Chair, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
My name is Andrea Seepersaud. I am the executive director of Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services. We are located in Mississauga. With me today is Pat Hynes, who is a work placement internship advocate in our enhanced language training program. He is the only person we know in the Peel region whose mandate is to advocate for the internship of internationally trained professionals in the business and private sectors. That's the specific program we run for internationally trained professions.
As settlement serving agencies go, ICNSS is a medium-to-large agency employing about 75 staff at any one time in four locations across the Peel region. It provides services annually to more people than it would take to fill the SkyDome to capacity. ICNSS has spend the greater part of 22 years--and I have spent all of my 14 years with this particular agency--conceptualizing, developing, and implementing programs and services aimed at individual capacity-building and the resettlement and adaptation of newcomers to Canada. The issue of reciprocity remains at the top of our list of priorities, and second to that is the importance of family reunification within the context of the social integration of immigrants.
The amendments to Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that are included in Bill C-50 are of grave concern to us. If we understand the implication of the amendments, this bill would give the minister and visa officers the power to arbitrarily refuse applications by individuals for permanent residency, visitors' visas, work permits, and study permits, even when it is clear that all the requirements of the IRPA have been met. It would also shift the power into the hands of these individuals representing the Government of Canada to discard applications seeking consideration on humanitarian and compassionate grounds from individuals outside of Canada. As well, the minister and her representatives would be given the unequivocal authority to set quotas and criteria so that predetermined outcomes were achieved. Such authority would be absolute and would not require sanctioning by Parliament.
Our agency believes that these provisions will erode the very foundation of a system that individuals from around the world have found to be fair, compassionate, humanitarian, and friendly. Inherent in the current IRPA is the right of individuals to apply for and be granted entry into Canada under specific categories.
Statistics relating to immigration from 1997 to 2006 indicate that the main source of immigrants is the economic class, followed by family class, and then refugees. In 2006, for example, Canada accepted over 250,000 individuals. Of those individuals, 138,000 were under the economic class, which is equal to 54.9%; 70,000 were under the family class, representing 28%; and 32,000 were refugees, accounting for 12.9%. Under the amendment, these immigration class profiles that have remained steady over the last decade will dramatically change to reflect what the minister determines on an ad hoc basis to be the need and therefore the focus of our immigration drive in Canada.
As an agency serving immigrants and refugees for over 22 years, we can vouch for a number of things. Once economic-class immigrants, or the highly skilled and trained individuals, arrive in Canada they expect to restart their specific careers. This does not mean they are willing to retrain or are overly interested in upgrading their qualifications to ensure integration into their specific sectors. This does not mean that the regulatory bodies representing these sectors are willing to provide the information, advice, and assistance to facilitate the re-entry of these individuals into the Canadian labour force.
Two years ago, the Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration proposed a bill, Bill 124, that sought to address these very issues with respect to regulatory bodies, internationally trained professionals, and fair access to professions and trades. Today that bill is law, and to our knowledge it is the only such legislation in Canada. In fact, that's what it takes to look after internationally trained individuals.
Again, within the context of our repertoire of services and experience as an immigrant-serving agency, we know today's economic class immigrants are not necessarily loyal to Canada. This amendment will focus on the economic class--in other words, the best and the brightest from around the world.
This class has been known to either stay long enough to educate its children and then leave for opportunities elsewhere or to leave one parent to settle and anchor the family in Canada while the breadwinner seeks his fortune elsewhere, which is most likely back in his home country. When the children become educated, they in turn are often enticed to return to run the family business, which of course is located abroad and has been thriving in the meantime.
Essentially, Canada accepts ITPs, internationally trained professionals—and I'm by no means speaking about all of them—who obtain citizenship but have not lived and worked for substantial timeframes in Canada but will retire in this country for many reasons, including the fact that we have an enviable health care system, are compassionate to our seniors, and are technically a safe, democratic country.
I'll ask my partner to continue.