Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 11th, 2018

[Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Alio, I was interested to learn about your refugee mentoring program. I know how important mentoring is, in going through my own career. I know that the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council also has a similar successful program, and in its budget submission, has called for support for more organizations across Canada to launch mentoring programs for newcomers.

Could you please discuss how important mentoring is for newcomers looking to break into the workforce, and some of the barriers they face while getting there?

[Mustafa Alio]

The program called Welcome Talent Canada is in partnership with LinkedIn as of three weeks ago. This is going to be a national program. It's one of our Jumpstart programs. Jumpstart has five programs, and it is one of them. Mentorship in partnership with LinkedIn is going to be in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary to cover 2,400.... It's very important. A study came out of LinkedIn that 70% of job placements happened because of connections, not because companies posted jobs on websites.

Aside from the fact that it will fast-track refugees' access to meaningful employment, employment in their own fields, at the same time the personal interaction between the local Canadian citizen and refugees defeats a lot of stereotypes and a lot of stigma against refugees, what they do, what they're capable of. Those kinds of combined efforts need to happen between refugees and local citizens.

[Salma Zahid]

Do you have some examples where you have seen success stories for these mentoring programs?

[Mustafa Alio]

We piloted a program last year with 50 Syrian refugees. It was only for Syrian refugees. Right now the program is available for all refugees, including refugee claimants. Out of the 50, in six months 23 of them had found jobs. When we say “jobs”, with our work, I'm talking about meaningful, good, full-time jobs in their own fields.

[Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Cohen, we have heard from many witnesses during this study that refugees only turn to irregular channels of migration when regular, legal channels are closed to them, and that they would prefer a regular channel with a low chance of approval over the risk and cost of irregular migration. Does this match your experience? Are there steps we can take to encourage regular over irregular channels of migration?

[Bruce Cohen]

It's our hope that opening labour migration opportunities to refugees through economic pathways will provide the kinds of safe and legal alternatives that people will be able to take advantage of. That is an option. That is part of what is inspiring us to begin our program and to work on the EMPP, to open such safe and legal pathways. As they're opened in various destination countries around the world, there is a greater opportunity for legal migration to jobs. We hope that will take some of the pressure off and diminish the pressures that have led to so much illegal migration and so much—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid I need to end it there. Thanks very much.

Mr. Tilson.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate Mr. Alio and Mr. Cohen, in particular, for the comments about the contributions that new refugees make to this country.

I can tell you that in my riding, which is a semi-rural, semi-urban community, there's a company that makes auto parts. It has told me that it is having trouble finding Canadians to work on the lines. It will pay to train new Canadians to come and work on these lines because it can't get Canadians to work on these lines. They are well-paid jobs; Canadians just don't want them.

Your observations are good about the contributions that new Canadians make to this country economically and culturally.

One of the issues that I look at, however, is that there are different types of refugees. I would like you to philosophize a little bit about this. There are well-educated, wealthy people who come to this country for different reasons. There's another group of people who aren't. They come to this country because things back home are terrible because of war, the way they have been treated, poverty, climate issues, all kinds of things, and they are in desperate shape.

We have to spend a fair bit of money to provide language training, housing and social services. It is the second group I'm talking about. I have no idea what the percentage is between those two groups.

We had the minister some time ago come forward with the levels plan as to what we should have in the future. I think he's talking about 350,000.

Is that a fair number? Should it be less? Should it be more? Knowing all the things our municipal, provincial and federal governments have to do, do you think there is a limit as to what we can sustain?

[Mustafa Alio]

I will take a first try at this. I can't really comment on whether there is enough or not. Should we get more? I'm going to be a bit biased and think about it. I think we can do 350,000, and we can do even more. The country needs more.

We're talking about only less than 1% of the Canadian population. Not only is it good to do it, but also it's smart to do it because all numbers—

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

That wasn't my question. I know it's good to do it. We have an obligation to be compassionate to groups of people around the planet.

