Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 21st, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

I think Mr. Birjandian has a comment.

[Fariborz Birjandian]

Thank you.

Just as a comment about youth and children, I think the major problem we have is resources. When you look at the school boards and the challenges they have, they are now fully recognizing that these are special needs kids, and that as boards they have to do some initial work with them. But really, the problem is for them to set priorities with the resources they have.

The role the federal government can play is in providing those resources and by letting them access those resources. There is enough expertise and partnership in the community that they can make differences, but the way I understand the school boards, they are struggling with a lack of resources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Mr. Siksay.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to come back to the question I was asking before about interpretation services. You mentioned that interpretation is often a real problem, especially in medical situations. I'm wondering if you can expand a bit on the kinds of difficulties you face. I'm also curious about how the organizations cover interpretation services if no one's funding them. How effectively do you think that issue is covered off?

[Morteza Jafarpour]

The kind of problem we are seeing...and I'm not talking about the people who have been in Canada for 20 years; I'm talking about the people who arrived one month ago. If you ask the individual doctors, very often they don't have money for it and they say it's not their responsibility to provide interpretation; it's the responsibility of the patient to bring somebody with them. That's a huge challenge. If you come with your children or family members, there's the issue of confidentiality and of how much you want to disclose in front of your children. Very often, if that's the case, they learn faster than their parents.

Also, in the bigger institutions, like hospitals, very often they don't have a budget for it; it's not part of their annual budget to include interpretation. Interestingly enough, most of the hospitals do have budgets for sign language interpretation; there is a policy there. But when it comes to language interpretation, there's a lack of resources or even a lack of planning to include it. We have seen people be denied from going into the operating room. We have seen cases of where it has jeopardized a pregnant woman's health, and there have been a number of other issues we have seen because of the lack of these things.

I believe in some provinces they have different approaches, but in Ontario what we have seen is a combination of using volunteers.... And I'm talking about just our agency, not a huge city like Hamilton. We get around 5,000 immigrants per year. We provide 1,000 interpretations. You're talking about 600 to 700 interpretations per month for medical reasons, and how much professional, volunteer-based interpretation are you going to do to provide that?

Some departments and some hospitals have some resources there, and some don't. It's very inconsistent right now.

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

I would assume that interpreting in a medical situation is a pretty specialized interpretation function. I would think that poses particular difficulties in itself.

[Morteza Jafarpour]

One of the suggestions we have heard, a recommendation we have had that we are hoping we're going to see a positive response to with new money, is to include interpretation as part of the budget. Also, we advocate, we work with the other partners to say that language interpretation is a part of their responsibility in making their services accessible.

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

What is health coverage like for our newly arriving refugees? Is it comprehensive? Do people get into provincial medicare programs quickly? What's covered and what's not covered? Is dental, for instance, covered? Can you talk a little bit about the health situation of new refugees?

[Fariborz Birjandian]

For refugees, I think in the first year there is an agreement between provinces and the federal government that they provide basically what's needed. But it's not very comprehensive at all. I can tell you, for instance, they are not really covering any dental work. If a refugee coming here has a small problem with their tooth, they have to take it out. There is no provision to pay for filling it. As well, I think there are very limited provisions for any supplements. These are the issues we have actually communicated with Health Canada on and that they are working on. There is very little provision for hearing aids or glasses. It's very limited in that area.

Basically, although they have access, it's not really enough. I think that is an area we can look at again, because it's going to help people to settle faster. That's the challenge.

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

That first year is a federal program with the provinces, but it's not full medicare coverage like a long-term resident would have. Is that what you're saying?

[Fariborz Birjandian]

It depends on the different provinces, but yes, they do have full access to doctors and hospitals. But when it comes to the drugs or dental or other special needs, it is very limited what they can access.

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

I understand that contraception is one thing that's not covered as well. Is that your understanding?

[Fariborz Birjandian]

Yes.

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

Also, in terms of trauma counselling, is there special trauma counselling available? I was just speaking with a settlement worker in my home city the other day, and she was talking about a woman who she has been visiting for a long time who finally opened up to her and told her what she went through in her country of origin, which included absolutely horrific acts that she was forced to commit. It was just so out of the experience of the settlement worker and of any of the counsellors who are available in the community.

Could you talk a little bit about what's available that way?

[Fariborz Birjandian]

That has been a challenge, because again, as was mentioned, there's been a real lack of resources for the past 12 years. They didn't get anything extra, so whatever money they had, amid the rising costs of operation, they really didn't have—

Recently there has been some movement. Across the country there are programs for survivors of torture. We try to serve most of those people with extremely few resources. I think the mental health organizations across the country are starting to look at it. In maybe the past year they have been becoming involved. But for them too, there's a lack of resources, and also expertise, because in that line of work one has to really understand the background. Even the language has been a big issue. We've had about 12,000 Sudanese refugees in Calgary, and we know there's not even one Sudanese doctor, not one Sudanese psychologist. This is really a challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. Thank you.

I will now go to Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Birjandian, you made a very interesting comment when you referred to us letting in 35,000 engineers when we only need five. We really don't have a way for legally allowing people that the economy actually needs, such as tradespeople. We have a desperate need for them. We essentially reduce them to being guest workers, if you will, which is a horrific, scary thought as to what it does to a country in the long term. All one has to do is look at France and see what happened with their guest worker programs, where you keep two sets of—

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

No, no, I'm sorry. We didn't have guest worker programs. That was Germany.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Well, Germany has a guest worker program too. But essentially, it means that you have trouble integrating.

One of the interesting things I noticed back in 1999 is the settling of people outside of major communities. Thunder Bay made huge preparations to accept the Kosovars. The whole town got behind it. They had their place set up and everything else. Nobody came. They preferred Toronto and being around their group. So there's a limit to what communities can do.

