Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 12th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Good morning. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on March 8, the committee will begin its study of the federal government's initiative to resettle Syrian refugees.

Appearing before us today are the minister and senior department officials.

Welcome back, Minister. It doesn't seem as if the week would be complete if you weren't before our committee. We'll begin with your opening statement.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm delighted to be here again. It's not as if I've been lobbying to make frequent appearances; I think I have been invited. It is a pleasure to be here once again.

This is about the settlement process. To start, I'll have a few remarks.

I am pleased to appear again before you. Today, I want to review various aspects of refugee resettlement, from the recent past to the short-term future. I will focus in large part on Canada's efforts to assist people fleeing instability in Syria, looking both at what we have done and at what we continue to do.

Afterwards, I will be happy to answer questions.

As you know, Canada fulfilled its mandate to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February, and we're now working on our second commitment, which is to welcome 25,000 government-assisted Syrian refugees by the end of 2016. We've already brought more than 17,300 to Canada, and we are working to welcome the remaining part of this group by December 31, 2016.

Also, my department will make every effort to finalize the processing of the privately sponsored Syrian refugee applications that we received before March 31, 2016, by the end of this year or early in 2017. We already have a number of additional officials in the field, in Jordan or in Beirut, Lebanon, and more will be there. This plan will come out in more detail in a short while, but it has already started, and there are additional officials out there as of today.

The government is prepared to invest up to $678 million across departments over six years to help the Syrian refugees accepted by our country settle here and become integrated into Canadian society. This should underline that Canada's response to the refugee crisis that has touched so many countries around the world will continue to be done in a sustainable way.

Budget 2016 allotted $245 million in funding over five years to our department, starting in 2016-17, for the identification, overseas processing, transportation, and resettlement of the additional government-assisted Syrian refugees.

To call the response to our “Welcome Refugees” initiative unprecedented would not be a stretch, even for a country such as our own with a history of helping many of the world's dispossessed. What we have seen since last November is a tremendous outpouring of support, which continues to this day.

Indeed, one could say that the strength of the support is a problem for me, a challenge for me, because, as I've said before, I'm probably the only immigration minister in the world whose major challenge is not being able to deliver enough refugees quickly enough to satisfy the amazing generosity of Canadian households and Canadian families who want to sponsor them. This is a good problem to have, in the sense that it underlines the welcoming nature of our people, but it's still a problem and, as I said just a few minutes ago, we have started to deploy additional people to the region in order to expedite those refugees as quickly as we can.

The Red Cross welcomed flights of Syrian refugees as they came to Canada. The tireless hours their representatives put in at the welcome centre was quite amazing. As we all know, the Red Cross has once again shown its amazing capacity in the case of the Fort McMurray crisis. Also, Community Foundations of Canada created the welcome fund, and they're working with corporate Canada to help provide affordable housing to refugees.

At the height of the operation we had approximately 500 government officials, including visa officers and military staff, deployed to work on the Syrian resettlement effort abroad, and hundreds more dedicated full time to Operation Syrian Refugees in Canada. I don't think I can say too much to salute the officials of my department and other departments who carried out this amazing operation in Lebanon and Jordan and Turkey over four months to bring in the 25,000 refugees. I think that was an amazing effort, and probably without precedent.

As I've said many times, Syrian refugee support came not only from individuals and small groups, but from private sponsors, municipal, provincial, and territorial governments, and the all-important settlement provider organizations. It was, in truth, a major national project.

Where do things stand now, and how does refugee settlement look going forward? This is expected to be the most ambitious resettlement year in Canadian history, as we work to welcome more than 44,000 refugees. The government has tripled the number of privately sponsored refugees to be settled, about 40% of this year's total of refugee arrivals.

Let me point out that this refers to all refugees, not only those from Syria. I want to re-emphasize that we have not lost sight, despite the recent attention paid to Syrian newcomers, of other refugees who also need our protection.

The Syrian experience taught us quite a bit. We recently completed several lessons-learned sessions so that we could capture best practices and apply that knowledge to other immigration processing streams.

It's true, we have reached a significant milestone. We will report on how we did this fall.

We're all keenly aware that the government and its partners face continuing challenges and opportunities associated with integration and helping refugees succeed. At this point I want to comment a little bit on this question of integration challenges.

With the continuing arrival of large numbers of refugees, settlement services to help newcomers find their place in Canada will play a vital role. In 2016-17 the government is allocating $38.6 million in additional funding to respond to the needs of Syrian refugees, who will need resettlement services to help them successfully integrate into Canadian society. Securing permanent housing for Syrian refugees remains a key priority. As of today, my text says, 97%, and I'm told it's now 98% of government-assisted Syrian refugees have moved into permanent housing.

Some time ago, I think last November, when asked what the priorities were, I said the top three priorities were housing, housing and housing, because at that point I thought that would be a major challenge. Well, it was a major challenge, but it's largely mission accomplished now—98% is almost 100%. I think, thanks in part to the support from the private sector in this area and for other reasons, we have largely reached our goal of finding permanent housing for the refugees.

Of course, the work is by no means done, because there are areas of language training, finding jobs, and other things that are far from complete. But at least on the housing front, I think we can claim, not 100% success, but we can claim 98% success as of today.

Local service provider organizations across Canada are working as quickly as possible to secure necessary and appropriate housing for government-assisted refugees, no matter where they are from, Syria or elsewhere. Once they are here, refugees have access to our full suite of programs, and these include the following.

There is language assessment and training. As of March 10, 2016, more than 4,000 refugees had been assessed for knowledge of English or French, and more than 1,500 had begun language training.

There is support to build networks in communities, for example between newcomers and community members, public institutions, and employers. In 35 social innovation pilots, more than 2,000 refugees across the country have participated in such varied activities as cooking exchanges, sessions on mental health, improving computer literacy, developing peer connections with Canadian youth, and networking with employers.

There is information, orientation, and help finding and retaining employment, including one-on-one counselling.

There are job search workshops, resumé and interview help, Canadian workplace orientation, mentoring partnerships, networking and job-bridging programs.

These are all among the things currently under way.

I think I will leave it at that, Mr. Chair. This gives some idea of where we are in settling the refugees. I would be most happy to receive any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Tabbara, take seven minutes, please.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for being here, and thank you to the departmental staff.

Minister, in Waterloo Region we have welcomed more than 1,200 Syrian refugees since last year. Our region punches above its weight. We're only 1.6% of Canada's population, but we've taken in 4.6% of all Syrian refugees arriving in Canada, and they have settled in our region fairly well right now.

I'm advised by our region's immigration partnership that some of the factors that played a role in our region's initial resettlement success include the government's immediate assistance with permanent residency documents and social insurance numbers, enrolment in the interim federal health program at the port of arrival, as well as the elimination of interest-bearing loans to cover the costs of travel to Canada and of overseas medical assessments.

Our region has done a fantastic job of settling Syrian refugees. There have been many individuals and organizations holding fundraisers and welcoming all these Syrian refugees, but I keep getting questions in my constituency. Some constituents have approached me with concerns that our attention to the Syrian crisis is diverting resources and attention away from such important efforts as family reunification and settlement of other refugees from different countries.

I've explained to them that this is a big humanitarian crisis such as we have not seen in many years, but could you provide us with some reassurances?

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

Yes. First of all, I praised the performance of my department in admitting all the refugees but neglected to introduce, once again, the three at the table with me. I should do that.

Catrina Tapley, Dawn Edlund, and David Manicom have been key to this operation and may be called upon to answer some of your questions today.