The question is this: What can our economy sustain? How much can we sustain?

We all want to help people. We all want them to come to this country and make contributions. However, those initial programs of housing, social services, education, language, etc., cost a lot of money. I have no idea what the total cost is, but I know that if you increase it, it's going to cost more.

[Mustafa Alio]

Let me also make a point here that the extra spending on newcomers, refugees or immigrants basically is going back into the economy. It's not that they take the money and send it somewhere else. It increases the country's aggregate demands on physical expansion. More gets more services for actually produced and disposable income for native workers. The cost of that is not going somewhere else. It's going back to Canada and it is being spent, and that will increase it.

This country has been growing and prospering for the past 150 years. If it's going up and if the country is doing really well and is still one of the G20 and all of that, why does everything have to go up and the number of people received go down when actually the country was built on refugees and immigrants?

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

What should the levels plan be? Half a million? A million?

[Mustafa Alio]

I'm not really in a place to know what the cap is that we can do, but that little increase.... It used to be less than 300,000. Now we're talking about a little bit more, about around 50,000 more a year. I'm pretty sure that any country, including Canada, one of the best countries in the world, could easily get a little bit more, about 50,000 more.

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

Mr. Cohen.

[Bruce Cohen]

Talent Beyond Boundaries has not asked or commented on levels or level changes. Our candidates are competing within existing levels. The people we're working with are skilled refugees coming to Canada to fill jobs, to fill skill gaps and, we hope, to contribute to and grow the economy.

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

I concur with that, and I gave the example of the firm in my riding, but at the same time, there's always a cost.

Mr. Brown, can you tell me what percentage of students stay in this country?

[Adam Brown]

I don't have that information at hand, but I'd be happy to follow up with that.

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

Would you? Can you make a guess? Is it more return to their homes or more stay?

[Adam Brown]

I can't say off the top of my head. I know we have about 353,000 international students in Canada right now. I'm not sure. I can't spitball as to how many stay, but I can follow up.

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

You talked about how it's harder to stay, and you gave three or four examples and made recommendations. You gave the example that you need to have an extra study permit, and that the time allowed for applying for work needs to be extended from 90 days to six months. You talked about the other complex procedures.

Should we have any requirements at all?

[Adam Brown]

It's important for certain established regulations to be in place. They need to be reasonable and reflect what the realities are for people. For example, extending from 90 days to six months is simply addressing the reality of the current situation in Canada. It might not always have taken four and a half to five months after graduation to find a job, but that's how it is now. It's simply addressing and adjusting our laws and regulations to adapt to the current situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

We need to move to Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I thank all the witnesses for their presentations today.

What I heard from the witnesses today by and large is that you're suggesting Canada and Canadians really realize the contributions refugees and newcomers make to Canada. Welcoming refugees is not just a humanitarian effort; rather, they make real and significant contributions, economically or otherwise. As Ms. Dureid mentioned, somehow there's misinformation being spread that refugees only come to take advantage of Canadian society and so on. To that end, I want to focus on exactly the contributions you talked about.

Specifically, in the presentation you made to us, Mr. Alio, you threw out a whole bunch of numbers and studies and so on. I wonder whether you can elaborate on those, and whether you can provide documentation to this committee so that it can become part of our committee's record. Those questions often get asked, and somehow people undermine them or say they don't exist. Their automatic go-to place is to say that refugees are simply a drain on our society.

[Mustafa Alio]

For every single number I mentioned, I'm more than happy. I even have them here with me on paper—the links and the references to the studies. I'm more than happy to send them to the committee.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

In terms of the contributions and the actual return that was cited, Mr. Cohen, you talked about bringing refugees in as immigrants through your program—not necessarily as refugees per se—and matching them up with employers so that their contribution is immediate when they land. Literally, because it's through a PNP program, it's immediate.

Can you tell me the pilot projects you're working with the government on at the moment? How many people are being targeted with this program?