Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 26th, 2015

[Denise Amyot]

With respect to pre-arrival services, we obviously have offices where a majority of immigrants are located. We also offer services online and our employees also go to offer the services that are needed, for example, in the United Arab Emirates, the UAE, or they would go to another country to offer it.

Right now we have three permanent offices, one in India, one in the Philippines, and one in China, which are the places we have the most immigrants from.

To answer your questions and to be quick also with quantitative and qualitative measurements, one of the things we do is a survey of the level of satisfaction of the people who participate in our sessions. We also measure the number of people who find jobs within how many months and if it was a job in their field. The government has also done third party assessments for those immigrants to find out if they have found jobs and if it was in a different field. We're very pleased with the results and that's why they have given us two additional years.

We started with a pilot, which was an idea of one of our staff, because like you, she had heard about the taxi drivers who are engineers and doctors and are now janitors and wanted to change this. We are very pleased with the track record.

We track for a year ourselves but we know that CIC tracks for a longer period. Unfortunately, I don't have those data, but I believe that if they have believed in this program since 2007, it's because the results were there to show how successful it was. I don't know how many times I would take a taxi and would talk about that program, because in a way, I use the taxi drivers to share the good news. Each time they say they wish they had known that and they ask if it's too late. I tell them that unfortunately it is too late but they should share it with their family back home. Each time they ask me for more information, which is very good.

The fact that the government has recently opened it to all classes of immigrants I think is a great step forward.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I'm sure we all use taxi drivers, barbers, and hairdressers as our grassroots information source.

Let me also address the question in another way. Comparing the pre-arrival services and the in-Canada services, what is the advantage of the pre-arrival service? Why is this so important for successful economic integration?

[Denise Amyot]

It is successful for a number of reasons. I would say we need to increase it.

The reason for that is you can start the process of licensing, of accreditation, to know that they may need to take another course, and immediately before they get here put them in contact with settlement agencies, and colleges and universities where they could get some more credits if they need them to have their equivalency. So instead of beginning that process once they are here and losing precious time, we do it when they are there. Sometimes it even influences where they decide to go to establish themselves, because they realize that in Alberta or Newfoundland or Saskatchewan, there are many jobs they could do. They see that the job prospects are better and more appropriate for their credentials or expertise. Sometimes it modifies the plan.

The other thing that is very important which I haven't mentioned is it is not only good for the immigrant but it's good for their entire family who are 18 years and over. It helps the spouse. It helps the children. It becomes a family affair, if you will, where you help the entire family to get settled in the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

I know you think I'm rude for cutting you off, but I have a clock.

[Denise Amyot]

I'm a passionate individual, as you can see.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I appreciate that.

Madam Blanchette-Lamothe has about two minutes.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Great.

Ms. Hussein, we know that certain immigrant groups encounter more difficulties than others when it comes to integrating the workplace. I am thinking of women, among others, perhaps in part because there are many of them in the sponsorship category. They come here to be with their husbands.

According to your experience in the field, what can we put in place to meet the particular needs of female newcomers, so as to help them to join the labour force if that is what they want to do?

[Nooralhooda Hussein]

Through you, Mr. Chair, I would like to reply to the member.

That's a good question regarding the women. We do see that women have that inability to work at the same time as their husbands are working.

In London, through the London and Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership working with the settlement services and the other key players—when talk about the key players, we talk about the system, about employment agencies, educational institutions. We bring them together and we talk about this issue.

We came up with some ideas, not specifically to the women, but in general to the immigrant communities. What are the barriers that impede the immigrants from finding employment? With something like soft skills, for example, which is very small—we take it for granted here—we find that could be a barrier in getting or retaining a job. As a community, we came up with that idea that this is what is impeding the women from getting the work, or impeding the immigrant in general.

We try to work with the settlement services and with employment agencies, and we have created a kind of chart of what you need to get a job, a kind of checklist: I need to do a resume. How do you do a resume? A resume is different from place to place. Where I come from, it's the degree that takes you to employment, but it's different here. There are so many people who come from those kinds of backgrounds.

We try to work with the community, and the immigrants themselves are part of that counsel. They tell us what the problems are and we tell them that we will work together to find the solution for them. By working with the different agencies, we can come up with some plans of how to improve their job search.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Hussein.

I know we could easily go on for another hour. You've created a lot of interest with our colleagues here, but I'm afraid that our time has expired.

I want to thank the four of you for taking the time to spend this hour with us to give us your thoughts on this topic. It will be very helpful for our report.

Thank you very much for coming.

This meeting is adjourned.