Yes, Kitchener has done extremely well. I'm told that in housing you're at 96%, so you're just about all the way there.

As to the impact of the Syrian refugee operation on other categories of immigration, which I think was your question, on the one hand I make no apology for the government's giving priority to Syria, because this was the worst refugee crisis the world has seen in decades. There were literally millions of people displaced. It can be seen as almost an existential crisis for the European Union, and it has created a crisis there as well as in many places around the world.

I think the fact that we stepped up as we did to put major effort and resources into this, at a time when much of the world was hesitating or even closing their doors, was the right thing to do.

Now, when you do something like that, it is going to have some implications for other things, because in focusing so much on this, you are necessarily taking some resources away from other things.

I checked out, early in my time as minister, whether this was diverting resources away from dealing with other refugees and I was told several times that no, the people working on the other refugees were still doing that. So service to them was not diminished.

That's not to say it was necessarily good, but it wasn't made worse by the Syrian effort. Along with many other challenges we have, we must improve our speed of delivery for refugees from countries other than Syria, but I don't think these other efforts were impacted negatively by the Syrian operation.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Chair, I didn't mention it but I want to split my time with Mr. Sarai.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Sarai.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you, Minister, and to your staff for coming in.

I want to know first just a quick factoid. In Surrey, what percentage of Syrian refugees have received permanent housing?

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

Maybe one of my colleagues will know. I'm sure it's over 90%.

Do we have an exact number?

[Dawn Edlund, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I have the number for Vancouver proper, which includes all the folks for Surrey, and that's 97%.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Good. Okay.

Do we have data on the percentage of families who have found employment, out of the Syrian refugees? Are we noticing that they're starting to get employment, or is that still in the infancy stage?

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

Actually that's a good question and the short answer to it is no. We don't have a precise number for what percentage of refugees have employment the way we have a precise number for what portion have permanent housing. We are working to get those numbers from the settlement organizations. We do not have that number right now.

We certainly have been working very hard with industry groups, and I have been speaking to industry groups, going across the country to encourage employers to step up to the plate to hire Syrian refugees. I know a good number have been hired. I cannot give you the precise number.

Maybe one of the officials has something more concrete in this area.

[Catrina Tapley, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Minister, to pick up from where you are, it's really how we will track those who have moved on to employment.

We'll do it through three different ways. One is what we call the immigration contribution agreement reporting system; we call it iCARE. This works with service provider organizations and they enter information into it. We're building that part so we can track things properly. On top of that we'll have a settlement client outcome survey later this year. That will give us an even better picture. As well, of course, we'll use a longitudinal immigration database.

On top of that I might mention that we recognized employer excellence in terms of employer awards for refugee employment earlier this year. We had three winners from across the country. Just as an illustrative example, Cinnaroll Bakeries Limited out of Calgary, in terms of what they are able to provide for support—transportation support, flexible work schedules, and social activities for employees to build networks—was one of three winners.

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

Maybe just in response to the previous question I might point out, in terms of the impact of Syrian refugees, it cannot be said that this was at the cost of family reunification, because our numbers for family reunification are higher this year than they were last year. They're 80,000 versus 68,000 the previous year, so we have also put a push on for family reunification, especially spousal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Rempel, go ahead for seven minutes, please.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

My question is to department officials.

Can you please provide the committee with the total cost to the federal government to date of this government's Syrian refugee initiative?

[Dawn Edlund]

I have our departmental costs, which were part of the main estimates that we saw earlier this week.

The funding was $298 million in 2015-16, and we spent $187.4 million.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Is that for all government departments?

[Dawn Edlund]

That's just for IRCC.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Do you have an idea across government departments what the total figure is?

[Dawn Edlund]

We've started to get that cost coming in, Mr. Chair, and we're just finalizing that. At the end of the fiscal year, at the end of March, we're still tagging some expenses related to that fiscal year that are coming in. The total is in the realm of $141 million or $142 million for all departments.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Do you have an estimate of what the total cost to the federal government for the Syrian refugee initiative will be over a five-year period?

[Dawn Edlund]

We had the initial amount of money allocated for the Government of Canada to deliver on this project, which I believe was $687 million. It may be $678 million. I'm sorry if I have the numbers backwards. We will be working on projecting forward the costs in future years.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I notice in supplementary estimates (A) that there is roughly an additional $150 million allocated to the Syrian refugee initiative. Is this above and beyond the figures you just provided to the committee?

[Dawn Edlund]

Yes, it is. That's money for 2016-17 and that's for processing and bringing to Canada the remainder of the government-sponsored refugees who are part of the government's commitment of 25,000 by the end of December.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

If we were to ballpark the total cost over a five-year period, we're probably north of $1 billion at this point?

[Dawn Edlund]

I would hesitate to try to do the math that quickly, Mr. Chair.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

But it's significantly above $250 million, is that correct?

[Dawn Edlund]

Yes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

My next question relates to the minister's comments around prioritizing Syrian refugees within, of course, the context that we all agree that this is a humanitarian crisis of epic magnitude. To department officials, has the government provided any formal clarification or listing of criteria for prioritization of refugee groups from one region versus another?

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

Can I interrupt for a second?

In answer to your question, north of $1 billion, I think Mr. Manicom has a response.

[David Manicom, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

There is additional money this year of $150 million. The costs identified before that were about $680 million. I do not believe this represents a total of over $1 billion.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What's a quarter billion between friends?

Going back to the question I just asked to the department officials, has the government provided any additional criteria or any clarity around the criteria for the prioritization of one refugee group over another?

[David Manicom]

In coordination with other resettlement countries, particularly the United States and Australia, we work with UNHCR on a multi-year basis all around the world to identify groups that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees is flagging as priorities for resettlement. Then the resettlement countries work with the UNHCR to decide which country is best placed in which region to absorb which elements of the population.

We have a number of multi-year commitments in South America, in Central Africa, in Asia, to resettle populations in coordination with the UNHCR. We are meeting all those multi-year commitments that we had made prior to the Syrian effort and we continue to accept referrals on an ongoing basis in those areas consistent with that plan.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Some groups are trying to sponsor refugees from other parts of the world. In Canada, there have been media reports that they've experienced delays due to the Syrian refugee initiative. We anticipate putting order paper questions on this down the road.

Have any delays or any verbal notices been given to these groups by officials within Citizenship and Immigration that their applications would not be prioritized or would not be expedited at the same level as Syrian refugees?

[David Manicom]

The answer to that is a bit complicated.

The private sponsorship of refugees program in the past had widely varying processing times depending on the part of the world where the refugees were from, primarily based on existing case inventories, processing resources, whether or not we were able to put staff safely into some parts of the world, and things like that.

We have not reduced any refugee processing elsewhere in the world due to the Syrian initiative, so there has been no displacement. That said, the priority on the Syrian project has meant that Syrian privately sponsored refugees are being processed more quickly than some refugees in other parts of the world. This year, because of the tripling of the private sponsorship of refugees program, we are planning to process more privately sponsored refugees from elsewhere in the world than was the case in the previous several years, in addition to the Syrian commitment.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

We also have noted multiple media stories from around the country that there's been a very high demand on food bank usage for government-sponsored refugees; for example, 400 people in the Ottawa area alone. Has the government given any thought to how they're dealing with food bank usage, especially in other areas of the country where there might be demand on them at this point?

[Dawn Edlund]

Mr. Chair, we are working with Food Banks Canada to study this phenomenon. We need to recognize that government-assisted refugees, when they come to Canada, and the income support they receive, puts them into a low-income set-up. It's not unusual that government-assisted refugees would be accessing food banks.

