Absolutely. I think the settlement and integration of new immigrants and of refugees are very different, based on, obviously, the education, where the person comes from, and whether they have family and friends at their destination. That has been shown in many studies to be a critical factor in settlement and integration. So those critical factors are very important. Access to immediate programs and services is very important.
If you are a government-sponsored refugee, for example, and you are only government-sponsored here in Canada for up to a year of programs and services, if you have to wait for eight months on a wait list to get English language training, then obviously your integration and your settlement services are going to be drastically slowed down. That is a big challenge and a big hurdle for that particular group of people. So you can see how this plays out in terms of having repercussions all the way down the line.
The other issue, one of the reasons we're asking for this study on refugee and immigrant children and youth, is again that their needs are very different. The refugee youth, some of whom, as Fariborz was saying earlier, have lived in camps all their lives, have no frame of reference for what sitting in a classroom is like and what that would mean, or anything. So for us as a society to have that expectation and for them to be thrown into those classrooms without some kind of specialized programming and support services, and so on, is really not going to provide us with the outcomes that we would want as a country in successful integration and settlement.