Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 10th, 2019

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you all for coming.

Ms. Desloges, you've made some really great recommendations.

I'm not sure if you're aware of the Atlantic immigration pilot and the rural and northern pilot, which attempt to, in some way, address some of your concerns, particularly by allowing at least immediate family members to come to the country and put down roots. They also provide settlement services as part of the plan when the company brings them over and it eliminates the LMIA.

I'd love your thoughts on whether or not you think there should be any tweaking around that program. How can it better ensure that when people come to the country they're going to put down roots and help grow the particular part of the country where they land?

[Chantal Desloges]

First of all, that should be the federal approach. It shouldn't depend on where you live in Canada, where if you live in Atlantic Canada you are able to reunite your family or take advantage of those programs just by virtue of living there. That should be more widespread.

I haven't had experience working directly with that program, so I can't comment on the specifics of it. My colleagues who have worked with it feel it is an absolutely wonderful program that encourages people to really put down roots and stay.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

You talk about a situation that I haven't seen a lot of in St. John's. Maybe it applies to the larger cities. I'm trying to wrap my head around how, in the immigration phase, if there's someone who's intent on scamming the program by just coming to the country, pretending they're coming to stay, then leaving their dependants and going back to earn money elsewhere.... If that was their intent and some type of fraud is occurring, I'm not sure how somebody would screen that out.

Do you have any particular examples where that was able to be screened out or would have been known from the beginning?

[Chantal Desloges]

If you look at a different area of immigration law where this is looked at, when a Canadian citizen wants to sponsor a spouse to come to Canada but the Canadian is not living in Canada, it's part of the process that they have to prove they intend to move back once the spouse gets a permanent resident visa. Visa offices often do this. They write a letter telling the Canadian to show them whatever evidence they have that they're really making plans to relocate. They put them to the proof of it. They ask if they've started looking for a job, started looking for accommodation, started transferring money over, if they have family in Canada and those kinds of things.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I'll turn to our guests from Calgary, Ms. Kwok and Ms. Hakemy. I like it when we hear from groups that are engaging in all this wonderful group without federal funding.

When you said that Calgary Learns pays, do you mean for all the services you provide, or is that just with respect to Stepping Stones and the computer-enhanced learning?

[Lily Kwok]

It's just the Stepping Stones and the computer-enhanced learning. For other programs we get United Way or city funding.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

It seems like you have been around for a long time and this funding model is working for you. Where do you see gaps? Where do you think that the type of funding you need to provide your service currently isn't being provided?

[Lily Kwok]

Actually, there are a lot of demands for our programs. The East Indian community, for example, is requesting similar programs because the bilingual facilitation models would work for them, and they are more interested in computer-enhanced literacy as well.

Even after 15 years we are still considered a pilot project. This pilot cannot go on. Sustainability has to be considered, so we are still looking for other funding so we can expand programs to other communities.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

When you talk about the problem you're trying to address with Stepping Stones, where people are coming to Canada and they actually don't have good literacy skills in their first language, besides your program, are you aware of other successful programs that are being offered nationwide and we could contrast with yours?

[Lily Kwok]

I am aware of only one other, in Calgary, called Pebbles in the Sand. It also caters to people with very low literacy, but it provides teaching in English, so sometimes the progress is a little slow because for difficult concepts, when you use a foreign language to explain something, it takes more time to understand.

I am not aware of other programs that are similar.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

If I understand correctly, Stepping Stones is more like bilingual language training in the person's own language and in English at the same time in order to speed up the process because they're unable to read textbooks that would help them.

[Lily Kwok]

Right.

Especially when we try to explain difficult concepts, we use our own language to make things retainable and easier to understand.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

In addition to the East Indian community and the Afghan community you mentioned, did you also mention the Korean community? Who else is looking to establish this type of program?

[Lily Kwok]

Before we tried to work with the Sudanese community and the Punjabi community, but there was a lack of infrastructure. We had to organize the class within a house, but this was not very acceptable to our funder because it was not formal enough, so we had to terminate the program.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

When you say “infrastructure”, you actually mean physical space. It wasn't that you were looking for people with the necessary skills; it was actually physical space for the program.

[Lily Kwok]

Yes, the space is one thing and the culture is another thing, how to get people from different parts of the country. Sometimes they don't work in agreement, so bringing people together to be in a classroom is also challenging.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

I'm not sure if I have much time left, but I do have another question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have about half a minute.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

Ms. Desloges, could you make one particular recommendation around skills recognition and where, in your experience, there is a gap? The federal government has put a lot of money into the labour market agreements with the provinces to help existing Canadians access retraining and re-skilling services. Is there anything along that line that we can do with respect to the newcomer population?

[Chantal Desloges]

So much has been attempted already, and I know that some of the regulatory problems are caused by the regulatory bodies themselves.

I would say, if I had one recommendation, it would be to provide funding assistance directly to people who are engaging in those retraining programs. Support them as they go through them.

I know quite a few people who have gone through these programs, particularly to become lawyers, and the main challenge they have is the expense and taking time away from working to be able to requalify. If they had the time and were able to devote energy to it, they could, but it's about money.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

It is almost like a student loan for newcomers?

[Chantal Desloges]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you. I need to end it there.

I believe it's Mr. Maguire or Mr. Tilson who may share.

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

We are going to share.

To Ms. Kwok and Ms. Hakemy, with your presentation you've raised an issue that has come before the committee before, that people who come to this country who lack basic education, or who have literacy problems, or are women at home with children, or the elderly may not have an opportunity to learn the language that's required. That's obviously something your organization looks at.

Do you have any recommendations as to what the Government of Canada could do to assist groups such as yours in solving this issue? It sounds as though, with your organizations, it's very difficult to solve that issue when people come here with literacy problems or basic education problems. The other example is that of the women who are at home and who just aren't able to get involved.

[Lily Kwok]

Some of our learners want to look for jobs—maybe Nazifia can also talk about that—but we have a group of people who are actually quite isolated.

We want to look at language training that also addresses social inclusion and how to get them involved in the community. It is not that they look at language just to facilitate employment. Language is a means for integration so that they can bring the kids out to McDonald's or go to the zoo, and so that they are no longer isolated. This is the part I would strongly recommend.

I think sometimes the focus is just on providing language training for employment's sake, but this is not the case for a lot of people, especially for home-bound parents and grandparents. They just want to be in the community.