We have been working with our service provider organizations as well to try to understand the phenomenon. In some instances it's possibly a temporary phenomenon as people are waiting for their child tax benefit cheques to arrive. In some instances it's helping to educate the Syrian families that even though the food bank is there and it's a free resource, they shouldn't go there unless they need to and some of them had been going when they didn't need to. There have been some communication issues around that, but we continue to work and study food bank usage in close collaboration with the service provider organizations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you Ms. Rempel.

Ms. Kwan, you have seven minutes please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and to the minister and his officials.

I'm wondering if the department has had any inquiries with respect to foreign credentialling. We have a number of Syrian refugees here. Many of them may not even have their transcripts with them due to the rush in which they left their county. Therefore, they are having difficulty accessing post-secondary education opportunities or work opportunities. I wonder if the ministry has had any inquiries with respect to that and what action the government will take to help address that issue.

[Catrina Tapley]

We have now started to receive inquiries about this. The number I have of those intending to obtain credential recognition or a license to work in a regulated occupation is about 600. We'll work with provinces and territories to try to help people come through the system to address some of the problems that you have outlined. It will be a challenge.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

To the Minister, I think this is a major issue because some people don't even have their transcripts, and therefore, they cannot make an application to post-secondary institutions or secure employment. I wonder if the Minister will take some action in his leadership role to address this issue.

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

I agree with you. If they have come from the difficult circumstance of being a refugee they won't necessarily have all their papers with them. Do we have measures in place to deal with that? How is that acted upon? I'd like to know the status quo before seeing if more needs to be done.

[Catrina Tapley]

There are two parts to that answer, Mr. Chair.

The first is that in some cases we do competency-based assessments. In lieu of transcripts, there are some occupations, particularly trades, for which competency-based assessments are recognized.

The second is a more complicated answer on responsibility with respect to foreign qualification recognition. It's the responsibility of provinces and territories, and then they further delegate to regulatory bodies. At the federal level we share responsibility with our sister department, ESDC, so there are a variety of actors who need to come together around this point.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Maybe I could suggest that the minister look into this and get back to the committee, specifically on the question of lost transcripts, the inability to obtain a transcript, and how that could be addressed in a practical way for post-secondary institutions as well as for the refugees?

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

I will do that. I might just add that the general issue of credentials has been plaguing this country for decades, and it's largely provincial. We are going to have a federal-provincial meeting at which we will discuss best practices to improve how we deal with credentials in general.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I want to move to another area, namely the one-year window application, the opportunity application. In that process, refugees' parents and siblings are generally speaking not considered as a family unit, and therefore they can't make application for them. I wonder whether or not the minister could advise us on how that can be addressed. There are a lot of Syrian refugees here who are not able to make application for their immediate family members in that context.

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

Okay, I think I'll hand that to Mr. Manicom.

[David Manicom]

The one-year window process is for when you have a refugee nuclear family separated at the time of the application. Let's say, for example, that the wife and children were in Lebanon and the husband was working in a Gulf state or in Europe, for example. That process enables us to process the family to which we which have access immediately, bring them to Canada, given them permanent resident status without examining the other family member and then that application can be submitted during one year for that person to come. The non-nuclear family sponsorship entitlements for refugees are the same as they are for other Canadian permanent residents or citizens. They can sponsor their parents under the family class but Canada does not have a sponsorship program for siblings. That said, a very large proportion of the privately sponsored refugees through sponsorship groups are in response to the requests of refugees to bring in family members.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I appreciate the answer and I understand how the program works. I guess my point is this. There are many families who, given their culture, actually live in large extended families with parents and often siblings. One sibling is often responsible for the rest of the siblings, and that's the nature of the culture that they come from. The way in which the system is set up with the one-year window of opportunity excludes them from bringing those family members here whom they consider as their nuclear family. I would urge the government to take a look at that and perhaps come forward with a revision.

How many applications has the government received through the one-year window of opportunity, and how long would it take to process them? In that context, are these applications included in the immigration targets of the government in the report that was issued by the government? I wonder if I could get a breakdown of what the targets are for the countries with refugees that the government would be including in the coming year.

[David Manicom]

I don't believe we have those statistics with us. We'd be happy to provide them to the committee. The number of one-year window cases each year is generally known in advance as sort of a formula from our experience.

The Syrian movement, of course, is a very large one and new to us on that scale. Because we were focusing on intact families in our government-sponsored movement, we would expect the number of one-year window cases to be relatively modest, but we could find the information out for the committee.

Perhaps Dawn has something.

[Dawn Edlund]

I would just add, Mr. Chair, to give a sense of context, that from 2011 to 2016 the department received over 1,600 one-year window applications for 2,400 people, and they're generally speaking in this context from African countries. So it is a program; it's part of our levels plan. We deliver on it, but it's not a very high number in terms of the number of people we settled.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The dental services that are covered under the federal interim program have a huge procedural problem with access. People go and they get approval, and when they go for their appointment, the dentist's office has to phone, and they wait for another 45 minutes before they can actually do the actual work. Can the minister fix this problem?

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

Yes. There was a group of dentists I was supposed to meet on these issues yesterday. Something came up, and I did not meet them, but I will find out what they said and try to resolve that issue you just mentioned.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, and can we get a report back?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

Will you report back to the committee, Minister?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Chen, you have seven minutes, please.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will be sharing the last two minutes with my colleague Ms. Zahid.

Thank you very much to the minister and to staff for appearing today.

I know in my previous work at the Toronto District School Board how important it is for us to successfully integrate newcomers and provide them with the settlement services that they need. In my riding of Scarborough North, in fact, there's a great partnership between IRCC and the Toronto District School Board to establish a newcomer services office, and I was fortunate enough to have helped launch that program as a local trustee several years ago.

I know from a report published by the Centre for Refugee Studies that privately sponsored refugees are less likely to access settlement services. They are also less likely to access language training compared to government-sponsored refugees. Recognizing how important it is for us to successfully integrate all refugees into Canada and that the department has allocated an additional $38 million in the 2016-17 budget year specifically for settlement services, can you share how that money will be used to encourage all refugees, including those who are privately sponsored, to access the services that they may need?

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

I'll ask one of my colleagues here to answer that question in general, but let me just make one point.

I'm not surprised that the government-assisted refugees access those services more. I would hope both of them access them a lot, but the typical profile of our government-assisted refugees from Syria is that they speak not a word of English and not a word of French, so all of them will clearly need language services and other services. I'm not surprised they requested those services more than the privately sponsored, who are more of a mixed group, but perhaps one of my colleagues has a more specific answer.

[David Manicom]

I'll start and then perhaps pass to my other colleague.

We would certainly agree, sir, that we want all refugees to be aware of the services that are available to them, and we work with the private sponsorship community quite intensively. We have training programs and so forth for them to make sure that they are aware of all the services that are available to refugees.

But, of course, as the minister said, privately sponsored refugees often already have family, social, or cultural links to Canada. A number of them have official language skills of some sort. About 60% of the Syrian refugees self-declared as speaking some English or French, for example. I think this would explain the rate of the differential usage, while at the same time we certainly encourage all refugees to access the settlement programs they are entitled to use.

