Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 1st, 2019

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Oliphant (Don Valley West, Lib.)), Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I have quorum, and I'm going to call this meeting to order.

This is the 155th meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we're continuing our study of settlement services across Canada. We have two panels today. Just as a reminder to the committee, this will be our last meeting with witnesses on this study, so ask your best questions. I would like to reserve five or 10 minutes at the end of the meeting to go over the schedule for the next week, so you'll have an idea of what the committee meeting times will be.

We welcome, from COSTI Immigrant Services, Mr. Mario Calla, executive director, and from Four County Labour Market Planning Board, Gemma Mendez-Smith, executive director.

Mr. Calla, you have seven minutes to make your opening remarks.

[Mario Calla, Executive Director, COSTI Immigrant Services]

Thank you very much, Mr. Oliphant.

Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation to speak to you today.

My name is Mario Calla, and I am the executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services.

COSTI is an immigrant settlement charitable organization serving newcomers in the greater Toronto area. COSTI was founded in 1952 by the Italian community to help settle newly arrived immigrants. Today, it is a multiservice organization providing settlement counselling, English language training, employment, housing and mental health services to approximately 40,000 newcomers per year in over 60 different languages.

As your committee studies what works and what needs improvement in settlement services, it is important to acknowledge that Canada represents the international gold standard for how it receives and integrates newcomers. Every year, COSTI receives numerous delegations from other countries who come here to study Canada's success in settling immigrants and refugees. Immigration works well for Canada. In Toronto, this success is largely driven by a coordinated set of services by all three orders of government.

For my first comment, I would like to focus on the importance of intergovernmental co-operation on the successful integration of newcomers.

During the Syrian refugee initiative, COSTI was responsible for resettling the largest cohort of government-assisted refugees in the country: 2,200 in 2016. We would not have succeeded in this task without the co-operation of all three orders of government. Planning and coordinating tables were established where service providers in all three orders of government set priorities and activated services. The municipality had their children's services department set up programs in hotels, and their public health department had a mobile dental clinic make the rounds at these temporary sites. Meanwhile, the province had the school boards bus the children to local schools, and health clinics were established in the temporary sites.

This kind of coordination was critical, and in many respects continues today. The federal government and the Province of Ontario co-fund the orientation to Ontario initiative, the purpose of which is to establish a standard of orientation services for settlement agencies. The province also takes a balanced approach to settlement services by funding services for newcomers who are ineligible for federal programs.

It is concerning, however, that we are not seeing this same level of co-operation in addressing the numbers of refugee claimants in Toronto's shelter system. In our work with refugee claimants, it is clear that some are willing to travel to other destinations in Ontario in search of jobs and affordable housing. However, once they arrive in Toronto, they start to get established and it makes it more difficult to move.

What is required is a service in Lacolle, Quebec, or a reception centre in Ontario, where the new arrivals can be informed about various settlement options available to them outside of Toronto. This would ease the stress on Toronto's shelter system while providing potential labour market talent to cities that have been trying to fill workforce positions.

My first recommendation is to implement a triage system for refugee claimants crossing at the Quebec border to provide them with information about the profile and benefits of various destinations outside of the greater Toronto area to divert them to destinations where they can get established more quickly.

The other item I would like to table with you is what we at COSTI have learned about the ingredients for successful employment programs for newcomers. The unemployment rate for working-age immigrants in 2017 dropped to 6.4% compared to 5% for the Canadian born. While this is an encouraging trend, we need to continue to move that unemployment rate down by assisting newcomers in becoming productive citizens.

We have found that the employment programs with the greatest success for newcomers have two characteristics. The first is that these programs specialize by focusing on the specific needs of newcomers. This specialization includes providing Canadian context, such as how to go about a job search in Canada, understanding the Canadian corporate culture, expectations of Canadian employers, connecting with Canadian professional networks and so on. The point is that one needs to bridge the knowledge gap between the newcomer's frame of reference and the Canadian context.

The second characteristic is the importance of an internship or work co-op. We find that internships are an effective way for employers to evaluate an individual without making a long-term commitment. It also provides newcomers with the opportunity to gain Canadian experience. Typically, we find that employers will offer employment at the end of an internship, as they discover that the newcomer has a good work ethic and the talent they require.

