Evidence of meeting #153 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.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Ms. Kwok, I understand that. I'm looking at the type of person who has basic education problems, basic problems with literacy. That's a class of people who are obviously having difficulty, not just with language but with getting along in Canadian society.
Is there anything you've put your minds to that the Government of Canada can do to encourage groups such as yours to deal with that issue?
Executive Director, Calgary Chinese Community Service Association
I don't have any recommendation in mind for now, but for social inclusion—
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
A lot of other people I've asked questions of don't either. It's a problem.
That's okay. Maybe I could ask a question to both of you, and to Ms. Desloges as well.
It appears from the evidence we've heard at committee that the IRCC's evaluation of settlement program says that employment-related services have the broadest positive impact on client outcomes.
How can we get employers to get involved in these programs? Are they likely to come along and say that they can't afford that?
I can tell you that in my riding, for example, there's a group—at this point I don't want to reveal the name of the company—that has told me that they're having trouble finding people to work on assembly lines, and they will train them. They will provide services and training, but they don't know how to do it.
I'd like to hear from you, Ms. Desloges, whether you have any thoughts on that. I'm just saying that there's a company that's prepared to get involved in that and provide employment services to encourage not just language but also on-the-job training to provide employment.
Senior Partner, Desloges Law Group, As an Individual
I think even offering a little bit of an incentive, maybe a subsidy or something for employers who are willing to do that, would be a good idea.
The situation you're describing is different, but I think a lot of Canadian employers' reticence is that they just don't have a big international understanding. They don't understand what it's like to have a university degree from India, for example, or to have work experience as an engineer in Saudi Arabia. They don't know what that looks like.
If they could be encouraged or incentivized to just give people a chance to get their foot in the door, those are the types of programs that work the best. Once they see that the person really can do what they're supposed to do, then it becomes very easy.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Have newcomers mentioned to you any difficulties that they've had gaining access to employment-related services?
Senior Partner, Desloges Law Group, As an Individual
Not exactly, but I have heard people repeatedly say that the services they have access to are too basic. For the type of person who's going in and speaks English—maybe they have immigrated from Dubai or something like that and have a good employment history—they don't need help writing a resumé. That's too basic. They need actual practical introductions, mentoring and co-op placements. That's what they're looking for.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Ms. Kwok, how important are support services? I'm talking about child care, transportation, translation and those sorts of things. How important is that to the work you do?
Executive Director, Calgary Chinese Community Service Association
These are very important, because a lot of our clients are quite homebound, as Nazifia said. If they have this kind of support, for example child care, it can release them so they can step out into society.
We provide a lot of interpretation services as well, because they need to know some of those basic things before they can fill out forms. In our classes we teach them how to fill out forms as well, so as to facilitate them in case they need to apply for anything. Even for a job, they need to know how to fill out those forms.
Conservative
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Well, I wish you'd given me some notice, Mr. Chairman, that I was almost out of time. We had agreed that Mr. Maguire would share the time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
I remind committee members always to start their clocks. I'm sorry.
Ms. Kwan.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank the witnesses for their presentation.
Mr. Chair, before I ask questions, I'd like to put on notice the following motion:
That, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(2), the Committee immediately undertake a study on the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget, tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019, and other measures: Part 4, Division 15 and Part 4, Division 16. That, recommendations, including amendments be submitted to the Standing Committee on Finance in a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages; that, amendments provided by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to the Standing Committee on Finance are deemed proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-97; that this study be comprised of no fewer than 8 meetings and; that the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, the Minister for Border Security, and Departmental Officials be in attendance for at least one meeting.
Mr. Chair, as you'll note, we have received a letter from the chair of the finance committee, Mr. Wayne Easter. The letter references a motion that was passed at the finance committee. In that motion, though, it refers only to the citizenship and immigration committee, part 4, division 15 of the bill. That part deals with the establishment of the college, but it does not include the other significant bill—what I deem to be a stand-alone bill—in the budget implementation act. That's division 16, part 4, dealing with the asylum seeker changes. That provision calls for a change that's so significant it would render asylum seekers who cross over to Canada ineligible to make an application if they have made a previous application in five other countries.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
I hear your point. I'm just going to cut you off there. You can give notice of motion now, but you're now into debate about the motion—which you're able to do—but today is just notice of motion.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
No, I understand that.
It's in this context that I have asked for this notice of motion. We received this letter, Mr. Chair, from the chair of the finance committee asking whether or not the committee wants to study this issue. It cites only one bill, not the other significant bill. That, to me, is a major oversight and would be very detrimental, I think, to Canadians and most certainly to parliamentarians, who, I think, should be studying this issue at length.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. With that, I'll come back to the witnesses.
First I'd like to go to Ms. Kwok, if I may.
We've heard from your presentation about the importance of the services your organization provides, and the needs of newcomers. My question is whether you have adequate resources to undertake this work. I ask because we were talking earlier about women who are isolated, and transportation and the need for child care and the space issue. Clearly, the infrastructure is not in place to accommodate the needs newcomers to help them resettle successfully.
I wonder if you can assist us by providing any recommendations or calls for action to this end to make sure that the resettlement supports are in place for NGOs such as yours.
Executive Director, Calgary Chinese Community Service Association
We would like to see very accessible hubs within the community, where they can go to learn English, get social support and get benefits. They would address a lot of issues. With services around the downtown area, they have to take transport; they don't even know how to read the transit maps. Because community members can be mobilized to support each other as well, these could be very significant resources within the community. We are always looking at whether community hubs are a feasible model that could be implemented.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
How could government address this issue, particularly in the more rural communities, as opposed to the urban centres? It's more feasible to provide these services in the urban centres, but in the more isolated communities, what sort of infrastructure has to be in place to address that?
Executive Director, Calgary Chinese Community Service Association
Even in cities, where we mention that it is easier, it is actually not. When we were in Calgary, we saw communities in the northwest and the north central part where there are huge immigrant populations. In some communities they are over 50% of the population, but they don't have services. They still have to go downtown to get services, which are very inaccessible. If we imagine it is easy in Calgary, that is not the case.
Sometimes we see big buildings, but they can only cater to that much. There are lots of needs in communities around there. We need a lot of outreach as well. I think the idea of having more of these smaller hubs in different locations will work better for different communities.