[Dawn Edlund]

I would just add, Mr. Chair, that under the iCare system that my colleague Ms. Tapley referred to earlier, our report from the middle of April, in terms of how many Syrian refugees have come forward to seek settlement or resettlement services—and there's some double counting because they do seek several types of services—is about 17,192 people, of whom 4,062 were privately sponsored refugees. Just under a quarter have come forward as privately sponsored refugees. Privately sponsored refugees are coming forward in terms of language assessment, language training, and those kinds of things.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Minister, you mentioned that 98% of government-sponsored refugees are now in permanent housing. I think that is an incredible accomplishment. I'm going to ask a question like a parent would ask to a child who's brought home that test and achieved 98%. What happened to the other 2%? My question to the minister is, do we have a profile of that remaining 2%? What are the greatest challenges, and how can Canadians help and work together to ensure all those government-sponsored refugees receive the housing supports they require?

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

You're quite a tough parent. You don't think 98% is a good mark?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

I'm told the numbers should be 100% within a month, by mid-June. I am not sure. Perhaps my colleagues could tell you places that are well below the average and where there may be more work to do. Even though we have a 98% mark, we're not satisfied. We'll find out whether we've missed a dot.

[David Manicom]

Dawn will answer the question, but I would add that once you get to 98% or 99%, you have a number of special needs cases in certain communities, and you're working individual case by individual case.

Perhaps Dawn will have some data.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

If we could have a quick response. We're into Ms. Zahid's time now.

[Dawn Edlund]

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to give a quick response.

There are a couple of communities that aren't at 98% yet. The one that is the lowest at the moment is Victoria, but that's only because they only started taking in folks mid-February.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Zahid, one and a half minutes, please.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for joining us today.

Before I go into my question, I wanted to clarify one thing.

It was mentioned that for 2015-16, your department allocated $298 million for the Syrian refugees' integration, and $187.4 was spent by IRCC. Does that mean we under-spent?

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

What I know for sure is that we under-spent. Not all the numbers are necessarily all in, so I can't tell you we under-spent by exactly how much. I know we were under budget before the deadline date, so that is good. Perhaps somebody can comment on the degree of under-spending.

[Dawn Edlund]

Yes, Mr. Chair, I can.

We under-spent by about $110 million, between vote 1 and vote 10.

If I could correct an answer that I gave earlier to Ms. Rempel, the actuals for the entire Government of Canada—I read the wrong column—is in the neighbourhood of $314 million. The variance of under-spending was the number that I gave you, which is about $142 million.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Saroya, five minutes, please.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, and especially the officials. They always do a good job. Thank you.

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

It's like a backhanded compliment.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

My first question is for the department officials.

How many persecuted Yazidis have been guaranteed permanent resident status as part of the government's Syrian refugee program?

[David Manicom]

We are not able to identify refugees by ethnic origin. We don't have that data in our systems. We are dealing with a small number of Yazidi cases, and we know there are some in particularly difficult circumstances in parts of the world that are extremely difficult for us to get to.

We are working on a small number of cases at this time. I don't know if Dawn has more details, but the number is quite small.

[Dawn Edlund]

I believe it's nine cases at the moment.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Nine cases. Okay.

A total of 600 visa officers were transferred to the Syrian files. What was the impact on their regular jobs? Whatever part of the world they were from, what was the impact on their regular work, and how much were their regular jobs delayed?

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

You mean the people who came out for the Syrian operation? How did it impact their regular jobs?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Yes.

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

Clearly, they were not able to do their regular jobs. We had some people come out of retirement, and we had some people from various departments and from different parts of the world volunteer. Their jobs were backfilled by other people.

That's in general what happened. Perhaps someone else can give more detail on that.

[Dawn Edlund]

We had foreign service officers who were posted in overseas posts, who moved into one of the three processing centres in Beirut, Ankara, or Amman. We also had foreign service officers currently posted somewhere in Canada doing work, who are not processing files but who then went to support the effort, as well as other temporary duty officers from elsewhere in the department who have been trained to do this work and who went over to join or to backfill the other officers who had been displaced.

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

Actually, in my meetings with officials in different parts of the world, quite a number have come up to me and said they were so happy they were able to volunteer. I know we've had people from New York and London volunteering. Somehow or other they were replaced during their period in Jordan or Lebanon.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

On the difference between government sponsorship and the private sponsorship, I attended a couple of functions with the private sponsorship program. I think it's called Paramount Foods in Toronto. They took Syrian privately sponsored refugees. Also, 40 of them were taken by Goodyear Canada in the mechanical place.

How many government-sponsored refugees have found a job? Do we have any numbers?

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

That question was asked before, and we're working very hard to help find them jobs. I, too, have been to events where employers have made many jobs available, but we don't have precise numbers. But, as I think Catrina Tapley indicated, there are two sources we are developing where we will have more precise numbers to answer your question.

[Dawn Edlund]

If I may, Minister, the Province of New Brunswick worked collaboratively with us and the service provider organizations in a really innovative way. We moved people into a hotel in Fredericton, where they started to receive settlement services. Then adult members of the families were interviewed as to what their job skills and capacities were. Then they were actually placed in communities where those jobs were available.

They're not necessarily working yet, but they're working on their language skills. Then there are job opportunities for them in different parts of New Brunswick, like Bathurst and Edmunston. Normally, we wouldn't resettle people there, but they have good opportunities.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

What is the difference between the government-sponsored refugees and the privately sponsored refugees? In my experience, privately sponsored refugees find better jobs and they get settled better. It costs less. In the meantime we put a cap on it. Why did we put a cap on the privately sponsored...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 20 seconds, please.

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

As in most things, there's always a balance. On the one hand the privately sponsored refugees do tend to settle faster. On the other hand, the government-assisted refugees are very vulnerable people, and deliberately so. They generally speak not a word of English or French and have very little education.

We want to help the vulnerable people, and in a sense that's a good thing. However, once they get here, given those demographic attributes, it tends to take longer to settle them than it does the other group.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Ehsassi for five minutes, please.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before this committee once again. It was great to hear your opening remarks and to observe and witness all the progress that has been made to date.

I did note that in your opening remarks you referred to this being the end of the beginning, and that there are certain other challenges we should be currently focusing on.

Having had the benefit of looking at this whole process as a partnership between the federal government and Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and perhaps between many provinces and the federal government, I was wondering, as we look on the horizon at the next challenges, whether there have been any private sector companies that have come forward to offer to assist with the retraining of Syrian refugees.

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

Private sector companies have come forward in very large numbers to help in various different ways. It starts with money. I had this campaign to raise money. From CN with its $5 million to other companies with smaller amounts, the private sector raised, I believe, over $30 million. There are also private sector companies that have come forward with jobs, and many of them have hired people. I've spoken to many companies that have either hired people already or are in the process of doing so.

However, you talked about training.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Yes, whether that would be on integration, training, upgrading skills, things of that nature....

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

Perhaps one of the officials could talk about the training. I know about the jobs and I know about the money, but what have the private companies done on training?

[Catrina Tapley]

On training, in particular, I'll come back to my list of award winners, and we'll start there. In addition to Cinnaroll, Highline Mushrooms out of Leamington, in addition to hiring, provide interpretation services, language classes, scholarship opportunities for employees' children. The Prince George Hotel in Halifax provide direct hiring, on-the-job language training, workplace education. There are a number of employers who've stepped up. Those are the three award winners.

In addition to that, what we've created on our website, and it's been very popular, is a challenge for business in terms of corporate goodwill in the hiring of Syrian refugees. We've had a number of corporations step forward in terms of either making donations to the Red Cross, or to others, or to participating in the fund that's established through Community Foundations of Canada, whether that's CN or the Royal Bank of Canada. Now we're encouraging others to develop those hiring opportunities. We're getting quite a list of who's contributing, whether it's IKEA, Sun Life Financial, the five Canadian banks that have collectively donated $1 million. We've developed quite a list, Mr. Chair.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you for that response. It's very encouraging indeed.