When I go to low-density areas in the province, I notice all sorts of Vietnamese. I see Sikhs. They're starting businesses and working at businesses. As much as the Chinese at one point used to run the variety stores, now there are different groups. The newcomers are the ones who fit in. They do that for business opportunities.

You mentioned that we should have same levels of service. Obviously a small community is not going to have the same service as a major urban centre. They don't have physicians for the general population, or many of the other services. I'm wondering how you would try to bridge that divide. The sponsoring groups have come to this committee and said they don't get all the people they could to sponsor as refugees. If they were doing the sponsoring to under-serviced areas, more than likely they would have a network to support them in the smaller communities. I wonder if you have given that any thought--that maybe they could actually specialize in doing that.

[Wai Young]

I was the chair of the B.C. refugee committee for the Mennonite Central Committee. I actually sat on the Mennonite Central Committee board of directors, as well as a binational Mennonite Central Committee, in Akron. We did a lot of this work in both countries. So absolutely, I would say yes, that's definitely a strategy Canada should be looking at and embracing. As I said earlier, it has proven to have worked.

Again, as we said earlier, the sponsorship agreement holder situation is precarious, at best. When you pull together a family or a church or whatever to sponsor a refugee family, those people get very, very excited. It's like Christmas. They go out and prepare, etc. But when that family does not actually arrive for three years, you can imagine what happens to the support, the sense of community, and the bringing together of that group. Unfortunately, that all begins to dissipate.

I think this is a huge program, which Canada can capitalize on. We're actually not using it as effectively as we can, primarily due to resources abroad. The reason it's taking so long for these refugees to arrive in Canada is basically resources overseas--the visa officers doing the security clearances and all that is needed. If they were told that this is a priority and/or that we're going to expand the numbers there.... Really, this is an effective, effective program for Canada. It's not costing us very much. These families are so welcoming and so happy to have them, and the refugees are so happy to arrive.

The second part is that many, many of these refugees who are sponsored, as you know, then want to turn around and sponsor their family. Unfortunately, their families are not designated as being primary family because they're not the wife or the child, etc. If you are a refugee, and the only family member you have on this earth is your brother or your sister, well, I think that person is family, in my books. It doesn't matter that they're not your wife or primary family according to our western definition.

If we know these people have settled, and many of them have across Canada, and that they want to bring their families to settle with them, why are we as a country saying no? Because that is inevitably happening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Madame Deschamps, you have a couple of questions. Thank you.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You said earlier that the program for children and youth was not really tailored to young refugees who have experienced a trauma in the country they left. When they settle in smaller centres they face a double challenge because unfortunately like us, they are also faced with issues such as the dropout rate.

In the short or medium term, we might perhaps create a committee to study these issues. That committee should be composed of psychologists, people with whom young people could relate effectively.

How could we adapt our programs so that they respond to the psychological distress of these young people?

[Wai Young]

I'd like to respond to that by saying that I was a foster parent for 18 years and raised four refugee youth from the camps, two from Malaysia and a couple from the Philippines. I want to say that this is an issue that's very close to my heart, because I still keep in touch with some of those youth. I'm a foster grandmother, as a matter of fact.

One of the key things that I also did was develop the foster parent training program in British Columbia. I want to say that many of these youth experience, as you know, culture shock, but they also experience the typical intergenerational rebellion and that kind of thing. But this is doubled, because in addition to their own experiences, now they're embracing Canadian life, the norms and the standards of what their friends are allowed to do, such as go out till midnight on a Friday night or whatever, whereas that might be an issue for their parents because they are very strict or very traditional or have religious beliefs or whatever it is. What we're seeing in the care system across the different provinces is that there is actually a higher incidence of immigrant and refugee youth who also go into care. I'd also like to say that there are also some youth who are refugee claimants who also go into care, for the province.

These children who end up in care do not get, again, any specialized programs, services, etc., despite the fact that many of them have experienced trauma. Again, that's why we are saying that we need to look at this as a country, because we are losing these youth otherwise, and that is such a shame. So absolutely, there are things that can be put in place.

For myself, because I'm familiar with the system, I'm an advocate for my child and I was able to help some of my own foster children get through some of that. For example, one of my foster children is now doing her master's in German, in Bonn, Germany. She speaks five different languages. She has now been in international exchange programs across the world. She has succeeded as nobody would have thought, coming from a refugee camp in Thailand. But this is an exception rather than the rule. I would like to say that these children all deserve a chance and they deserve whatever kinds of programs and services we need to be able to give them, to build our second generation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I think Mr. Jafarpour had a comment he wanted to make.

[Morteza Jafarpour]

Let me highlight one issue. Historically, meeting the needs of children and youth wasn't part of the package of services for newcomers. The issue is not that there is a system that doesn't work. There wasn't one. It wasn't recognized. The idea was because they go to school, they'll learn the language and they'll adapt. I think that recently with a number of issues, we have recognized as a country there is a challenge there, because we bring a high number of children and youth and we don't have services to help them to integrate in that regard.

What's happening right now is that a number of initiatives are undertaken by independent organizations or settlement agencies. That's why we are asking for a study to look at what is there.

Also, I want you to look at that. The scope is not one thing. We have seen the kids. At the age of five, six, seven years old, they have been raped in refugee camps, and we bring them here, and as I always say, there cannot be ten days between the refugee camp and happily ever after. How do you send those kids to school without enough support? Right now more and more we are talking about bridging classes and bridging services that can help. We had in the past children who came here whose fathers were killed but they didn't know that.

Also you have seen the other part--the access to summer camps, sports activities, and all these things. That is the wide range of the areas, and we believe we need to start to look at that--what the gap is and how we can cover it. That's why we are asking for that study.