In 2016, La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso approached COSTI with a proposal to provide funding to support paid internships for professional Syrian refugees. This led COSTI to establish a Syrian refugee professional internship program. Of the 20 refugees in the first round who completed their internships, 18 went on to full-time employment, the majority in the companies where they had interned, including two architects and several accountants.

Enhanced language training and bridging programs use these principles and are effective in bridging skilled newcomers to good jobs. These specialized programs are typically more expensive, but are small investments when one considers that skilled immigrants come to Canada with 14 to 16 years of education that another country has paid for, and our investment is meant to leverage that.

My second recommendation is to encourage the federal government to fund specialized employment programs for newcomers to improve their employment outcomes.

This completes my brief. I thank you for the opportunity to present COSTI's view on a subject that affects the future of Canadians. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Mendez-Smith.

[Gemma Mendez-Smith, Executive Director, Four County Labour Market Planning Board]

Good afternoon. I'm Gemma Mendez-Smith and I'm the executive director with the Four County Labour Market Planning Board.

We are part of a network of 26 workforce planning boards across Ontario. These boards conduct localized research and actively engage organizations and community partners in local labour market projects.

Each board is as individual as the community it serves. Each addresses labour market issues in its own way, as all communities have their own priorities. As a network, Ontario's workforce planning boards also work together to address labour market issues from a province-wide perspective.

The Four County Labour Market Planning Board serves Bruce, Grey, Huron and Perth counties. This region has been consistently experiencing a low unemployment rate over the last five years. In 2018 the economic region saw its lowest unemployment rate, at 3.7%. In fact, this was the lowest unemployment rate for any economic region in Ontario in the last decade. It is no wonder that our 2019 EmployerOne survey results saw that 72% of responding employers shared that they had hard-to-fill positions, with 37% trying to fill positions for over one year.

To address the challenge of a constricted labour market, the first inclination is to say we need to attract more people. While this is easy to say, it is not easy to accomplish.

First, similar labour market challenges exist across Ontario, so hundreds of communities, large and small, are trying to attract candidates from a finite pool of workers. Second, attracting people is a multi-dimensional undertaking involving housing, transportation, social supports and other things. A plan that focuses on attraction would need to involve a range of services within the region. Third, as it currently stands, Bruce, Grey, Huron and Perth counties already attract thousands of people on an annual basis, though lose a similar number to outmigration, which suggests that significantly increasing the number of residents is not easily achievable.

Our focus, therefore, is on how we engage in labour force development activities through immigration. Even within a constricted labour market, there are ways to increase the supply and quality of the workforce.

This leads me to highlight some of the gaps that our region is experiencing as it relates to settlement services.

At a recent healthy communities partnership meeting, we discussed the need for English as a second language services to be readily available to assist newcomers, including refugees, to build skills in our vibrant job market. This critical service is offered through a volunteer system, which cannot adequately support the flexibility needed to be engaged in the workforce, as well as increase language skills.

Connected to ESL for adults is the gap that exists within schools to support children's integration into the learning environment. To grow our workforce through immigration, we find that parents will decide to stay in a community where settlement services are readily available to help their children. If these services are not available in rural communities, then attracting and retaining this demographic is highly problematic. Communication with peers is imperative for social integration into settlement communities, and if the appropriate levels of supports are not in place, this can lead to isolation and mental health challenges that weigh heavy on young minds.

Settling in rural communities often requires that immigrants separate from their ethnocultural group which, if not addressed through adequate, accessible and appropriate settlement services, can lead to significant feelings of isolation.

Additionally, information and orientation sessions, needs assessments and referrals are integral to settlement in a new community. Newcomers need to learn a whole new way of doing things. For example, how to obtain a social insurance number, where to receive mail, how to set up a bank account, and where they can volunteer in their new community.

I would like to suggest a few recommendations to improve settlement services in rural communities. First, I would like to point out that we cannot look at settlement services as something to supply after people have moved to the area. Instead, it must be a proactive approach in the area as immigrants will use this information to make decisions about where they will move to and where they will grow their new roots.

Settlement service workers would be an asset to rural communities as they are available to serve newcomers immediately and expedite their integration. Settlement workers in our schools, SWIS, will be beneficial to integrate children, as parents often take cues from the well-being of their children. Adults and children alike require these integration services to fully invest in a community.