As you know, provincial and municipal governments have also assumed a role in this process, especially insofar as providing educational services is concerned. Has the federal government been approached by any level of government asking for an offset of the costs that have been borne by provinces or municipalities?

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

Not very much. Provincial governments have a tendency to ask federal governments for money. I would say that the overall spirit of our provincial partners has been to each put forward the money we put forward and work together. We had a recent meeting of all provincial ministers, and me, and everyone commented on the positive spirit of collaboration in which we had worked.

I think there may be one province that thinks it should get a little more money for something or other, but it has not flavoured in a negative way our overall really positive relationship that we have developed on this refugee file.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Tilson.

Ms. Edlund, to clarify, out of the Syrian refugee initiative, the government has brought in nine Yazidis.

[Dawn Edlund]

No, to clarify, we are currently working on nine cases of Yazidi families that were brought to our attention. As my colleague Mr. Manicom noted, we don't have a way of tracking that in our system to pull.... It's not a field that we track people by. As cases have been brought forward to us, we've been working on seeing where they are in the process, and we have nine cases that we're working on currently. I don't have the number of people that involves.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How many cases have been processed, in total, as part of the Syrian refugee initiative?

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

We've just said we don't track by—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'm asking, regardless of ethnicity, how many cases have been processed?

[Dawn Edlund]

I don't have that number in terms of cases because we've been tracking things by number of persons. For the Syrian movement, to date, from November 4 to May 9, we have just a titch over 27,000 Syrians who have been brought to Canada.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What would the average family size be as part of one of those cases?

[Dawn Edlund]

Privately sponsored refugee family sizes tend to be smaller, so think of four or five people. The government-assisted refugee families are much larger, think of six, seven, or eight plus.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

My understanding is, with both government-sponsored and privately sponsored refugees, specifically Syrian refugees, that the assistance provided—we'll deal with the privately sponsored one—lasts a year. There's a commitment to help people, and it lasts a year. I'll ask you, Mr. Minister, then what happens?

For example, our communities right across the country have been very generous with providing housing, providing food and clothing, and all kinds of things, language training, etc., but that commitment, as I understand, ends after a year. So what happens then? I'm carrying on with the question that was asked by one of the government members. What happens, for example, Mr. Minister, specifically about jobs? What happens if they don't have jobs?

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

They come in as permanent residents on arrival, and they receive support for a number of months. Government-assisted refugees receive support for one year—you're right—but they receive the other kinds of settlement services for 39 months, just over three years. Not everything is for one year.

If they don't have a job or other means of support after one year, they are like other Canadians in that situation. The official support for them in terms of income ends after one year, and after that they are in a situation like other Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

They go on social assistance.

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

Some of them will, yes.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Some of them will, which makes the question that one of the government members asked very important. What percentage of the people have jobs? I expect that many of them who come here, if not all, can't speak English or French, so the first thing they have to do is learn one of those languages. If they don't, they're going to have an awful time getting a job.

I think this issue is an important issue. We want them to become good citizens and become members of our society, but we want them to have jobs. If things aren't working out.... For example, in my community, a house could be leased. Well, a lease expires, and if they don't have any money, then what happens?

I guess that's where I'm going, Mr. Minister. After the one-year period, if they don't have jobs and they don't have enough money to pay their lease or their rent, or to buy food, what happens?

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

I agree with you that those are crucial questions. That is why I want to know how many have jobs, and that's why we are.... We don't have those numbers today, but we are working to develop those numbers. I don't think you'd expect all of them to have jobs after a short period after arrival, because they need time to learn the language, as you've said.

I know some employers who I think are very innovative. They've hired the refugees, but they spend half the day learning the language and half the day working in their jobs. I think there are ways to do it.

But in terms of the specific question you asked, it's what I said before. They get income support for one year. After that, they are in a situation just like other Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Zahid, please, for five minutes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I know that it is hard for refugees with limited official language skills to find employment opportunities. In my riding of Scarborough Centre, several businesses, such as the Adonis supermarket and the landscaping company 3-D Exteriors, have provided Syrian refugees with employment opportunities despite their language issues.

However, large numbers of Syrian refugees are still struggling to find sustainable employment because of their lack of official language skills. In my meetings with many refugees who have moved into my riding, all of them have expressed their eagerness to begin working, to help contribute to Canadian society, and to build a better life for their families. At the ministry level, is the department doing something to help the Syrian refugees transition into the employment market?

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

I think that is a big chunk of what the department does. We certainly work to help them find housing, but the language training, the training on how to apply for jobs, and the occupational matching that the department does—all of those things—are ultimately geared towards helping them get jobs.

Often, getting the jobs and learning the language can go together. It's not black and white. Sometimes they can have jobs and, for part of the time, do language training as well. That might be a better way to ease themselves into the situation.

Maybe one of the officials can comment more on that.

[Catrina Tapley]

Yes. I can just pick up on your answer.

Employment-related services are part of the package of services offered under settlement services in Canada, such as understanding workplace culture, links to employers, and bringing both of those communities together. In addition, we also do a number of things around community connections by connecting newcomers both to public institutions and to their communities but also creating that network that makes it easier to find a job.

We're also working actively with employers. We've seen a number of innovative practices. I'll use the example of the Leamington greenhouses that hired team leads who speak Arabic so that they can hire Syrian refugees to work on the team under them and then do the matching that the minister has talked about between on-the-job language training and some supervision that helps ease that transition into the labour market.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I personally visited the Adonis supermarket in my riding, and those who had some language skills were working at the cash, but many who didn't were making pita breads and working at the back.

I have another question. A key aspect of integration for the Syrian refugees' families is education for the children. Many Syrian children unfortunately carry serious mental scars as a result of the turmoil they have gone through. These can seriously impede a child's ability to learn and integrate successfully into Canada.

What is the department doing to ensure that appropriate counselling services are being offered to assist the children in this situation?

[Catrina Tapley]

One of the programs we have is called SWIS, or settlement workers in schools. Through our service provider organizations, we are working to put this program into place in all regions in the country where we have a high concentration of youth immigrants in schools.

Settlement workers work with the family, not just the children who are there. Working more directly with the children, as you know, is more a provincial responsibility. They really talk about the importance of education, about how homework is key, and about why extracurricular activities are important, and they really help bridge that gap between Canadian school culture and the place where the children have come from and its scarring effects, which you talked about. They work with a whole group of counsellors in schools and teachers in schools.

[Dawn Edlund]

We're also working with a couple of different organizations to deliver training programs for the staff and the service provider organizations so they can be sensitized to and more aware of symptoms or signs of mental illness or stress and then help steer people to the right levels of services in the provinces and territories to have that worked on.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Kwan, go ahead for three minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Just to carry on with that, I wonder whether or not I could get the information on the budget for the SWIS program, how many workers there are, and what districts they have been allocated to so we can have a full understanding of how that's working. I understand you probably don't have those numbers there, but we can receive that at a later time.

I do want to raise this issue. Last April, many refugee families in Saskatoon waited some three weeks for funding. Many of them actually were in situations where they were risking being evicted.

This was asked of the minister in the House of Commons, and the minister's response was that these are hiccups. How many families has this occurred to? How long on average have these delays been? What is the longest wait time for any one family? Has there been a case of eviction as a result of these hiccups? What has the department done to prevent such situations from happening again?

[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.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to ask some questions on the immigrant loan program. I understand the government has waived the loans of up to $10,000 for Syrian refugees, which cover travel costs to Canada and medical examinations for the Syrian refugees. I have several questions. First, what is the rationale to favour Syrian refugees alone with this policy, over others, in a world teeming with refugees?

