Thank you for those questions, substantive as always, Mr. Bevilacqua.
First, with respect to lapsed funds, I think we need to understand the magnitude of the increase in funding for settlement that came about in 2006 between COIA , the Canada-Ontario immigration agreement, and subsequently the changes in budget 2006. We effectively about tripled the federal investment through my ministry in settlement services in provinces other than Quebec. Quebec goes up on an automatic escalator, but the other provinces are now finally in rough parity with Quebec in terms of per immigrant or per capita settlement funding.
This involved effectively tripling funding in one year, starting in 2006. When you do something like that, you need to make sure the money is being spent responsibly. Officials will tell you they worked very hard with the settlement sector—the settlement agencies in Ontario in particular, where we have most immigrants—to ensure those funds are responsibly invested.
Earlier this year it appeared we were going to lapse $90 million in the Ontario portion of settlement funding simply because we couldn't find enough projects to fund that match the terms and conditions in Treasury Board guidelines. I signalled to officials that we wanted to respect the spirit and the letter of COIA, and they worked very hard. I'd like to commend our officials for working very hard with the settlement sector to find ways to get these services out the door in ways that complied with the accounting rules of the government.
Initially we were going to take $90 million for this year and reprofile it into next year. We were not going to take it away but just keep it on the table, so it did not lapse in the budget year, and move it forward to next fiscal year. Because of the good work of our officials, we were able to invest those funds this year that will go into language training and other relevant programs this year. We're developing a system to make sure that goes forward without these blips in the future in terms of funding.
Second, on refugee reform, I appreciate the very thoughtful approach you've taken on that. I think everyone recognizes that we need to make improvements to the system, and I can tell you—Mr. Chair, I'm obviously not in any capacity to violate cabinet confidentialities or to discuss what may or may not be before cabinet—that as the Prime Minister indicated in September of this year, Canada and Parliament need to address this issue. I'm confident that both Parliament and government will be doing so in the fairly near future. I won't put a timeframe on that, but our officials have been working very hard on this issue. It's a very complicated piece.
Any kind of meaningful reform to the refugee system would involve statutory amendments, regulatory amendments, operational changes, with CIC, with CBSA, and the IRB, etc. It's a complex area in which some very sound ideas are coming up about a balanced system that obviously respects our legal and humanitarian obligations while creating a more efficient system, providing faster protection of the real refugees while disincentivizing abuse of the system.