Madam Chair, one of the things that's happening in conjunction with the increased number of new arrivals expected this year with an increased level plan is that we're also seeing an increase in skills on the side of skilled workers who are coming. So there's a certain offset that happens between those two things.
As I believe the committee is well aware, we've made a number of changes in recent years that focus on skilled workers. There are increased language levels before people get here, so part of the process is around that. There's a focus on younger immigrants, and a focus on more points in our system around experience and other factors that are there. It has a bit of a compensating effect, I think, in terms of how our settlement services are run.
The other thing I would note about settlement services is we tend to follow very closely where immigrants settle in Canada. We allocate our funds internally across our three domestic regions: Ontario, the eastern region, which includes the four Atlantic provinces for settlement services, and the western provinces and the territories. We allocate funds based on a formula of where immigrants settle. We look at a three-year rolling average of where immigrants have settled when they come into Canada. We give extra weight or we overweight the formula for refugees to recognize their settlement needs. So we adjust funding based on where immigrants are going. What we've seen in recent years is more funds being spent in western Canada, where we're seeing more immigrants coming.
Then within years, we're able to adjust even within regions on where immigrants are actually settling to make sure that we have a number of services in particular areas where we're seeing new arrivals come. I would say that's part of where we're able to adjust.
Also—we can get into this later; I don't mean to mix too many things—we're on the verge of a national call for proposals on settlement services, which will happen later this spring. That will help to set the tone for settlement services for the next few years, to have programming in place that meets the needs of these levels by April 1, 2016.