Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

[Catrina Tapley]

No, that's fine.

The formula recognizes those unique needs of refugees, so that does count for more in the formula.

But just in terms of, even now, underfunding for fiscal year 2011-12, I would just point that in Ontario it will equate to about $3,248 per immigrant, compared to British Columbia, where it will be about $2,615 per immigrant.

Dawn.

[Dawn Edlund]

On the second and third questions, our focus is on serving the needs of the immigrants; that's a very important principle behind our funding decisions. As was said in the opening remarks, in addition to--

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

Can you give me the number?

[Dawn Edlund]

I'm working my way up to that.

What we're confident about is that there won't be a disruption in service to the clients in the greater Toronto area, because we have factored that in.

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

How many people are impacted?

[Dawn Edlund]

There are some service provider organizations that will no longer be funded in the greater Toronto area, but there are new organizations that are coming online.

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

How many people are being impacted?

[Dawn Edlund]

I don't have exact figures on how many people are impacted. Again, to return to my first principle, the services will continue to be provided by possibly different service provider organizations, or a different combination of service provider organizations. So the effect on the clients and the transition at the end of this fiscal year are all being managed.

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

But I don't understand. I've seen the applications, and when they apply for funding, the agencies are required to tell you how many, precisely how many, clients they serve. You require that number. You have those numbers.

Each agency, whether it's a Salvation Army women's centre or a community action centre or ACAS--any number of them--will tell you precisely how many people they serve in that program you fund. Especially with ISAP funding and LINC funding, they have to give you those numbers.

Surely you can tell us, then, how many immigrants will be impacted in each of the agencies. You have to have that number.

[Dawn Edlund]

In response to the call for proposal process, over 450 organizations put in applications for proposals. In those proposals, yes, they put forward the services they wished to provide, the number of clients they would serve, the outcomes they would seek to support, how they were in line with the programming priorities of the department, etc. But with the amount of money available...there was not a full amount of money available. Over $700 million was sought in those proposals--

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

Are you--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No, I'm sorry, Ms. Chow. We have to--

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

I understand that, but she wasn't answering the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I know you're all excited, but we have to move on.

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

Would she be able to provide that number for us?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, we'll have to do it the next time. I have to....

You tell me to follow these rules, and I'm doing my best.

Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to all of you for your time.

Can you please tell us what is behind the overall reduction in settlement funding, and why Ontario is taking the brunt of all these reductions?

[Catrina Tapley]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I see two parts to this question. The first was asking what was the genesis of the $53-million cut at CIC.

This was part of the strategic review process. Citizenship and Immigration Canada was under strategic review two years ago, in 2009. As a result, the budget of the department was reduced by about $67 million, or 4.3% of its current operating budget--so reallocated to other priorities. Its current budget is about $1.5 million.

So the bulk of those cuts, about $59 million, will come from settlement programming. There are other things around administrative savings, and there are things that affect the Metropolis project. But the bulk of them come from those savings.

The second part of your question, if I understood well, was on how this affects Ontario. I want to come back to two things that are at play. The first is the $53-million cut to settlement services, and that's applied nationally. The second part that affects Ontario is that under the previous agreement between Canada and Ontario, Ontario had a separate formula for funding that was outside the national formula we use for other provinces and territories outside of Quebec.

This year, with the end of the current agreement, we have seen this as an opportunity to more fairly allocate funds outside of Quebec. So we've used this opportunity to start to transition Ontario into a national funding formula, or bring Ontario into that formula. Those are the two things at play with Ontario this year.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Chair, the rest of my time I'll pass on to Mr. Dykstra.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One of the issues you brought up was the funding per immigrant in Ontario versus other provinces. Could you extrapolate a little bit more as to why that average is so much higher in Ontario than it is in other provinces?

[Catrina Tapley]

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

I'll come back to the question of the funding formula. Under the previous agreement with Ontario, there was a separate funding allocation process. While we tried to achieve some fairness amongst other provinces outside of Quebec on per-immigrant funding, Ontario had a separate agreement. Now that the agreement is about to expire, we've taken this opportunity to bring Ontario into that formula so that we can have a more equitable distribution of funding on a per-immigrant basis.

I think I said in my opening remarks that had we kept the previous arrangement, this year there would have been about a thousand-dollar difference on a per-immigrant basis between what we were funding in Ontario and what we were funding in B.C., for example. So we've gone a ways to narrowing that gap and distributing those resources.

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

Ten years ago the Auditor General did issue a report on what was then termed the “billion-dollar boondoggle”, because grants and contributions were made to not-for-profit organizations, and there was little to no follow-up or standards or criteria that those groups were able to at least state or meet. Obviously, the response to that, at that time, is the direction you're taking now.

Could you comment a little bit further on the importance of ensuring that the programs the federal government runs in this ministry meet objectives and meet standards and come to a conclusion that we can actually verify the services delivered?

[Dawn Edlund]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Chair. I'll speak to that, if I may.

I spoke earlier about our principles about meeting immigrants' needs and responsible funding. More and more in the way in which we distribute the settlement funding across Canada, Citizenship and Immigration has moved to a call for proposals process, which is an open and transparent process with standards that are set out ahead of time. Organizations that wish to seek that funding are given ample opportunity to make their case as to how their proposals meet immigrants' needs in the places where they are going to be living, that they're addressing programming priorities, that the organizations have strong governments and strong management accountability, and that we're getting value for money.

We really want to be satisfied in entrusting Canadian taxpayer money to service provider organizations that they can meet those kinds of tests, and that we work with them over the course of a contribution agreement—if we are entering into one with them—that we continue to monitor them both from a financial perspective and activity perspective to make sure the programming that they had said they will deliver and we know is needed is actually being delivered in the way it was set out.

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

Thank you.

In 2005-06, settlement services across the country were funded to the tune of about $111 million, correct?