Evidence of meeting #38 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
9:30 a.m.
Acting Senior Manager, Calgary Immigrant Educational Society
In Calgary, I don't believe we have such a program, but I have to do some investigation on it.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Acting Senior Manager, Calgary Immigrant Educational Society
Oh, for sure it would.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
I'm asking whether you think it would help to have partnerships with, in this case, not necessarily the private sector, but the government providing the organization with another way of financing its services, and also—this goes perhaps to Mr. Tam's question—of training them, training newcomers into positions and into professions that they can apply afterwards in mainstream society, because that is part of the cycle of training that is offered.
9:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
I think in B.C. also the settlement program is solely in the hands of the provincial government, although the money is federal. We would be very happy to see the government open up that opportunity. I think we have to be very creative in terms of getting more resources for public services now, especially for the pre-landing service, where we are serving prospective immigrants and we would like to see them pay for some of the services before they come to Canada, particularly in the area of training.
Even in terms of the services in Canada, I think a lot of private companies would like to sponsor or work with us to help new immigrants to settle and to get better service. I think success requires advocating for more creative funding resource development strategies.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
And creative opportunities for newcomers to train and to enter the job market, I believe
9:35 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
And as we have been doing for our business and economic development centre...we haven't received any money from the settlement funding, so we rely on fees, private sponsorship, and some project funding from other departments of the Government of Canada.
9:35 a.m.
Director, Settlement Services, MOSAIC
I think it's a good idea to bring in private funding. In Vancouver, where MOSAIC is, we partner with our sister settlement organizations. We form consortiums. We standardize our wages, and then we can collectively talk to governments to negotiate a wage that the government feels comfortable supporting. In terms of the salary range, in comparison even to social workers or mainstream organizations, there's still a way to go. But how we work is to form consortiums. We set our own standards. And we look at training opportunities for staff that are not only necessary but also in terms of retention, to give them the opportunity for training, and hopefully they will stay.
Thank you.
9:35 a.m.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here.
Although I do not personally know your organizations, I know that in my riding there are similar organizations that do wonderful work to help new Quebeckers settle.
That said, under an agreement signed with the federal government, this matter is the Quebec government's responsibility, as it manages settlement funds. I'd like to ask a broader question.
In my opinion, one of the main factors in integration remains employment, above and beyond cultural differences and language. When people find work, they are more quickly integrated within society. When they do not, they stay home and it is much more difficult for them.
I'd like to ask you a question about a Bloc Québécois proposal that you may already have considered. If you have not, I would ask for your opinions on it. The proposal has to do with the idea of establishing the use of anonymous CVs for agencies falling under the federal government's jurisdiction.
I will quickly give you an overview of this proposal and then I would invite all three of you to quickly give us your opinion on it. The problem is that even though people may arrive with all the required skills, it can be difficult for some individuals who have a foreign-sounding name to get an interview for a job in a given company, because a selection is being made. Sometimes, there is a bias which, although not always intentional, means that when employers look at CVs and see a foreign-sounding name, they do not give applicants the opportunity to get to the interview stage and to show what they are worth.
Our proposal is the following. In the hiring process, there is a point when a company's human resource department receives the CVs and hands them to a recruiter. This individual looks at people's skills and decides who to call in for an interview. A study by the Journal de Montréal was eloquent on this point. The same CV, with the same skill set, was sent out but one carried the name Jean Tremblay whereas the other was Ahmad Mohammed. Well, Jean Tremblay was called to several interviews, whereas Ahmad Mohammed was only called to two.
To avoid this happening, we were wondering whether it would be possible, at this stage alone, to have CVs handed in without any identifying information such as a person's name, gender, age, etc. You would only find a person's skill set on the CV. And then, the individual could be called to an interview based on skills alone. The rest of the process, obviously, would no longer be anonymous. Once the person arrives at the interview, you see who they are.
We have held consultations in Quebec. We've received positive responses. It is not a magic bullet, but we believe it could help improve things.
Do you think this type of procedure could help immigrants integrate and that it could help change the mind-set of employers?
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
9:40 a.m.
Acting Senior Manager, Calgary Immigrant Educational Society
Thank you very much for your question. In the beginning of my presentation I mentioned the soft skills. Right now, I work a lot in settlement services. I help newcomers with their résumés. I get a lot of résumés with their pictures. That is number one.
Number two, in answer to your question, Canada doesn't pay the specialist. Most newcomers have their general résumés, and their résumé says “engineer” and that's it. In Canada, as I have learned myself, it has to be either civil, mechanical, or electrical engineer, and then under that there is always some specification of what you bring.
A lot of newcomers, to the best of my knowledge, have the competency but they don't know how to express it in those two pages. When you say “engineer” in Canada, it doesn't mean a lot. You have to say what category of engineer and what kinds of duties you have been doing back home. If it just says engineer, enseignant, doctor, etc., it wouldn't help.
We get a lot of people coming to us saying they have applied 70 times, 100 times, and didn't get any response. My first intervention is on those soft skills. We have to teach them what Canadian corporations are expecting from people, from newcomers.
As I said, they have the technical competencies, and that is why they come to Canada. They have the competencies and the technical qualifications. The soft skills help them to sell themselves through the résumé and cover letter. That is what's most important. We know this leads to the interview.