[David Manicom]

The refugee loan program was not used for the Syrian movement in the normal way, primarily because of the speed with which the operation was going on. We were doing government airlifts, using chartered aircraft rather than individual flights. In that context, the government itself chose to cover those travel costs, given that the costs of chartered aircraft and military aircraft would be very high if you were charging the refugees for those costs.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I guess this is the question that's been put to me: will other refugees, other than Syrian refugees, be exempted in the future in the same way that the Syrian refugees have been exempted?

[David Manicom]

Yes, I believe our minister has said that he is looking at the immigration loan program. Waiving the immigration loan program for other refugees as well would be a considerable additional cost. The interest rate charged on the loans is extremely low. Right now it is 0.75%. Government is looking at the repayment schedules, whether or not interest should be charged, maximum size of loans. We are reviewing all of those issues. Each has a cost associated with it, so it is something that's under active review at this time.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

But there's no question that Syrian refugees have been exempted of up to $10,000.

[David Manicom]

The Syrian refugees who were coming under the initiative up until the end of February are exempted.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Will Canadians who have come to Canada in the past under this process, and who have had loans through this process, have those loans paid back?

[David Manicom]

Will they have those loans paid back? I'm not sure.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

The policy as I understand it is that there are loans for travel costs and for medical examinations. The policy is—and I'll repeat what I said, and you can correct me if I'm wrong—that up to $10,000 is going to be waived. If that's the case, and I'll repeat my last question, will other refugees from other countries be treated the same way, number one? Number two, will refugees who have come to Canada in the past, and who have had to pay those expenses themselves—which are substantial, just travel costs, let alone medical costs—be reimbursed for those costs?

[David Manicom]

The government has not announced any changes to the immigration loans program with regard to other refugees, or refugees who came in the past. Just to clarify the medical costs, those are quite modest. Those are the costs for the medical examination itself. The answer is no. There is no government announcement at this time. The immigration loans program has been in place for many decades.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Indeed it has, which is why people have asked me. I'm talking about other refugees. They have asked why they can't we be treated the same way as the Syrian refugees, because there are many refugees who go through terrible experiences like those of the Syrian refugees. They all want to be treated the same way.

That's the reason why I've asked that line of questioning. Your answer is you have no plans to treat other refugees in the same way as we're treating Syrian refugees.

[David Manicom]

If I could correct that slightly, I said the immigration loans program is under active review, but the government has not yet announced any change to it.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

When do you expect the review to be finished?

[David Manicom]

I don't have a date at this time, sir.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

What are the costs so far in waiving these loans to Syrian refugees?

[Dawn Edlund]

I believe the transportation costs up to the end of April, and that includes the planes, the buses, the hotels, the food at the airport, etc. are in the neighbourhood of $55.6 million.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I didn't hear that.

[Dawn Edlund]

It's $55.6 million.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

That's what government has paid for that.

[Dawn Edlund]

Yes, that's what we paid under our contract with the International Organization for Migrations.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Do you intend to continue to pay those amounts for future Syrian refugees?

[Dawn Edlund]

Our commitment was to Syrian refugees who were interviewed by the end of February, and those transportation costs will be paid for them as well.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported in April that refugee claimants were being charged outrageous amounts by immigration consultants to process their claims. I don't know whether you can talk about that, but I wonder if you are able to tell us the status of the investigation into the unscrupulous practices of some of these immigration consultants with respect to Syrian refugees.

[Dawn Edlund]

Mr. Chair, there's a three-pronged approach that's been undertaken in relation to that particular line of stories and other incidents that have come to our attention. One is to refer the allegations and the facts to the appropriate investigating agencies within the Government of Canada. In this instance it's the Canada Border Services Agency.

The second line of approach is to then go to the regulatory body for immigration consultants to have them review whether or not with these allegations there's been a breach of the code of professional conduct by those immigration consultants.

The third is our own relationship with our sponsorship agreement holders and whether there's been any breach of the obligations they have, such as possibly overcharging administrative fees that's not allowed under the agreement that we have with that particular organization.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Tilson. Your time is up.

Ms. Kwan, seven minutes please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

Just to carry on with the loans program, with the deadline for the end of February, when was that decided, and why February?

[Dawn Edlund]

I'm not even sure I was there at the time, but through the course of February we were continuing to interview cases to make sure that we hit the goal of having 25,000 people arrived by the end of February. We weren't entirely sure, of the people we were interviewing, who exactly was going to be in a position to travel by the end of February, so we continued to interview more people. There were about 2,374 people who had been interviewed by the end of February but who had not yet travelled at the end of February.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I see; so the primary factor is to arrive at the 25,000 number, and once you have reached it, then whoever else is coming down the pike will not have this benefit. Similarly, those who did arrive prior to November 7 would be out of luck, and they also didn't get the exemption.

[Dawn Edlund]

To clarify, Mr. Chair, the 2,374 who were interviewed by the end of February will benefit from the waiver of the transportation loan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Yes, thank you. I understand what the driver is now. It's all just to meet the numbers, but not....

Of private sponsors, individuals or groups, who have come forward, how many are still waiting for families to arrive? If I get that information with a breakdown province by province and city by city, I would appreciate it. If you don't have that number today, I can receive it at a later time.

[Dawn Edlund]

We don't have that number today, but it's something we can get.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Concerning the SWIS program that the staff spoke about, I wonder whether I could get the information as well on when that was established. Could I get a comparison budget? I asked for the budget and the breakdown for this year, but it would be good to actually get the comparison with previous years. Could I get what the budget was for the last five years and the number of workers that budget carries, on a breakdown by communities?

Also, could I have the numbers showing how many refugees came to those communities? Presumably those communities with the larger refugee numbers would have a larger share, one would assume, of the funding. If I could get those corresponding numbers, that would be appreciated as well.

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chair, we're happy to provide corresponding numbers around that, particularly on the breakdown on settlement workers and the school program.

Just in terms of how we allocate funding, which I think was the second part of the question, we're happy to provide the information, but we allocate funding for settlement services in two different ways. For our core amounts of settlement services we use a formula. In terms of where we spend money in jurisdictions, it is well established. In terms of spending the $38 million or so in this fiscal year for settlement services for Syrian refugees, we've targeted them to the communities in which Syrian refugees have actually settled, and we have tracked in real time where we're spending those funds.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In terms of consideration for funding, do you take into consideration also the different categories of refugees? For example, it was mentioned that there are some differences of need for government-sponsored versus privately sponsored refugees. What is the funding formula consideration? If I could have that information, that would be appreciated as well.

[Catrina Tapley]

With respect to the funding formula, Mr. Chair, we don't break down between privately sponsored and government-assisted refugees. Not with respect to the Syrian dollars themselves but with respect to the overall formula, we do it on a per immigrant basis as to where immigrants settle, and then we over-weight by a factor of 2.5 for refugees in general, but we don't break it down between government-assisted and privately sponsored.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I note in the chart that was given to us that breaks down the privately sponsored numbers per province versus the government-sponsored, overwhelmingly in the major cities, such as Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto we have significant numbers of government-sponsored refugees, whereas other provinces have a far larger number of privately sponsored refugees.

I believe the needs are different. I wonder whether or not, from previous experiences, the officials have information on what the differences are between government-sponsored refugees and the privately sponsored refugees in their resettlement process. If you can share all of that information with the committee, it would be very useful and helpful.

