Thank you to the minister and his staff for coming to the committee today.
I have a number of different areas. Let me start with the resettlement services.
Budget 2018 was just tabled. The government, or the minister more specifically, back in the summer of 2017, would have received a letter from the B.C. School Trustees Association. They called on the federal government to provide increased, predictable, and stable funding to enable boards of education to provide essential support services for immigrant families and students. They noted that the funding for settlement workers in the school program and language instruction for newcomers to Canada continues to decrease in the face of rising immigration and immigrant counts.
In fact, for Vancouver they have noted a 17% cut, and this is not dissimilar.... Other school boards face the same thing as well. Langley, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby, etc. have all been faced with a budget crunch. In fact, the association for the school trustees stated that the lack of funding students are faced with is “alienating new families and, rather than [being included] in society, they become culturally isolated and disenfranchised and unable to realize their full potential.”
To that end, I would like to know whether budget 2018 has provided an increase to the SWIS program for these school districts.