Another recommendation would be to have more funding for support by settlement service providers and for agencies to train volunteers to be ambassadors for integration, for example, a host family that will ensure that the new family joins a network of local people who will help them find work, enter their children into sports and build a strong social connection.

Knowing how best to support a newcomer family in the community will help support retention in that community and definitely grow the workforce in rural areas.

Technology can be used in a supportive context for settlement services through virtual settlement services. Technology exists in schools and other community services. Almost all newcomers have a smart phone and access to the Internet through libraries and other municipal linkages. While this is not to replace direct interactions, utilizing technology that already exists can aid in enhancing and extending settlement services and will prove to be beneficial in rural Canada.

Isolation is a prevalent factor in rural communities, and we have seen people leave after being there for a very short time because of it. We need to provide more activities that connect newcomers with other community members. Those will go a long way to creating personal bonds to this new community. To aid in this, I recommend making certain that the community connection program is part of settlement services for all rural areas. The social, cultural and professional interactions and connections between newcomers and the community that this program encourages are crucial to keeping immigrants, including refugees, engaged in the community.

Transportation is another factor affecting the newcomer workforce in rural areas. Ensuring that this critical service is available through funding for the settlement service program is vitally important for immigrants to connect in the community for work, training and general integration. For example, there is no public transportation available in our area, and taxis are very expensive. Newcomers rarely live within the distance of employment opportunities, so supports to help adults get their driver's licence would be a huge benefit.

I would like to highlight that having services offered in rural communities is a positive way forward. Itinerant services, while offering a functional alternative in settlement services in rural areas, are not always ideal as they are itinerant and less flexible and may not be timely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need to get you to wrap up fairly soon.

[Gemma Mendez-Smith]

Okay.

In conclusion, I recognize that providing services in rural communities will cost more per person than it will in urban areas; however, investments in economic growth and the vitality of employment sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and utilities have enormous returns.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Ms. Zahid, go ahead for seven minutes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Calla.

Thank you for providing these services to the community in the GTA.

One of the things I would like to see achieved out of this study is to determine which settlement programs are effective and which programs are not working and how the government can get some insight into the effectiveness of the programs without putting a lot of burden on the settlement agencies in terms of paperwork, because I know they are very short-staffed.

Do you have any thoughts on how we can measure program effectiveness and what the right metrics are to measures that effectiveness?

[Mario Calla]

There are many measures in place. Certain programs are easier to measure than others. For example, I can tell you that I was referring to the employment programs, and clearly if the outcome one looks for is a job, then that's easier to measure. We know, for instance, that in the enhanced language training programs we've been running, last year 90% of the graduates of that program got jobs in their field. In the mentoring program, it was about 75%. We measure that, and that's easier.

Where the challenge basically comes is in the other settlement services that seemed like softer services in the sense that there isn't a hard outcome like a job, but each of those services is a step toward integration.

I think there are two things that at least I as a service provider try to keep in mind in terms of outcomes. One is that to measure integration, you need a much longer-term plan. The structure for that is in place. The IRCC has its iCARE database into which we all input the information of every client we see, and that database has basic information on services provided and the outputs of those services.

What I would like to see is a long-term look at that, because they can follow these clients. If the person gets a service in Toronto and moves to Winnipeg, they can pick that up in the system and know what services are being activated there. Hopefully, at some point they can match that to CRA data, income tax data, to see how the individual is doing economically and so on. That's what researchers do. Those are true integration outcomes, and I think the system is there.

The short part is what challenges us day to day. What we did for the Syrian refugees were short outputs—the first thing was to find them housing, so they got housing, etc.—but we did follow-up studies because we wanted to know how that worked.

We did a one-year study and a two-year study. The questions were basic: are you taking English classes; do you have a job; that sort of thing. But there were other questions we asked such as whether they had made any friends outside of the Syrian community. We were pleased to see that 73% responded yes. Were their children involved in after-school activities? Ninety-six per cent of the kids were, which means that they are trusting Canadian institutions to look after their kids. We asked about their emotional health. Seventy-five per cent said that it had improved since they have come to Canada.

