Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 12th, 2016

[Dawn Edlund]

Mr. Chair, the member is correct in that there were some initial hiccups in what are called start-up cheques, which are delivered to individuals when they first arrive. As soon as those were identified, we moved immediately to put a different process in place and to manually cut cheques for people and have them delivered to the resettlement assistance program service provider organizations so they could be delivered to the families.

I'm not sure we would have any statistics on delays or evictions, but we can see if there is information of that sort. I certainly have not heard any stories myself of that nature.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Yes, I remember there were, if you want to use the word, hiccups or issues involving not just families but also settlement organizations facing too long a time before they got their money, so we did speed up the cheque delivery process.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would appreciate if we could get accurate information on what has happened on the ground. This happened not just in Saskatoon but also in Vancouver, Surrey, and other places; people could not get their cheques. In fact, appointments were made with government officials, and they simply didn't show up, and people were just left waiting.

This has happened, and so I wonder how deep this problem is and whether we can check into providing that information to the committee so we have a full understanding of what's happening on the ground and can improve things next time. That would be much appreciated.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Okay.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I also want to ask about wait-lists. With respect to language—and we talk a lot about the importance of that—I wonder whether or not the ministry has information on the list of organizations that have received language training money, how much they have received, and how many of those organizations also provide child care for people taking English as a second language or French as a second language programs. Also, are there wait-lists for these programs and if so, how long are the wait-lists and how many people are on the wait-lists?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

That takes up all your time, Ms. Kwan.

Perhaps the department could provide in written form the information that Ms. Kwan has just asked for.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Yes, we can do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Minister, thank you so much for appearing before the committee once again.

The committee will suspend for a couple of minutes to allow the minister to depart. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

The meeting will resume.

Mr. Sarai, you have seven minutes, please.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

The Syrian refugees who now call Canada their home have gone through some pretty traumatic experiences. I believe of the 25,000 refugees who are now living in communities across this country, a significant proportion are children. Research indicates that among refugee children and youth the rates of PTSD are at least 20% higher in children coming from these regions.

Are you able to speak about the government's efforts to help address the mental health of these refugees?

[Dawn Edlund]

As I said a little earlier, Mr. Chair, we are working now on some programming within the federal government's jurisdiction to try to ensure we can help people identify the types of issues that are present.

We have the settlement workers in schools that my colleague Ms. Tapley referred to, and that would be part of their remit as well in working with the children in the school system. They do some non-therapeutic counselling for those children.

We certainly did experience that. I know of an incident in our interview centre in Oman, which was on a military airbase. A lot of planes were coming in and out, and the children would tend to climb under the interview table.

[Catrina Tapley]

I'll pick up on what my colleague Ms. Edlund has said, most of our programming is focused on adults. However, we have done some work around art therapy and different programs when we've had families together in interim housing before they moved into permanent housing.

In terms of responsibility around health services and mental health services, a lot of that will be the provinces.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Do we have data on how many refugees have started ESL training?

[Catrina Tapley]

Dawn and I are both talking about trying to find the right piece of paper at the right time. Roughly, 55% or more of adults have now been assessed for language training, and around 25% of them have started.

My figures are April figures, We run these on a monthly basis and so we've seen big jumps; and we'll see another big jump again for May. We'll be running the data as of yesterday. So we'll see that second jump, but about 20% of them are in language classes now.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I have a follow-up to that. Would you know how many children are enrolled in school?

[Catrina Tapley]

I don't have data on that, I can answer that anecdotally, Mr. Chair. We hear from service provider organizations that most children are now enrolled in schools.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

What are the main challenges that your department feels are now paramount for the refugees? It seems as if permanent housing has been achieved at a very high level, 97% in our region, 98% overall.

It looks as if we're on track for them to get English language training. What would be the biggest challenge that your department has identified that the Syrian refugees in Canada still face?

[Catrina Tapley]

I'll start, and my colleagues will join in.

Mr. Chair, the committee has identified a continuation of settlement services a couple of times. There are a couple of pockets of wait-lists for language training services. We're trying to clear those out as fast as we can and we've made some progress and we're happy about that.

The first are settlement services and making sure people have access to them, whether it's language training or whether it's community connections or employment services.

The second bigger challenge, and it's a challenge collectively for all actors in this, is making sure people have jobs.

[David Manicom]

The longer-term employment trend, as long as mental heath issues that you've identified are going to be preoccupying for this particular population.... We had some discussions earlier, as a surprisingly large number of even government-assisted refugees move into employment in years two, three, and beyond, and begin to approach the norms of all immigrants by year six or seven, that's the focus we all have to keep our eyes on.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

In Surrey Centre I've had some complaints that a lot of people don't know how to access services. I'm not saying it's because of a lack of services, but perhaps just knowing about what services are available to them. Research apparently shows that government-assisted refugees are more likely than privately sponsored to access settlement services, which I believe is 87% versus 69%, as well as language training, which is a 50% to 42% ratio.

Are there any factors that influence the uptake of settlement refugees so that we can get those who are at 87% or 69% to 100%? What can the government do to encourage more uptake?

[Dawn Edlund]

In the area of language training, I would say that one thing is making sure that we have a handle on the wait-list situation. We've just instituted a new way of tracking who actually is on the wait-lists. For B.C., for example, we have a large number, but some of the people on that list date back to 2010, and they're on multiple wait-lists. We're trying to clean up the lists.

So there's the wait-list thing, and in terms of language training, there are supports for people who need child care. There are child-minding services so that they can attend training, and there are transportation services to get them to the language training. That's one area we're working on in terms of increasing uptake.

[Catrina Tapley]

Perhaps I can add, Mr. Chair, that in terms of making sure that people understand the availability of services, one of the upsides about bringing so many people so quickly to Canada and using interim sites until permanent housing was available was that we had an opportunity to really promote our settlement services, and in terms of relations with the privately sponsored community, to be able to do that same thing.

With the population of Syrian refugees who have come, we're optimistic about the number who understand what's available to them.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Are there any efforts to promote ESL as well as settlement services for women? Is there any way to encourage the mothers or women in this to uptake English?

[Catrina Tapley]

Yes. That's the quick answer. We have a couple of things that are successful. One is women-specific language classes and the availability of child-minding services, which my colleague Ms. Edlund spoke about. The other is promoting it as our first point of contact with families. The importance of all family members learning English is part of the cultural awareness that we talk about as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Tilson, seven minutes.