Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

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

So on the target numbers, you exceeded the targets and yet you're still being cut.

[Marion Newrick]

If I may, I'll just say that in actual fact, before the year begins we have to give them the numbers of clients that we intend to serve, in both individual and group services. We submit that. CIC signs off on it and sends it back to us. That's our legal contract. We exceeded our targets. We had exceeded our annual targets by December of this year, so essentially, for January, February, and March of this year, we could have sat back, done nothing, and still have fulfilled all of our contract obligations.

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

So on the number of 100,000, there are grounds for that number? Because I've heard that number being talked about. Would that be the ballpark number? Or don't we know?

[Marion Newrick]

I mean, the thing is that it's so difficult for us to get that information. CIC doesn't help us. They don't provide us with the information. There's no central source to collect it. All we're doing is kind of estimating from average numbers in agencies what we know, and then trying to expand that out from agencies and programs that we haven't yet heard from. Somebody needs to collect this information. We can't do it, but CIC should be doing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Dykstra.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Marion, I just wanted to ask a couple of follow-up questions. I certainly know that these decisions and the ramifications of the decisions are not easy for any of the three of you here today, that despite what was indicated earlier from the opposition.... The decisions and the work you've done in terms of applying and working...these are strictly ministry work. You haven't met on a regular basis with any members of Parliament on the government side or been told directly by the ministry it doesn't want to fund your organization...?

[Marion Newrick]

Sir, I couldn't hear because of the noise. Would you mind repeating the last part of the question?

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

Sure.

Listen, all I want to do is make it clear that there's an attempt here to politicize this, and I don't think that's helpful to your organizations, I don't think it's helpful to this process, I don't think it's helpful to the settlement program across the country.

Nobody sitting on this side of the committee table and on the side of government wants to see agencies hurt, but there is an overall responsibility to try to deliver services as best and as well as the ministry can to as many organizations and thereby to as many individuals as possible.

I just wanted to make the point that I know the three of you are here, and it's difficult to sit here and talk about the future of your organizations, but we do have a responsibility from an overall perspective to implement the plan, and this is the way the ministry has recommended we move forward.

I do want to ask a bit of a detailed question. We all have offices that we rent and lease agreements that we sign. All of them indicate that we can be terminated upon not winning an election; therefore, they get paid their 90 days or 60 days, but that would be it. Are you telling me that you actually receive permanent funding from the ministry, and now you're applying for...what you applied for was yearly funding?

[Marion Newrick]

I'd first respond to your first point, about it not being a political process.

Our agencies are working in the community, and we do turn to our elected representatives—as does everybody in their riding—for help to understand what is happening. We were not afforded any information on where this decision came from. There was no plan. It was a political decision.

If this government had indications that they were going to do this, they should have communicated that to us a long time ago. This should not have just been thrown at us at the last minute.

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

When you applied for funding for this year, you weren't told that there was a chance you wouldn't be funded? You were told that you were going to be funded?

[Marion Newrick]

We weren't able to present all of our brief because of lack of time, but we went through a long process of attending information meetings with CIC staff. There were online resources for us. And yes, we knew we were going into a new phase of funding.

I would like to read to you one of the things that was said at the information session and is still available online.

With this CFP, we are trying to adopt a principle of inclusion, whereby every proposal possible gets assessed on the merits of the project being proposed, as opposed to evaluating your proposal-writing skills. In other words, CIC Settlement Ontario Region is not looking for the first excuse to screen an applicant out. If you can get the basic required documentation of the CFP in by the deadline (see checklist) and provide information on the project you propose CIC will make the effort to contact you for additional details as required before making any decision on whether to proceed with funding or not. The new Modernized Approach to Settlement Programming offers you the opportunity to design your “ideal” program, including new staff. In essence, you tell us what you'd like to do and what you think it will cost, and we'll consider it for funding.

Going through that whole process, this is what we were hearing from staff. We were told that no agency would be cut unless there were performance issues, which would have been identified through the normal channels.

When this decision came down, it was like being hit from behind with a baseball bat. None of us expected it.

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

I think it's fair to say that no one anticipates receiving a funding cut, but I think the letter also indicates that there is a potential, if the project doesn't meet the criteria, that there won't be funding for it.

[Marion Newrick]

That may have been, but the same services that we're currently providing will still be needed after March 31. There has been no change in the needs of newcomers in our community.

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

I wanted to ask you, Mr. Gomez, in response to the call for proposal, did the organization request funding for the labour market access program?

[Colin Gomez]

Yes.

By the way, I'm not the person who is responsible for submitting the responses to calls for proposals.

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

Well, you're here speaking on behalf of the organization.

[Colin Gomez]

Yes I am, so I'll do my best to answer your question. I'm just not completely aware of all things.

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

Okay. But there was no request made for the language instruction for newcomers to Canada program, and there was no request for the enhanced language training in their submission.

[Colin Gomez]

Yes. This--

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

So you actually only applied for one of the three services you currently provide.

[Colin Gomez]

By “you”, you mean the organization?

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

Sorry, I mean the organization.

[Colin Gomez]

Yes, that mistake was made in the process.

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

I see.

[Colin Gomez]

My understanding--if I could address that, because I had some conversation with our executive director before I left, which we all felt was necessary--was that she was confused by the significant change in the process of application. It was, of course, significantly different from anything we'd done before. That was part of the new initiative.

I understood that myself, but I wasn't part of the process, so....