These are the kinds of measures that need to be taken, but in response to your question, that was an initiative we took on our own. It's not integrated into the actual program, so we're looking at setting up something at COSTI, a quality assurance position, to help us with that.

We have just started to pilot—I'm sorry; I'm taking too long, but it's a big really important question.

We happen to have a settlement worker who has a Ph.D. and understands research, and so we've engaged her for a second job where we're doing exit interviews with all the refugees going through our RAP, our resettlement assistance program.

We're getting qualitative information that then provides continuous improvement, from the feedback we're getting from the refugees, on how we're doing, what worked and what didn't work.

That's the short-term quality piece. I say the long-term one would be the government's iCARE piece.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I saw that you offer some specific programs for the newcomer woman.

[Mario Calla]

Yes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

In the riding I represent, I see that it takes a very long time, and many women can't integrate fully into Canadian society.

Is there any specific program you would like to share which has been successful in integrating women specifically?

[Mario Calla]

We have one program that was funded by the province, and the funding just terminated. I can tell you, it was so successful and so moving that our employees were in tears when we found out that it had been terminated. We called it the women of courage program. This program basically invited women who had been in violent relationships, who had been out of the workforce for long periods of time.

One component of it was confidence building, trust building, sharing their experiences, and understanding that what they went through was not about them; it was about what happened to them. We had this in partnership with Humber College. Through this process, the women would identify a career path. Then Humber College provided the training for them, a condensed training. We had women going into bookkeeping, and so on.

Every single one of them ended up with a job afterwards. The testimonials we got from these women were incredible because it was more than a job; it was about their future in terms of the level of confidence they built through this process.

There are models like that. We have a number of other programs to help women with financial literacy, confidence building and so on, which are very effective.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

That's it.

Mr. Tilson you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Mendez-Smith, my riding is called Dufferin—Caledon. It is immediately south of the counties that you represent. Many of the particular challenges that you mentioned, my riding has. I had a whole slew of questions, but you've pretty well answered all of them.

Maybe we can talk about some of the issues. You've listed off a number of challenges. Of course, there is always a mix of smaller towns, farms and rural communities in which those problems, those issues are quite different from those that exist in the cities, which have more money, for a start. I wonder if you could zero in on that.

You listed off the challenges, but maybe you could emphasize the ones that are of greatest concern to you.

[Gemma Mendez-Smith]

Absolutely, and thank you for the opportunity.

The main things that we look at in the rural communities are around transportation and housing. Those are the two pieces that are key priorities for us as we look at workforce development.

In our region, we have thousands of jobs that go unfilled on a regular basis. We talked about employers' saying they can't fill jobs. If we are to engage in the attraction of a workforce to live and work in rural communities, thinking about how we're going to do integration of immigrants into our rural communities needs to be a little bit different from how that happens in the cities and urban centres, for sure.

Taking into consideration the idea that many of the funding opportunities that come out look at a critical mass of people already in the community, rural communities don't have the luxury of being able to say they have x number of immigrants already living here, so they need service. We need to look at it as our goal. Our goal is to grow the workforce. We have jobs that are going unfilled. What can we do, proactively, to ensure that we can attract and integrate that workforce into our region?

It will take looking at housing differently, if we have larger families coming into our region, and certainly, a consideration of what we are going to do about transportation. I live smack dab in the middle of fields, and there is no transportation. We need to think about how we're going to do that well in rural communities.

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

I expect that a lot of those problems exist because of funding. In terms of transportation and housing, the rural communities, the small-town communities just don't have the resources.

Have you had any discussions with the provincial or federal governments as to how to deal with these issues? Everybody can't live in the city.

[Gemma Mendez-Smith]

When we talk to our local municipalities, and through some of the funding applications that we put forward, we do talk about the lack of transportation and what we can do. Our funding is not appropriate for what we need to have in transportation. That's for sure. Recently we offered a program for training people, and it cost us.... You know, it costs $50 for a taxi one way to get to a community that's 10 minutes away.

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

How are you funded?

[Gemma Mendez-Smith]

We are funded by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities for the work that we do for workforce development.

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

Do you receive any funding from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada?

[Gemma Mendez-Smith]

No, we don't.

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

Should you?

[Gemma Mendez-Smith]

Yes, we should for workforce development and integration.

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

Do you receive funding from any other federal departments?