Honourable Chair, and members of the committee, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about our perspective at the Town of Ajax on how to promote the economic prosperity of immigrants through settlement services.
Prior to joining municipal government, I worked in the NGO sector for many years. During that time I had the honour of being an executive director of a settlement agency and had the opportunity to act as a convening partner on the development of the local immigration partnership council that Audrey spoke about. I functioned as a contributing partner to the development of the immigration portal and had the opportunity to be the lead agency that developed and built the Ajax welcome centre for immigrants.
What is important to note about Durham and the Ajax context is that these three projects work closely together, each informing the other to create broad-based opportunities to collectively work on the objectives that Audrey spoke about.
Today we're discussing a topic of utmost importance. We all know the statistics regarding our dependence on immigration from a population and labour force perspective. We are all too aware of the stories of lost productivity when underutilizing the skills of internationally trained professionals. It's a waste of Canada's human capital and it's a loss in time and money invested in the immigration process, working against our mandate to build a better and stronger Canada.
Municipalities are recognizing the importance of playing a stronger role in building welcoming communities. More immigrants are choosing to settle outside of Toronto, primarily in second- and third-tier cities. Ajax is one of the top three fastest growing communities in Ontario, leading the Durham region in newcomer migration at over 34%. The challenges faced by fast growing second- and third-tier cities are many and can include working to overcome the attitudes low population diversity has fostered over time, a lack of awareness or sensitivity in some public institutions, and limited programs and service options available for our residents.
Audrey spoke about the need for traditional and non-traditional settlement partners to work more effectively together for real systemic change. There is a need for closer engagement between LIPs, community services and public institutions, and an understanding of collective leadership and joint capacity development. All parties need to determine how we make this happen consistently and what the opportunities are for innovative solutions to improve settlement outcomes and economic integration.
Together we need to employ a systems lens to recognize the roles that various stakeholders play and their influence on successful settlement and integration outcomes. As government, and in our case local government, we have something of value to significantly influence other stakeholders on the topic of immigration. As Audrey mentioned, education and information are accelerants for change. This includes varying access to information, to resources, and to the influential relationships required to make community level change. This is a significant value that municipalities and LIPs have an opportunity to contribute.
Settlement agencies are valuable partners for communities. They provide newcomers with the tools and information that are required to successfully navigate our local networks. Their hands-on expertise signals us as municipalities about the emerging community level trends and the opportunities and challenges that we will be facing in our community. To ensure success, all levels of government need to collectively legitimize this value and ensure that settlement agencies are positioned for long-term planning.
Settlement and integration are subject to many variables, sometimes taking longer to achieve all aspects of successful integration. Settlement agencies need space, scope for scalability, and to be equipped to meet the changing needs of newcomers.
There have been some great results in the area of bridging, internships, and employment support programs. Funders need to better monitor and track this success and further invest in these areas of success. They are critical to ensuring economic outcomes for immigrants. This type of targeted work requires sustainable resourcing to ensure that settlement partners can come to planning tables as equal partners and have the capacity to be innovative and to be resilient.
CIC and traditional and non-traditional partners need to better understand and be better equipped to speak to the return on investment for the settlement and integration program. The challenges are well documented. Documents that Debbie mentioned, like “Making Ontario Home” from OCASI, cite a lack of awareness of settlement services, long waiting times to access settlement services in some jurisdictions, a lack of settlement services outside of major centres, and insufficient numbers or diversity of employment programs, in particular bridging programs.
Communities need to have strong data to guide decisions. Information is critical. This is a point I will return to shortly.
CIC has changed the composition of immigrants to be more economic; however, to ensure true economic integration, employer attitudes need to shift regarding the hiring of immigrants. Taking the best and brightest from around the world when they are unable to meet their potential is counterproductive to the policy goal. This work, attitudinal shift, as Audrey mentioned, takes a great deal of sustained effort over time by multiple stakeholders, often those not identified as traditional settlement providers. Again, this is where LIPs and municipalities can play a facilitation role.
It’s important to recognize that sustained community-level change is not quick and easy. The system that newcomers will find themselves navigating is a complex one, made up of several stakeholders with different perspectives, levels of readiness, and goal objectives. Over time this system has evolved to include more stakeholders resulting in greater complexity. The more complex a system becomes, the harder it is to predict the effect of policy and program changes.
In every system, all stakeholders have specific goals that serve their interest. These goals are influenced by many factors, and the key is finding our points of intersection. This requires an advanced understanding of localized systems. This is critical knowledge for engaging stakeholders and guiding policy and program decisions. This knowledge lies in community and with our traditional and our non-traditional settlement partners.
There has been much discussion on the need for a national vision for our immigration program and a navigation system for all of us to use to guide us in the work of nation building. A shared vision is key to mobilizing the work of our traditional and non-traditional partners to ensure economic integration for immigrants and refugees is achieved. Once this vision is clear, stakeholder goals will align with that vision, and designing and implementing immigration policy will become easier and more stakeholders will benefit.