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chair, with respect to Syrian refugees, the largest difference will be in language training. In terms of numbers of those who report—and again, this is self-reporting of whoever feels they have language training—about 85% of government-assisted refugees report not having any English or French, whereas with privately sponsored refugees it's close to 60% who report some language abilities in either English or French.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would argue that there is a bigger difference than just language, because the government-sponsored refugees, as the minister identified, are the most vulnerable groups, and it is they who are targeted. The privately sponsored are different. In terms of even the refugee families' own background, education levels and all of those things make a difference in the resettlement process and so on. The size of the family matters; all of those factors need to be taken into consideration.

I wonder whether or not the ministry staff have done any analysis with respect to this in previous resettlement processes with refugees and therefore have that understanding going forward with Syrian refugees and other groups.

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chair, I didn't mean to suggest for a minute that language would be the only difference. We agree, of course, on the other issues as well.

What we've tracked in the past is use of our settlement services, and we can break that down between privately sponsored and government-assisted refugees in terms of who uses these services, just as we could with other categories of immigrants who come in.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 45 seconds.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you. I would appreciate that information in any of the reports and data that the ministry officials might have from the past.

I wasn't meaning to say that you were suggesting that this is the only factor that mattered, but it really is important for us to have all that information going forward to try to figure out what the best thing is that we need to do and how to improve the services.

That information would be pertinent as well, concerning the family makeup, the size of the family, educational background, if we could receive it from the officials.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Do we have a commitment from the department to receive that data?

[Catrina Tapley]

Of course, Mr. Chair, as much as we have available. With refugee populations, we're not asking for educational assessments, so our information will be imperfect, but of course we will make available to the committee what we have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Tapley.

Ms. Zahid, you have seven minutes, please.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

In my riding of Scarborough Centre, the Catholic Crosscultural Services organization in collaboration with IRCC provides services through the links initiative to assist Syrian refugees currently in Canada to bring their family members still abroad into Canada. We know that family reunification is a key factor in the success of the integration of the newcomers to Canada.

What is the response of this program to date, and what demand for this program does the department see going forward?

[Catrina Tapley]

We have a strong demand for Link services. Link is our English service, Click is our French-language service. We see strong demand for this going forward and are actively monitoring where we have wait-lists for language classes and are trying to move funds there to address those.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My question was in regard to the initiative to assist the Syrian refugees who are here to bring their families here—the matching program and the link in that, not the Link classes.

[Catrina Tapley]

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

[Dawn Edlund]

This is the family links initiative. I'm sorry for our misunderstanding of the question here at the table, Mr. Chair.

That organization has been helping to match up Syrian families who say they have family members they would like to have brought to Canada. A kind of matching service has been initiated. I don't have the exact numbers, but there have been several thousand names brought forward, and then there are organizations that have come forward, as groups of five or whatever, to say that they would sponsor those families. I don't have with me today specific numbers on how it's working.

David, do you?

[David Manicom]

We can provide exact numbers to the committee, but at this time under that program we've had far more Syrian refugees identified for sponsorship than we've had organizations for doing the matching. However, separate from the family links program, formally the private sponsorship community is engaged very actively in doing sponsorships for people with family links to Canada.

There is, then, the general private sponsorship program and then the specific initiative. In the specific initiative, we stopped taking in new names for matching so that the organization that is doing the match can focus on that part of the work for the next little while.

We can provide exact numbers to the committee.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

That would be really great.

My next question is in regard to housing, with a large number of common sponsored refugees. Many families were temporarily housed in hotels and other such forms of temporary housing for some period of time, and thankfully the department was able to successfully clear this backlog, and, as indicated today by the minister, 98% of the people are in housing and thus did not have to turn to military housing to provide additional accommodation.

What lessons has the department learned that could be implemented in the unfortunate event of another mass influx of refugees?

[Dawn Edlund]

Throughout the course of the first part of the Syrian operation, we learned several lessons and put them into play. The original plan in bringing people to Canada was that they would stay a night, two, or three in welcome hotels in Montreal and Toronto, which were the two ports of entry we were using. Then we would flow those people forward to their destination community fairly quickly thereafter.

It turned out that, with such a quick mass influx, some of the communities like Ottawa struggled with that and asked us to slow down, so people were staying in our hotels longer. Then we moved to put in settlement and resettlement programming in those hotels.

Then we moved into a different version in British Columbia, for example, where we did a hub-and-spoke model with other communities, rather than just Vancouver. We created a new RAP SPO in Victoria and then we resettled people in Abbotsford, Prince George, Kelowna, etc., to get folks out.

Then the third thing we learned was that it was better to have people moved to their province of destination if they couldn't be moved to their community immediately. That's the New Brunswick model I spoke about a little bit earlier. We moved people out of the hotels in Toronto and Montreal to Fredericton. Then they started to receive resettlement and settlement counselling and assistance, some language training, trips to art museums, and other field trips, that kind of stuff. Then they moved from Fredericton to other communities that hadn't typically received refugees, such as Bathurst, Edmunston, Charlotte County, and Woodstock.

[Catrina Tapley]

Just to add to Ms. Edlund's answer, the department has conducted quite an extensive lessons-learned exercise that is still ongoing—we're just completing it now—with provinces and territories, service provider organizations, and partner departments that have been in this to make sure we learn well from what happened.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

If, on average, 98% of the people have gone into permanent housing, do you have any data on that 2%? I know the majority of the government-assisted families are larger, with 6, 8, or 10 family members. Is it because of the size of the family that they have not been accommodated? I know that usually you don't find bigger apartments. Is there any other specific reason that you have found?

[Dawn Edlund]

There are a couple of different reasons. Family size is one. Another one is that, if there are disabilities amongst family members that need to be accommodated, you need to have specific types of housing for them. A third has been that in some instances the Syrian families have been offered housing in several different locations and have decided they didn't want to go into that housing. They didn't like it. They wanted to be in a different neighbourhood, etc.

There are some more complicated cases that are this remaining 2% that we're working on settling. However, as the minister said, we're expecting, from what our service provider organizations are telling us, that everyone should be in permanent housing within about a month.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 30 seconds, Ms. Zahid.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

We have heard about the importance of different areas, such as language, housing, and employment, to the successful integration of Syrian newcomers into Canadian society. The government has taken a whole-of-government approach to the Syrian refugee crisis, but many of these areas cross jurisdictional boundaries between provinces and municipalities. What is the department doing to ensure that all levels of government are working together to help them integrate?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Five seconds, if possible.

[Catrina Tapley]

We have a robust governance structure of how we work with provinces and territories to make sure it is as seamless as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Tapley.

Mr. Saroya, you have five minutes, please.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Through you, the most asked question in the riding, I think, has something to do with the Auditor General's report. Why is the CBSA not talking to the RCMP and immigration officials? What is the reason they don't talk to each other? I think this is going back to the fraudulent cases of citizenship. Does anybody have anything to say on this one?

[David Manicom]

We speak with the Canada Border Services Agency at every level of our department every day.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Do you think the Auditor General's report is wrong when it says that a number of fraudulent cases were done? If my memory is correct, they looked into 38 cases, and two cases were discussed by the two agencies, and 36 were not touched. The information was available there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Saroya, are these particular cases within the scope of the Syrian refugees?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Maybe not. I can come back to this one. It was the most asked question in the riding. I thought maybe I could squeeze it in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you. Could we return to the Syrian file?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay.

Has the department done any research regarding resettlement cohorts over the last 15 years? What were the key findings? Did the government consider these findings when drafting their Syrian refugee resettlement program?

[Catrina Tapley]

The short answer, Mr. Chair, is yes. We track groups who come in through our longitudinal database in terms of how they do. We've also used both formal and informal methods in terms of evaluation around both our settlement programming and our refugee assistance programming in order to look at that.

