Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 10th, 2009

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

So you would see it as society's responsibility to inform, as opposed to the individual's responsibility to go and find out.

[Neethan Shan]

No, it's both sides. Individuals would go and find out.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I'm thinking of individuals, too, who have labour rights. If they get a job in Canada, if there's no union, who's going to tell them their rights as an employee—or as employers, for that matter?

[Neethan Shan]

The community organizations and advocacy groups will do some community education. The individuals will also try to learn.

As you said, if you're born here, you still do not seek out some of those things. If you're struggling with jobs and family dynamics, and so on, and settlement processes, the last thing you want to do is to read about all the laws that do not applying to you right away, unless you get in trouble—right? I think the onus should be on the individual, but for the individual to feel empowered enough to do that would take a process. That's where I think the systems need to cross the barriers.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chang, did you have a comment?

[Joe Chang]

It's probably not quite the practical way, for the individuals who come, to learn the law, because as Mr. Shan was saying, you only come to find out when you do something wrong or when you're in trouble. I think community agencies can do a good job in bridging the gap. Normally the immigrant or the newcomer trusts the community service agency and will go and seek advice and referrals from those places. So the community agency can become a bridge to help out with that. That's how I look at it. It's a two-way street.

Also, Mr. Shan was talking about outreach, government outreach. Not that long ago, CIA, Canadian Immigration Advisors, came and tried to work with us to say, okay, we want to reach out to the community; how can we do that? So they brought a whole bunch of government agencies to do a road show in a mall, saying, “These are the government services agencies that can help you as a newcomer; we want to show you what can be done.” In such cases, the community and the government are becoming a little closer to each other, because they are providing services to meet that interest, to know what is involved in the government.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

I notice that each of your organizations supports a specific cultural community. I wonder if you could just briefly tell me, perhaps starting with Ms. Niazi, what percentage of your clients are from that cultural community and what percentage are not.

[Adeena Niazi]

Almost 85% of our clients are from Afghan communities. Actually, you mentioned about the law. This is something that is in one of our orientation packages. Right from the beginning, from their arrival at our organization, we talk to them about Canadian law, and also about Canadian society, because the place they're coming from is quite different. We invite lawyers and people from legal services to speak to them at the LINC classes, and we arrange other forums for them as well. Mostly our counsellors are trained and talk about the most important aspects of law in Canada.

Sometimes, especially in cases of wife abuse, they won't see that this would involve laws; they would see it as a family matter. So we also have to deal with these things in a very sensitive manner. We have to consider the perspective of where they're coming from. This is a real obligation: whatever country you go to, you have to obey the laws. So we also have to make the link to their own actual beliefs.

It works very well, actually, to know how important it is to obey the law—for example, if you violate the law, you will be deported back. There's no doubt about this.

We also translate some of the material and give it to them in their own language to reinforce this orientation repeatedly to them.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Niazi.

I have a brief question. Are you able to communicate with other jurisdictions, particularly the United States, the European Union, and Australia, and determine whether there are best practices used in those jurisdictions, or indeed any other jurisdiction, that could be adopted in this country?

I got you stumped, I'll bet.

[Neethan Shan]

Because we are an umbrella organization, we are able to do some of those things. If we were a front-line organization, we would be tied to doing front-line work a lot, because it's so demanding.

Metropolis, which is an immigration-related research group, has a conference that's held nationally every year, as well as a conference that's held internationally, around sharing best practices—across the country, first, and then across the globe—in terms of what works, what doesn't work, what are some of the patterns, what are some of the trends, and so on. They have very good websites where they share all those papers. It's mostly academics who do this kind of stuff, but much of their research is community-based as well, so it does have a community angle. So that's one place.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The reason I ask that question is you must talk to people who come from other countries. Obviously you do; they come here. And from the people they know, are they able to say there are practices that are used in any other jurisdiction that perhaps aren't used here? Has that ever been communicated to you by new people coming to this country?

[Neethan Shan]

It's based on each of those themes. For example, take civic engagement; in some municipalities permanent residents can vote in their local municipal elections. Some Scandinavian countries and some other countries across the globe have that kind of set-up. We don't. So some discussions are happening around that.

Because we are not a front-line organization we don't have front-line-related information that somebody else might have. But if it's mostly to do with trends in terms of internationally trained professionals, I think Canada is trying to look at it. For example, Ontario has set up the Office of the Fairness Commissioner and other provinces are now starting to set up offices of fairness commissioners. Also, I hear it's being looked at globally. So there are some....

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Does anyone else have any thoughts? Obviously we're trying to make recommendations to Parliament to improve the system.

