Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 8th, 2009

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Yes, absolutely, with respect to immigrants per se. However, with respect to public services, officials also need to understand immigration in order to be able to offer appropriate services.

It strikes me that over the years, the profile of immigration has changed. Immigration doesn't always look the same. It doesn't always have the same origins.

As an organization, how can you support and assist with change in public services in order to be able to respond to these new waves of immigration?

[Noureddine Belhocine]

That is a very good question because it is at the heart of the issue. With respect to the ability of organizations like our own, it's all very well, they can do a lot, but they can't do everything. It's our institutions that need to integrate the immigrants. They can start by facilitating access.

How can we have a leveraging effect? Obviously, there are two ways of doing this. We respond to demand on the part of public institutions when they are dealing with a clientele they are not familiar with, because not only are they not familiar with the languages and the cultures, but also with the appropriate ways to intervene.

Scientific studies have shown that in order to be able to provide quality public services to an immigrant who does not know the language nor the system, you need one and a half times the amount of time compared to anybody else. However, public investments do not support this.

First, staff do not have an opportunity to acquire intercultural training. Nobody is a specialist in that area but it can be learned. Then the necessary resources have to be provided. With respect to having a leveraging effect, we respond to emergency one-time requests in order to provide a physical presence in these public institutions. We must—and we have started to do this at the Maison internationale—provide intercultural training and diversity management to help these public institutions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. St-Cyr, you have five minutes.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to all of you for coming today.

I would like to continue on the issue of employment. Ms. Ménard pointed out quite appropriately that in order to integrate, one has to have a job. I am quite concerned about this. The Bloc Québécois undertook consultations on the integration of newcomers into the labour market. We are very concerned by the fact that many of these people, even if they have a very impressive CV, experience problems in obtaining an initial interview in order to make themselves known. We're suggesting putting a little bit of oil in the machine.

Here's the idea that I would like to submit to you. I don't know if you remember but a few years ago, the Journal de Montréal undertook an investigation. The same CV was sent to employers, one displaying the name Martin Tremblay and the other, let's say, Ahmad Abdul. The CV was exactly the same. The first name was invited to about 20 interviews and the other, only two or three. We are proposing that in businesses under federal jurisdiction, that have more than 100 employees and that have sufficient human resources services, the practice that is used in Europe be established, that of anonymous CVs. When individuals are selected for interviews, the recruiter only has access to information on the CV that is relevant to that job, in other words training and work experience, but not the name, gender, ethnic origin and so on.

Ms. Ménard, what do you think of this practice? Do you think that would help people to integrate?

[Sister Andrée Ménard]

I'll give the floor to my colleague who is responsible for employment. However, I think the heart of the problem is that there has to be awareness-raising amongst directors of businesses and of human resources, who are afraid of diversity and who have prejudices. I suggested to the Government of Quebec that officials call businesses in the same way we do. However, as Mr. Belhocine pointed out, we are limited by the resources that we have. We do it and it works. When we call a business and talk about the merits of an immigrant and suggest that they look at their abilities, it works and the business comes back to us and asks for more.

I'll let Mr. Guene respond directly to your question.

[Moussa Guene]

I am an optimist. The problem of employment is going to be resolved because of other things that are happening: the population is aging and the birth rate is low. We see things changing more and more in the area of employability as circumstances change. The old attitude was that immigrants steal jobs; today, employers are calling us for labour. The pendulum is swinging in favour of immigrants.

Obviously, there's the problem of recognizing credentials, experience, and various professional bodies. Some sectors and businesses are more close-minded. That is a cultural phenomenon. In Canada, and more specifically in Quebec, employment tends to be generated by family business and regional industries. We know that small- and medium-sized businesses make up most of these industries. There's a whole regional and family culture underpinning these businesses, which is not necessarily open to immigration. It's not that the people aren't open, but they are not familiar with immigration, they have not met immigrants and they do not see them on a regular basis.

What Mr. Belhocine just pointed out is very important, that is that there has to be awareness-raising through diversity management. The problem is not that employers do not want immigrants. Sometimes the issue is how to manage 10 Chinese, 4 Africans and 20 Maghrebians, if there's a problem. It is that kind of management that has to be learned and implemented.

Today, everything is changing with an aging population. It is also important that the employees themselves be supported. If the employer wants to hire immigrants, other employees should not be isolating them. It's not a very ideal situation when an immigrant individual is eating all alone in his corner. The awareness-raising has to happen through federal or provincial government policies. Why are we receiving immigrants? It's because they represent a solution to our declining birth rate and demographical problems. The public has to understand this.

In Quebec the percentage of immigrants is increasing each year. We are currently receiving 55,000 immigrants per year. Does the public know why we are receiving those 55,000 immigrants? Why are we choosing qualified individuals who, in their own countries, had credentials, knowledge, experience, and expertise? Once again there's a contradiction. These people have to start over, go back to school after 25 years of studies in their own country. We're told that there is a shortage of doctors, yet immigrant doctors cannot practice. The issue of professional bodies also has to be dealt with.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Sorry, but I have to watch the clock.

Ms. Chow, you have up to five minutes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thank you.

Andrée, you talked about 74% of the clients. Where are the other 26% from? Are you having trouble dealing with other clients?

[Sister Andrée Ménard]

I have the exact figures—

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Just let me finish the question. That's the first one.

[Sister Andrée Ménard]

Oh. Excuse me.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

The funding for the clients you serve is specifically for new immigrants. They cannot be temporary foreign workers or citizens; they wouldn't get any funding. Is that a problem?

