Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 10th, 2009

[Adeena Niazi]

I think this is a very good idea. It's not only the name. We had a case where the woman was called for the interview, but because she was covering her head, she was actually asked in the interview if she could change her dress. She ended up not getting the job, obviously because of her religion and because of the dress code.

This would be a good idea, but still what is needed more is that the government and of course organizations could take steps to work with the employers closely and sensitize them about newcomers' skills and transfer of skills. Mentorship is also very important for newcomers. There is a mentorship for them to prepare them for how to present themselves at the interview. That's very important. That's also a systemic barrier that is based on discrimination. It needs to work with this thing.

Government income tax incentives would be something that would help newcomers get jobs. This would help the employers. Job recruiting is also something....

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Niazi.

Ms. Chow.

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

Mr. Patrick Au, how many people does your agency serve?

[Patrick Au]

We serve an average of at least 4,500 every year.

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

You said 90% of your clients are referred by the police. Do you have a waiting list? So police, children's aid--people who have gotten into trouble.

[Patrick Au]

We have a waiting list for some of the cases, but emergency cases referred by the police don't have to wait. For wife assault or sexual assault, no, they don't have to wait. Sometimes you even have to do a home visit because something happened. These are our priority cases.

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

But do you have other waiting lists?

[Patrick Au]

Yes, we have a waiting list. Some other agencies are doing parent-child relationships, and there are quite a lot of workshops, so we would probably put these on a waiting list. If it's not a severe marital case, we would put it on a waiting list.

This is actually a pressure for the agency staff. Because there are so many urgent cases, we cannot wait. In one day our staff might get three referrals from the police and we have to do them at once, one at a time. We cannot say, wait until tomorrow or wait another two weeks. No, we can't. This is the stress we have.

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

How long do people have to wait for the less urgent ones?

[Patrick Au]

The less urgent ones have to wait at least three to six months, but we try to call them again if we have time. If, in that period of time, there are not many urgencies, then we have to call them and try to help them. This is a pressure for the agency and the staff as well.

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

Mr. Shan, your council represents a large group of agencies. Do some of them provide counselling services?

[Neethan Shan]

Yes. I think the definition of “settlement counselling” is very restrictive. They counsel on the forms and on how to get through the immigration system and all that sort of thing.

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

It's that kind of counselling, not dealing with wife assaults and so on.

[Neethan Shan]

That's one. Most of the CIC-funded programs or the federal government-funded programs for immigration are that way. Other funders do fund family counselling, addiction counselling, and all that. It's fragmented, in a way. Many of the agencies do have family counsellors who help with family domestic situations and youth and addiction-related problems, and so on.

It's usually organizations tapped from different levels of government and foundations and the United Way that do that kind of work.

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

It seems to me that after six or nine months, as you've said, Mr. Au, if you can't find a job, you're about to run out of money, and your kid is not as obedient as before, there is a lot of pressure. That's the time when sometimes the family could break up or would quarrel, and there's also the possibility of family violence. Perhaps they have a different way of disciplining the children, for example.

How does that work among different government agencies? There seems to be a bit of fragmentation, to use the word you are talking about. What is the best way to coordinate it so there can be a more comprehensive approach, so that yes, it's looking for jobs, it's mentorship, it's filling in the forms, giving this support, etc., but also it's finding some ways to make sure the emotional part stays intact?

Anyone can provide an answer for that one.

[Neethan Shan]

I think the key is that the federal and provincial governments are working together on the local immigration partnership. If you broaden the local immigration partnership council across the province, for example in Ontario, they can look at these other aspects of settlement—mental health and all the other aspects, not just job search and language. If they do that, then maybe it will expand.

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

You said it's just starting and it is a very good approach that you want to see more of. You mentioned that local partnership—

[Neethan Shan]

The local immigration partnership has started in many places already. Some of them are more than a year old, I think. It is a provincial as well as a federal partnership.

What I was saying is it's a good model, because it brings many stakeholders together, but its limitation is that it's still agency-led or municipality-led, not immigrant-led.

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

So you want more immigrant participation.

Mr. Au, you were....

[Patrick Au]

We fully recognize that employment is very important, but employment doesn't mean the individual has no emotional problems. The Government of Canada, with the Citizenship and Immigration program, should pay more attention to counselling and family services for newcomers. For the time being, there's not a specific program to help newcomers deal with the emotional family issues. For example, some parents send their kids back to China, and then after several years the kids comes back, and the parental relationship with the kids is totally....

Some of them have affairs, because the spouse goes to the home country; they are separated for five years, and then they come back. So this is the thing; it looks as if this is a hidden agenda, a very hidden agenda. And then when the newcomers come, they always say, “I come to Toronto, just to be truthful, because of the second generation, for the benefit of the second generation.” But if the parents themselves have problems, and then the second generation has problems, it is very costly for the governments to deal with all these things. What I'm talking about is being proactive, to help the family deal with the emotional aspects, and then they'll have a healthy second generation. This is a very good perspective, but unfortunately, this is a hidden agenda.

This is a very good opportunity for me to express my concern. And this is the actual fact. We see from the media that there are quite a lot of family tragedies happening on and on.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Chow. I'm afraid we've run out of time. You'll have to wait for another round.

Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Knowing and understanding our laws is a very critical part of citizenship. We live under thousands of laws, from three levels of government, and many people who are born here don't even understand the laws.

Just to give you the best example I can think of, I don't do my own income tax. Every year I say I'm going to do it myself, and I get halfway through the process and I say, “I'm going to check with the experts”, because I think I'm going to pay too much or I'm going to pay too little. It's very complex.

And then there are all the municipal bylaws. If you're a homeowner or you're in an apartment, you don't want to run afoul of the law. You have to understand the municipal laws. For instance, you could find yourself breaking a law on recycling totally inadvertently if you put the garbage in the wrong container.

And then there are provincial laws. For instance, most people don't know that in Ontario it's against the law to be intoxicated in a public place. People who are born here don't even know that. All you have to do is look at Grey Cup weekend. And it's hard to believe that, but it's true.

Then we have criminal laws, of course, federal laws, which are the most important because the sanctions are the worst.

I was born in Canada, and sometimes I don't know the laws, so I know it must be confusing for a new immigrant. So my question is this. How do new immigrants learn the laws of Canada? Is there anything we should be doing to make that an easier process?

Maybe we could start with Mr. Shan and just briefly work along.

[Neethan Shan]

Sure.

There's a large number of legal clinics in Ontario, and some of them are ethno-specific legal clinics, so there's one for Africans, one for Chinese and Southeast Asians, one for South Asians, and so on. So the legal clinics do community legal education. Though it's very limited, it's one way they come to know about it.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Can they do that in their first language, too?

[Neethan Shan]

Yes, many of them do that in a first language. But, again, as in many other agencies, they only reach a small percentage of the population that needs to get the information.

Definitely, they need to have more public service announcements and related investments, maybe as part of the funders. The funders' requirement from CIC is some public education related to that. But it happens. Settlement workers are always in conversation with people. Front-line workers are always in conversation with people. There is the Settlement Workers in Schools, SWIS, program, which CIC also supports along with provincial governments. The young people are being told by those youth workers and settlement workers what the legislation and the rules are.

But beyond that, I also want to say that it's the system's responsibility to reach out to the population. All the law enforcement and judicial systems also need to have a community outreach segment, which goes in multiple languages, reaches out to faith groups, reaches to ethnic media, and so on, utilizing that network more effectively.