Thank you very much, Chair.
We're getting towards the end. I might be one of the last questioners in our study on settlement services.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for the excellent testimony.
We've heard from providers right across the country: rural communities, urban centres, school boards, church groups and government-funded agencies. It's been very interesting. For anyone looking to start a settlement services agency in their community, it would provide a set of best practices and many different options on how to do it. At the same time, it's unclear the direction in which our recommendations should go, and what the federal government's role is in ensuring that communities have a path towards competing for the opportunities that immigrants provide.
I'll ask each of you to provide your thoughts on whether or not our communities should recommend ideas around best practices, whether there should be direct funding provided by the federal government, whether the federal government should provide guidelines for communities or provinces and what they should consider to be spending opportunities for them.
Let's start with you, Professor Shields.