Secondly, in terms of children's programs, can you expand a bit more? What do you do with the children when you come in on a Saturday morning?

[Sister Andrée Ménard]

Let us begin with the program itself. We have entered into agreements with four neighbourhood schools, that invest money in the program. There is one volunteer worker for every child. On Saturday mornings, we have 120 children and the same number of volunteers. We have had no difficulties recruiting volunteers. We have had this program since 1988. It has been recognized as being an innovative best practice. The child-tutor relationship really makes all the difference. The tutor becomes a model for the child. We believe that the relationship needs to be developed before addressing the academic component, which then follows naturally. The weekly, one-on-one meetings last one hour and fifteen minutes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

What do they do when they come together?

[Sister Andrée Ménard]

They work on resolving the child's most daunting problem. We don't have the children do their homework. We have them use a log book, which is used to create a bond between volunteers and teachers. In it, they write their weekly observations. Our person responsible for service quality reads all of the log books.

We help children learn by using games that were chosen following consultations with specialists, including speech language therapists. We only deal with math and French-language instruction. We have games for children from grade 1 to grade 6, in order to help them overcome difficulties in either math or French.

We also help their younger brothers and sisters. We work with an early learning expert who gives early reading and writing instruction in order to avoid future difficulties. The teachers send us their students who never speak a word of French on the weekends because their parents are allophones—they do not speak French. That way, the children can maintain what they have learned.

As for the younger children, we only take the younger brothers and sisters who come with their parents. One of our staff members creates all sorts of activities with the parents. There is a coffee corner where some parents go with the very young, and a crafts corner for those children who are not ready for proper instruction because they have to overcome repeated setbacks. Therefore, by allowing them to successfully achieve—

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Is this done in a school?

[Sister Andrée Ménard]

No, this is done within the organization. That makes all the difference as well. We have the room to do that. Last summer, we organized an educational day camp. The children learned French and math through theatre, sports and science activities. On Saturdays, there is also a science project, but that was developed by researchers from the University of Montreal.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

These are new immigrant children, right?

[Sister Andrée Ménard]

They are not all new immigrant children, but they all attend schools in the neighbourhood. They all come from disadvantaged families. In other sectors, there are highly skilled people, but in the schools, most children who share that experience come from disadvantaged families, and their mothers have little formal education.

Some are new immigrants. Others might have arrived here 10 or 15 years ago, but they do have those needs. In the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, where we are located, there are many immigrant children in the schools. In a school for 400, 500 or 600 students, there might be only four or five “old stock” Quebec youngsters. I noted a little earlier that we have received many people, originally from some 117 countries.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Merci, madame.

Mr. Dykstra has up to five minutes.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I thank all of you for coming here this morning. I'll try to be as brief as I can in order to get in as many questions and answers as we can. As you can see, our system is a little tough here. We have some time for presentations, but not a whole lot of time for questions from parties.

Mr. Sorrento, perhaps you could just tell us about the particular challenges that settlement agencies and border communities face. You did mention that Niagara is a border community. Certainly, we take on a host of responsibilities with respect to immigration, more specifically, obviously, with respect to refugees who come across the border. I'm wondering if you could comment on the issues and the particular challenges we face with respect to that issue.

[Salvatore Sorrento]

Mr. Dykstra, with your permission, may I refer the question? I don't have the daily practice and we have our settlement services manager of eight years here. I think she would be able to better answer that question, sir.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

That would be great.

Thanks, Anne Marie.

[Anne Marie Majtenyi, Manager, Settlement Services, Folk Arts Council of St. Catharines Multicultural Centre]

Being close to the border and the smaller community, I think there are two aspects to your question, and I think they're different. Being close to Fort Erie means that we see a larger number of refugee claimants at our centre than most of you would see at your centres. That has certain challenges for us because, as you know, we are not funded by CIC to work with refugee claimants. We are funded only to work with convention refugees and landed immigrants, etc.

We receive funding from the province, from the newcomer settlement program of the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, to work with the refugee claimants, but that is a challenge, because approximately one-third of our clients are in that category of being refugee claimants either before or just after they've had their hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board.

That's a bit of a stress on our agency, because refugee claimants are much more high-need than convention refugees and much more high-need than new immigrants. New immigrants who come into the country are usually well prepared and well organized. They need much more limited service than refugees. They come with good English skills. Many come with pre-arranged employment, so they're much readier to go than the refugee claimants.

The refugee claimants often don't have language skills. They don't have knowledge of the culture. We have clients who have absolutely no education, not even grade school education. Working with the refugees is a challenge.

That answers that part of the question.

On the other part of the question about small communities, because we're small communities, we're small agencies. We don't have the kinds of resources that larger agencies have. That's not funding; I feel we are adequately funded for the population that we service. But we don't have resources that larger agencies have for policy work, for example, or for the rigorous types of evaluation that we need to perform in order to justify our receipt of public funds: program evaluations, criteria, and performance monitoring. We don't have these kinds of specialized skills in our organization because we're small, and almost all of us are involved in direct services to our clientele.

I think smaller agencies might need a bit more of the infrastructural support that the larger agencies probably already have because of their size. An example is access to consultants who can work with us to do program evaluation, to do the kind of accountability that's required of agencies that receive public funding. I think that's where the need is in the smaller agencies.

Does that answer your question, Mr. Dykstra?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Just recently in Niagara we made an announcement regarding settlement funding to the region. At the time, I had a question for those who work at the region, and I'd like to get your response to that question. In fact, I'd like anyone's response to this question.

How do you feel about the application process for settlement funding? Is it consistent? Does it move along quickly? What could we do to improve it so that it is a very simple and direct process?