Name, gender, and country I don't think are important at this time, because when people see your résumé they want to know if you can do the job.
9:40 a.m.
Director, Settlement Services, MOSAIC
I think it's an innovative idea that we should try. In the process, I would suggest that we add into it a part for mentorship for those people who get selected, because what many immigrants are lacking is the Canadian experience. They could have a mentor who can really inform them about Canadian culture, about how to develop a social network, and help them build their social capital. I think that's important.
We have seen so many pilots happening in Canada, from B.C. to Quebec to Newfoundland. We need some places where we can really centralize or have people to have a dialogue on the lessons learned from the pilots. I think the government should support all those dialogues between provinces. For example, even right after this presentation I am going to the Canadian Council for Refugees consultation in Windsor, Ontario. That is an opportunity to learn from each other, about what they do and what they have done.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you. We'll move to Ms. Chow.
I'm sorry, Mr. Tam, we've run out of time. Maybe we'll get you in the next round.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I'll ask Mr. Tam some questions.
The trade between China and Canada is very low from our part. We don't export much to China. You talked about how 60% of your immigrants are business class, or they want to start their own businesses, or be self-employed, etc. I would imagine that they would have the knowledge of how to do exports to China.
Is this service available for any kind of business person, not necessarily from China, who wants to do more export trading with China, for example? How would they connect with the new immigrants who you serve? How do we collectively break down the silo, the fact that you are doing settlement services, not self-employment or not exports, teaching people how to export? How do we make that kind of connection? Do you have some advice on what can be done?
9:45 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
I love that question because that's what we've been advocating for. That's why I mentioned that in 1995 we set up our own business and economic development centre with the settlement funding. The purpose of the centre is to help new immigrants connect with local business people.
In 2002 we received funding from Western Economic Diversification Canada so we could launch the famous Gateway to Asia project. Within this project we helped to recruit and train about 1,000 Asian traders. They are new Canadians, but they are very experienced in trading. They had businesses in China or in Asia before. We train them with a developed database, and then we help them connect with Canadian manufacturers. And we give seminars to Canadian companies on how to do business with China as well as Chinese business immigrants.
We organize “East meets West” business networking luncheons. We help them get together, and we provide translation, support. We provide presentations so that they can meet and talk about different partnerships, including exporting Canadian products to China, and also explore investment opportunities here. A lot of new immigrants are looking for investment opportunities within the local business community.
In the past three years we've been helping our members, just our members, to export over $20 million in Canadian products back to China and Korea. So this is a very famous project, and this project was named one of the best practised by the Asia Pacific Foundation last year.
But unfortunately this funding will end by next March. Again, WD has not managed to provide settlement money to new immigrants. That's why we've been advocating for the government to expand the funding framework to support business immigrants as well as skilled immigrants who want to be self-employed.
Half of our clients at our business centre are in the skilled immigrant category. So we are not only serving business immigrants, we are also serving ordinary immigrants. They want to go for the self-employment alternative. The job market is tough, and self-employment is a driving force for our local economy. So the government should look at how to help new immigrants become self-employed as another driving force for our local economy.
9:45 a.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
One of the problems I've heard about is that because of the silos, you can't get EI funding. You are doing employment services. You want to expand the capacity for employers. We've heard that it's really important to give new immigrants the first job.
Are there programs that you know of, in the services you have delivered, that work really well and that allow employers, especially small businesses or medium-sized businesses—the banks would have their human resources department—to understand why it's beneficial to hire new immigrants? They don't have that kind of capacity. Are there any best practices from S.U.C.C.E.S.S. that you have seen? When you talk about enhancing employers' capacity, what do you mean? Can you expand on that too?
9:50 a.m.
Chief Operating Officer, S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
We have two simple projects I want to share with you. One recently got project funding to develop a website on diversity so that all the business people from small and medium-sized enterprises can get onto the website, and through the website they will have the tools to assess their company's capacity to recruit and retain a diversified labour force as well as the tools for how to interview new immigrants and how to look for the source of an immigrant labour force. This is particularly for SMEs in Canada.
The second project is a bigger one. In 2007, we worked with an energy company called Spectra Energy in Fort St. John. We worked with them, and we jointly organized some training courses for Asian engineers in Vancouver. So our clients receive six months of training in Vancouver and then they are sent to Fort St. John in northern B.C. to have some practical experience with Spectra Energy. After a three- or four-month practicum, the energy company decides if they want to hire these engineers at a lower level, if not at an engineer level then maybe at a technician or a technical entry level.
For three years we've been working very successfully, helping internationally trained engineers to get first access to their own profession. So this is another example of what we have been doing.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you, Mr. Tam.
Mr. Chan, perhaps we'll come back to you in the next round. We're out of time.
Ms. Grewal.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for taking time to come here today.
I would especially like to welcome Mr. Thomas Tam and Mr. Sherman Chan because they are from my home province of B.C. I've been to the organization S.U.C.C.E.S.S. a couple of times to make a funding announcement, and then we had a round table with the Prime Minister as well, and we have attended your events also. You are doing an excellent job in that community.
My question to you today is whether you can tell us how you go about teaching new Canadians English. Any one of you can answer.