a difficult question--

[Bridget Foster]

I can only answer--