We also took the opportunity with the immigration historical society to talk about the lessons learned particularly from the movement of the Vietnamese boat people earlier, but also from the situation with Kosovo and with others, and the important lessons from those. We looked at those things.

[Dawn Edlund]

I would add that we did an evaluation of the large number of Iraqis that we resettled to Canada. We followed them and saw how they were doing and what kind of support they might need. That was part of what we factored into our plan in relation to Syria.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Going back to the private sponsorship in the refugee program, how many sponsorship holder agreements were signed with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in order to sponsor Syrian refugees?

[Dawn Edlund]

I think the number of sponsorship agreement holders that we have is somewhere in the realm of 90. I don't believe that we signed any one specifically just for Syrian refugees. I could be corrected on that, and we could come back to the committee, but for the sponsorship agreement holders for the privately sponsored refugees, we worked with those as we have always worked with them throughout the course of this project.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, what happens with a private sponsor when, for whatever reason, they cannot fulfill their financial and other obligations to the refugees they have sponsored?

[Dawn Edlund]

There are some instances of what we call “sponsorship breakdown”, where, for whatever reason, it's just not working out. We deal with those individually on a case-by-case basis and look to see what supports can be provided.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Are there many cases like this or is it just a handful of cases?

[Dawn Edlund]

I think it's just a handful of cases.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

What happens if a privately sponsored refugee wants to move to a different city during the sponsorship period?

[David Manicom]

It does happen. We can't prevent them if they wish to do so. If it's a pattern of activity, it could affect our future agreement with the sponsorship agreement holder if we feel that they are part of the problem, and that people are moving because they're not being given adequate support.

Refugees arrive as permanent residents of Canada. If they find employment or have a family connection in another part of Canada and make that choice to effectively not use the support that the private sponsorship group wishes to give them, we can't prevent them from doing that, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 30 seconds.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I'll leave it at the 30-second mark. My question is much longer than 30 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Saroya.

Mr. Tabbara, please, for five minutes.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you very much for being with us today.

We first brought in the Syrian refugees back in October. I wanted to ask a question about what your department has experienced from October to December and from January to the present. What are some of the experiences you saw first in 2015, what are you seeing now, and how has that transitioned? Can you give examples of the challenges your department has encountered in tackling certain issues you've experienced prior to 2016?

[Dawn Edlund]

There are a lot of ways that I could answer that question, and there's so much information we could give. It will be part of the lessons learned report that will be provided later in the fall.

Certainly, there was a large challenge in the overseas environment and ramping up to be able to process that number of people that quickly, working with our partners in the UNHCR to find a new way of identifying refugees to come forward as government-assisted or blended, and also working with the International Organization for Migration to move that number of people that quickly. There were many challenges along the way in the overseas environment in terms of getting staff organized and trained. There were national defence officials on site to help do administrative work as well as the medical examinations. There's that piece.

We also learned, throughout the course of the operation, that there could never be enough communication with all the partners that we were working with, with municipalities, provinces, and territories, and with our services-led organizations. We communicated as much as we could, but there were certainly instances where, had we had more time and even less sleep than we actually had, we would have been communicating even more, because more information helped us all make better plans together.

I don't know, David, if you want to add to that.

[David Manicom]

I don't think I would want to speak in general terms of the experience of the department. I would just say, I think, that one of the reasons that the operation was successful was that it was the most intense interdepartmental coordination effort that, certainly, I'd ever witnessed. There was a daily call of a very large table of deputy ministers every morning at eight, for week after week after week. Although that was trying at times for all of us, I think that paid dividends in ensuring that our departments were working very closely together from the start of the process to the end, from arrivals at the airport, the welcome centres, and flowing on into social supports through the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, Foreign Affairs, the Department of National Defence, and so forth. I think that was a lesson which, if we're doing an operation like this again, we would replicate to some extent.

[Catrina Tapley]

If I may, Mr. Chair, just on settlement and integration challenges, we've spoken about a number of them, but one of the early lessons learned is also the importance of some pre-arrival services to appropriately set expectations about life in Canada—both the joys and the challenges—and the availability of integration services and other things that are there. It was an early lesson learned for us on the importance of those services as well.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you very much for being here today. We really appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Tilson, you have five minutes.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I have two brief questions, Mr. Chair.

One is to finish off from a line of questioning I had with respect to refugee claimants being charged an outrageous amount by immigration consultants to process their claims. I think one of your answers, Ms. Edlund, was that the regulatory body was conducting an investigation.

I must confess, I don't understand that. That's like the law society investigating itself if something goes wrong. My question is, is the regulatory body being investigated for lack of enforcement of its own rules?

[Dawn Edlund]

Mr. Chair, if I could clarify, the regulatory body put out a press release saying that they would investigate these particular consultants, and that's a very similar structure to what we have with, for example, The Law Society of Upper Canada. If there are complaints about lawyers perhaps not fully respecting the rules of professional conduct, that's one of the things The Law Society of Upper Canada does.

It's the same thing with this regulatory body. If there are allegations that a consultant is not living up to his or her professional obligations, they investigate that.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I understand that, although it's become clear, unless these are bogus claims, that they were outrageous claims. There are outrageous amounts being charged.

Therefore, one question is whether the regulatory body is indeed following its own rules. It would appear that it's not. If I'm correct in that assumption, is the ministry or the department, or someone, investigating the regulatory body?

[Dawn Edlund]

There are no hints or allegations at the moment that the regulatory body is not doing its job. They have moved to investigate this particular set of circumstances.

There's a difference between professional fees that consultants charge, and what's appropriate and reasonable in a set of circumstances. The allegations brought forward by the CBC were in terms of whether or not privately sponsored refugees were being asked to self-fund their income support and give that money off to a particular organization so that the organization didn't have to do the fundraising. That's another form of activity. If it turns out to be true, that would inappropriate.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

These are innocent people, and it is alleged that they are being charged outrageous amounts. I'm not familiar with the rules, but it would appear that the rules are being violated, that the rules aren't being followed by the regulatory body. However, we've probably exhausted that. I find it strange that they're investigating themselves.

I have one final question, Mr. Chairman.

At the public safety committee on February 18, a CBSA official stated that “most of the 21,000 refugees who have made it to our borders were not housed in camps. They had been living in theatre for a number of years, renting apartments, [so] I just wanted that for...precision. They were not housed in camps administered by the UNHCR.”

Ms. Edlund, as a lot of television viewers, my impression from what we saw is that refugees were coming from camps, but with this statement, it appears they were not. Would you comment on that?

[Dawn Edlund]

It depended very much on the country that the refugees were coming from. In a country like Turkey, for example, camps are set up by the Government of Turkey that house a certain number of people, but many millions more in Turkey are not in camps.

In Beirut, Lebanon, they have a policy of not creating camps, so under UNHCR's auspices people have been living in some informal places, but by and large, people are living in rental apartments.

In Jordan, there were folks that we brought to Canada out of the refugee camp—I can't remember the name of it at the moment—and others who were living in urban or rural environments and then resettled.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

The statement made in the public safety committee, perhaps they're mistaken. Is that what you're saying?

[Dawn Edlund]

No, I'm saying we took some from camps, but there were far more Syrian refugees living outside camp environments, and we brought them to Canada.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Tilson.

I'd like to thank the departmental officials for appearing before our committee hearing. For the committee members, the clerk is working to confirm the witness list for Tuesday. We expect we'll have those confirmations by the end of the day tomorrow.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.