[Joe Chang]

I can only speak from the employment side. We notice when a lot of other countries talk about certification, their standards are not much different from Canada's. For example, the accountants in Ontario--CGAs--now recognize accountants from England. They can probably now look into making sure those certifications go hand in hand with countries we know are similar to ours, making the certification process a lot easier.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.

We're now into five-minute rounds.

Ms. Ratansi.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I am not surprised that you were stumped, because I look at Canada, and Canada is really a mixed salad bowl, the United States of America is a melting pot, and Europe in general has a lot of tensions. So perhaps we are doing something good that is allowing us to do things well.

Regarding best practices, which is what the study is all about, concerning the LINC education that you do, how much of that language issue is affecting professionals? Mr. Chang, could you answer that one? And how much is it affecting the intergenerational gaps?

Ms. Niazi, you mentioned that people come from different cultural backgrounds, so the way they parent is different, the way they address women's issues is different. What sorts of problems do you face from a health issue perspective, from a violence against women perspective, on children's issues, and children's aid societies?

Those are a lot of questions, but could you address them in less than five minutes?

[Joe Chang]

If I may answer about language issues, language is one thing and languages involve a lot of other aspects. The cultural background is also a very important issue that is related to language. For example, a doctor's language skills are quite high. But if you are talking about a doctor who comes from a country that has a different perception of males and females, the way they practise medicine is exactly the same technically, but from a cultural background point of view, they might behave a little bit differently.

When you're talking about language, you must think about culture. You must integrate them.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How do you help them overcome that hump, then? How does your organization help them integrate so they can get jobs as doctors, or do you think that pre-settlement...? What Immigration had decided was that prior to coming here they should get their certification done, do some examinations. Would that help them?

[Joe Chang]

From a technical point of view, that would definitely help, so they know what is needed to be done before they come here. But from the cultural integration perspective, I think it takes a little while before the person can integrate totally.

This is why I have tried to make some recommendations about soft skills training. When you put soft skills training into language training as part of the standard curriculum, it will really help those people integrate into the country much faster and more easily.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

It's called EQ, emotional quotient.

Madame Niazi.

[Adeena Niazi]

Actually, language also plays a very important role in terms of family dynamics, because most immigrants, when they come here, they don't pick up English very fast. Their children go to school, and they become translators for their parents and have a controlling role over their parents. It also creates a problem between kids and the school, because the parents don't have the language skills to go to school and talk about what's happening in school.

That's very important, especially for the women. It's mostly women. In the first year of arrival here they don't go to school because they're taking care of their families and all. One of the barriers to the language programs is the criteria for attending English classes for ISAP and government-funded programs. Once they become citizens, they don't qualify for the language program. That's very important and it plays a role.

In terms of employment, when a newcomer goes to interviews, they're looking at the presentation, how they articulate themselves. They might have lots of skills and knowledge, but it's not being taken into consideration because there is a bias that they don't speak good English. They may not even speak English. The ELT language program is helping, because it's helping them to prepare for employment. For the citizens, this is a big barrier. As an organization, we do English conversation circles and all, but it doesn't help that much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Madame Thi Lac has some questions.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Good morning, and thank you for being here.

I have two questions for you. The first picks up on what my colleague, Mr. St-Cyr, said about anonymous résumés. Mr. Shan said it could be a good idea.

Ms. Niazi, do you not think that, with an anonymous résumé, people could make it to that first step, which they are often unable to do, and get a job interview? Many of us have had to hire staff. Oftentimes, during the screening process, we have a tendency to say that candidate X is the best and candidate Y is second best, and so forth; whereas, when we meet people in person, the candidate who was ranked third or fourth is often the one who emerges as the front-runner.

Despite the fact that some candidates could still be discriminated against at the interview stage, would an anonymous résumé not help people to stand out from the pack, which would not happen if the candidate was not screened in from the beginning?

[Adeena Niazi]

Actually I said that I agreed that it would be a good idea. It's a great idea, but it's not the solution for newcomers to get jobs. It's not the ultimate solution. More work has to be done for that.

[Neethan Shan]

If I may add quickly, I did say that it's a good idea, but it's a band-aid solution.

If you look at the résumé of internationally trained professionals, they have to put where they received their education. There are lots of things in the résumé that may not be valued, not just a name but their experiences. If the employers do not know what IIIT in India is—it's one of the most popular and most competitive institutes for information technology—if the employers don't realize that and see “India” and think this is an immigrant, then it won't be the same. I think employment equity principles would be the best way to push that.