Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

[Catrina Tapley]

We agree.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Excellent.

So at a time when the minister has touted that immigration levels are stable or perhaps even increasing—but we can at least agree that they're stable—at a time when we know that needs of immigrants are at the very least stable if not increasing, as we've seen anecdotally in many of our ridings, it doesn't seem logical to me that given the fragile economic recovery that we're facing right now, by cutting $53 million from settlement funding globally, we are depriving thousands upon thousands of immigrants from integration tools and settlement tools that would allow them to contribute to their economy rather than be receivers of welfare and social programs.

That's the part I don't understand. Why are we cutting $53 million when it's an economic benefit to make sure that we are training and providing settlement services?

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of different parts to the question, and--

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Just that part: why are we cutting $53 million? Please focus on that.

[Catrina Tapley]

The $53-million cut for this year was part of the strategic review exercise, which the department underwent a year ago. But in this case, it's a careful balancing act, because what we saw was that despite the increase in funding over the last six years, the uptake to most settlement programs had only increased by about 31%, and even 25% of eligible permanent residents only take up federal language training.

For us, it's a bit of a balance, so when we—

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

So you've seen that needs have decreased across the country, then, that we can cut?

[Catrina Tapley]

No, I'm not saying that, Mr. Chairman.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Then the numbers have decreased.

[Catrina Tapley]

There wasn't a corresponding one-for-one ratio between increases to settlement funding and uptake in certain programs or participation in certain programs. I think it reflects some of what we tried to do under—

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

So participation is down, and we're spending less because people are participating less, even though we know that we need them to go through these programs so they can contribute to our society in this time of fragile economic recovery.

I'm just not understanding the logic. And I apologize, because I know it wasn't your decision, but I'm just trying to....

[Catrina Tapley]

I think, Mr. Chairman, when the department looked at the strategic review tests on efficiencies and effectiveness, on how programs are delivered, whether they deliver real results for Canadians and provide value for money in addition to priorities and focus on core roles and programming, when we looked at the basket of funding we have for settlement services, we were hard-pressed to find that one-for-one ratio. In this, when we looked at delivering results for Canadians and value for money, that's where we looked at making those choices on reallocation.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Monsieur St-Cyr.

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

I'm going to go back to the transition. I am quite concerned about how quickly it happens.

I am very familiar the agencies that work with immigrants. The people who work there are passionate people who do an incredible job, let's admit, often for laughable wages and in extremely risky conditions. If we want to continue to attract people to these areas, they must not get the impression that they are cheap labour or expendable, only to be tossed away once they are no longer needed, people whom we tell that their funding has ended, perhaps for good reason because needs have shifted elsewhere. In some cases, this results in the agency shutting down and everyone losing their jobs. So, new people need to be trained and encouraged to go where the needs are and start the cycle over again.

In my opinion, this constant turnover within the agencies is very costly for the community. And it's the same thing for all our agencies, whether they operate for the immigrants or for the rest of society.

The public service often uses ways to try to absorb these changes. We use attrition and limit the creation of new programs in some places until a balance is attained. However, these types of measures do not seem to be in place here.

But in your document, you say that, to minimize the burden associated with the transition imposed on agencies providing services to newcomers, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will continue to work closely with the agencies that were not retained.

What does that mean? What does "work closely with" mean? Will they be given interim funds?

[Dawn Edlund]

Thanks very much for the question, Mr. Chair.

What I would say in relation to this is that, first, with the call for proposals process, we have to recall the first principle: that it's merit-based and it's competitive. So we have service provider organizations that had the full opportunity to make their case on how they were going to serve the needs in a responsible manner--

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

Ms. Edlund, my question wasn't about…

[Dawn Edlund]

--and they had weak proposals, which meant that they weren't funded.

Now, to get to the transition period--

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

Voilà.

[Dawn Edlund]

--certainly, the idea is that we are working with the organizations that we used to fund and that will no longer be funded by us in the next fiscal year, to manage that transition as they are winding down their operations, and to ensure that their clientele is served by new service provider organizations that are coming online or others that are in the same geographic area. We are working with the organizations to manage that transition.

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

I have another question for you, but I want to say something first.

We have listened to your presentation from the start. You have had the opportunity to explain your point. We read the documents before arriving, so we understand what is going on. When we ask you questions, we expect to get answers to those questions. We have already had the rhetoric from the department. I understand that you have a job to do, but we do too.

So I would appreciate it if, when we ask a question, we get an answer to the question we asked. Otherwise, you can tell us that you don't know the answer, and that's it.

Can these support measures eventually include bridging funding to enable the existing agencies to at least continue to provide the same services?

[Dawn Edlund]

No. It does not include that type of financing, because the contribution agreement we have with certain organizations that put forward weak proposals and that will not receive funding will draw to a close at the end of March.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

I think we have run out of time.

I want to thank all of you from the department for coming here and explaining a challenging issue to us, because particularly those in Ontario are being asked questions on this. Thank you very much for coming.

We will suspend.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We will reconvene. We have three groups before us.

One is in Thunder Bay, which we're seeing through a video conference. Ms. Cathy Woodbeck is the executive director of the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association.

Good morning to you, Ms. Woodbeck. Can you hear us?

[Cathy Woodbeck, Executive Director, Thunder Bay Multicultural Association]

I can hear you well. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We also have with us Colin Gomez, the coordinator of language instruction for newcomers to Canada, from the Naylor-McLeod Group Limited.

Finally, we have Diane Walter, the vice-chairperson of the board of directors, and Marion Newrick....

Am I pronouncing that correctly?

[Marion Newrick, Executive Director, Toronto, Community Action Resource Centre]

Yes. It's “Newrick”.