Evidence of meeting #143 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was newcomers.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
All right. Very good.
I think we'll be able to do three of you, if you actually take three minutes.
Mr. Sarai.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Grunau, it's great to see people like you who do great work, but I won't take too much time on that. In the scenarios you gave, I presume they're not GARs or PSRs. They're not government sponsored or privately sponsored. These are people who may have landed here in one way, shape or form and then claimed asylum, and they don't have a welcome centre.
I assume that if you are a PSR, a privately sponsored refugee, your families would help you with all the issues in terms of housing and others, and if you're government sponsored, you should be given an agency to start work with, which helps you with housing and whatnot.
Can you give me a quick answer on that?
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
Yes, definitely. Both Loren's organization and mine focus exclusively on newly arriving refugee claimants. Any GARs or PSRs who come to us, we refer on to other organizations that have funding to help them.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
How would these refugee claimants find you? How do they locate you? What's the most common way for them to find out about your services?
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
Do you want to respond to that one, Loren?
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Kinbrace Community Society
In Metro Vancouver we have a very coordinated response that has been in place for the last 10 years, working with multiple organizations and creating a pathway of referrals that gets refugee claimants into the right spaces at the right time. This is already in place.
We've had to deal with an increased number of refugee claimants coming and with the demand on small organizations. We've had to kind of rework that pathway, but it's a process that we address every month through the Multi-Agency Partnership.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Pardon my ignorance. In Surrey, we have a thing called the welcome centre—the school board runs it and it's federally funded—where new refugees all come in. The welcome centre helps new refugees assess what grade their children need to get into, and what assistance or programs they need, whether they need English as a second language. Does Vancouver have anything similar where there is one central location, a conduit, or do you facilitate those services?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Kinbrace Community Society
There are no federally funded services available for refugee claimants across Canada, so any services for refugee claimants are hosted by organizations that are either privately funded or receive some funding from the Province of B.C. I'm not entirely sure about the welcome centre in Surrey, but I know there is stream B funding available to refugee claimants from the Province of B.C. that is at work in Surrey.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
What's the most sought-out service for your agency? What do people seek the most when they come to you?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
Definitely, housing is the first and foremost. There's very little settlement that can be adequately done without having a place to live, and so that's the first driving factor. Our organization, along with providing housing—we operate refugee houses where folks come to stay for three or four months until we can help them with permanent housing—provides a complete wraparound program with all the settlement help and the accompaniment and relational care that they're looking for as well.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
Lots of times we get spouses and refugees coming into Canada and they have difficulty with recognition of their foreign credentials. Qualifications can be obstacles for those coming in without having credentials recognized prior to their arrival. I wondered what your organization's experience is with regard to the recognition of foreign credentials and qualifications, and if you've found ways to assist your clients in having the qualifications that they've received previously actually recognized in Canada. Can you share your experiences on that with us?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
We're reasonably small organizations, and we have only private funding, so we don't have a lot of capacity to help in every area. With some of these areas, such as foreign credentials, we would help them make the connection in the community. BCIT, a local institution, helps people with those kinds of credentials.
What we do try to provide is some connection around employment training programs, as we're able. There are some skills that are really transferable. We had a family where he had IT skill, and it didn't take long before he was off and running. Others, where the credentials are more professional, take a much longer time. We try to make those community connections, and one of our basic services to the families that we accompany is to help them find those service connections in the community.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Have you found that you're able to come up with solutions to that? How many would you be able to help in your organizations in a regular year?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Kinbrace Community Society
Just to put us on the spectrum of welcome and help, our organizations are positioned right at the front end. We're dealing with housing and initial supports for refugee claimants. Refugee claimants go through a very long process, through the determination process and then eventually getting permanent residency. There are many other issues that they're dealing with at the front end. While we are attentive to that stuff, we don't keep any statistics in terms of credentials or anything like that. We refer them on to some of the larger organizations.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
In terms of how many folks our organizations help, is that the second part of what you were asking?
4:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
We probably work with, between our two organizations, maybe somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150 refugee claimants per year in being able to provide this complete wraparound service.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Are there any that you're turning away? I'm trying to get a handle on exactly what type of staffing you have and that sort of thing, and how much more you would be able to use in those areas.
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
We're constantly turning people away, with an arrival population of about 2,300 the last two years consistently in Vancouver. Our organizations together, as I mentioned, are maybe in the neighbourhood of 150, so it's a small percentage. As we're looking at rolling out this kind of approach and plan, and we believe that there's funding in place, as I have mentioned.... We would look to providing a reception centre that could help the majority of newly arriving folks who come, and then help them onto pathways for the next steps of their permanent housing.
5 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses as well for the work that you do. You receive no government funding, yet you continue on.
You've come forward with a proposal, basically, that could be a template in some ways to moving forward with a welcoming centre to provide for housing, which is a major aspect of it. In this proposal, I believe that you're inviting the federal government to be a partner with you, with the organizations on the ground and with the provincial government.
Is that correct?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Journey Home Community Association
That's correct, and there are possibilities with private investors, and a significant large foundation has expressed some interest.
5 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
The federal government at the moment does not provide resources to provinces for asylum seekers, except for Quebec, Ontario and some to Manitoba. These are inland refugee asylum seekers.
British Columbia, for some strange reason, in my view, did not receive any money, even though the government announced $50 million for Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba. Part of this initiative could also be funded from that $50 million in partnership with all of the folks you've mentioned.