Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 31st, 2016

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'm so sorry about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

I would suggest, for clarity, that there be one translator. Giving greetings is one thing, but please present your questions in one of the two official languages, and Mr. Sawassi will do the translation.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

That's no problem.

I'll ask again in English.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Sawassi, you could translate the question that was presented.

[Yohannes Sawassi, Interpreter, Cultural Interpretation Services for Our Communities]

To Amer only?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Yes.

[Yohannes Sawassi]

Okay.

[Witness speaks in Arabic]

[Amer Alhendawi, Interpretation]

In my case, I went to a different centre, and again they told me that it was full, that I had to wait. When I told them that I am a newcomer and that I wanted to register for ESL classes, they told me: “That's good, but again, we don't have any vacancy now. We don't have any seat for you. Can you go and come back?”

Why? It's because, they tell me, there is a very big number of Syrians, the newcomers, and that's why all the classes are full. Apart from that, there are some immigrants who had been living there before the coming of the Syrian refugees, and now these immigrants also have started going back to ESL classes. This has created a different situation to ours.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

My next question would be to Mr. Clarke and Ms. Woods.

I read here that as of May 9, 2016, you have sponsored 4,725 privately sponsored refugees. In contrast to that, there have only been 86 government-assisted refugees. That's remarkable work that has been going on in Montreal. Can you tell us some of the success stories that you've seen in Montreal?

[Paul Clarke, Executive Director, Action Réfugiés Montréal]

Just so it's clear, the 4,000 privately sponsored—

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Oh, those are the ones that haven't—

[Paul Clarke]

That's all the—

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'm sorry. Around 3,300 are privately sponsored, and then roughly 4,700 haven't arrived yet under private sponsorship.

[Paul Clarke]

So they're not all with Action Réfugiés Montréal. There are a number of different organizations that are helping refugees.

One needs to keep in mind that prior to the whole refugee situation with Syria, about 40% of Syrians in Canada lived in Montreal. There are a number of churches in Montreal that are full of people who, when the Syrian crisis emerged, wanted to sponsor multiple family members. It is thus no surprise that the game was being played in Montreal in terms of private sponsorship.

One thing the committee hopefully is aware of as well concerns the notion of caps that was brought up between 11:00 and 12:00. Caps do not exist in Quebec. Because we have a different immigration stream, each group has an allocation of spots based on assets and not on the number of files that IRCC is ready to open. The numbers may seem extremely high because there's a different way of allocating the number of files.

As for success, there's the fact that we got so many people through fairly quickly. Certainly at Action Réfugiés the crisis did not start in 2015. It did not start on September 2 last year but in May of 2013, when we started being overwhelmed with Syrian families coming to us wanting to help. There were delays, obviously, through 2013 and 2014. The success story is that many people have come. Most of our cases are family-linked; that is, someone living in Montreal said I have a brother, a cousin, a mother-in-law I want to sponsor. Our clientele at Action Réfugiés is that: someone taking on the responsibility for their family.

There are other groups in Montreal. There's a group called Hay Doun. I don't know whether they're going to appear before the committee. They're more of a community-based group. As I said, there are also many churches. I think the success is the fact that the community mobilized, and certainly since September the number of Quebec residents or Montreal residents who want to help and who continue to call wanting to help is quite amazing.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

There is one question I wanted to ask both of you again. I know there is a high proportion of Arabic speakers—Lebanese, Syrians—in Montreal. I think on the government side, and even on the opposition side, something we have to be cognisant of is language training in big cities like that. What tends to happen sometimes is there are certain speakers who flock to areas where there are native speakers of their language. Then they tend to leave some of their language training and they go to work right away. They work with native Arabic speakers and they lose those essential skills right at the start when they should be learning the English or French language at a critical time so that they can get other opportunities.

Do you have plans in place to make sure individuals don't get lost in small clusters?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You may have a 15-second response.

[Emily Woods]

In my case, I've been pleasantly surprised with the families we've received, who are prioritizing themselves with language training. Seeing as they have members there, it's communicated through their families that French is essential. A lot of them are eager and interested.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Saroya, you have seven minutes, please.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses. We listen to your side and it helps us to make some decisions.

I have a question for Mr. Amer Alhendawi. Obviously, you're going to find a couple of really sad situations. You're living with bugs, no space, a small two-bedroom apartment, English issues. You couldn't find ESL classes.

Did this affect finding a job? Are you working, as we speak, or could you not find a job?

[Amer Alhendawi, Interpretation]

No, I am not working. How can I work if I don't know the English to communicate?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I understand.

I'll go back to Mr. Vincent. I can see the frustration from top to bottom. People are living with bugs and they can't find housing and there are ESL issues. It's like a made-in-heaven deal if the government allowed the private sector to bring more people. That could help.

You were trying to finish up something earlier today. I will let you finish up what you were trying to say a couple of minutes back.

[Thomas Vincent]

Do I get another seven minutes?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

You get a couple anyway.

[Thomas Vincent]

You put me on the spot here.

We're the only country in the world that's responded to the Syrian refugee crisis on a private citizen basis. We created private, BVOR, and community sponsorships across the country and raised millions of dollars of support. There's an opportunity there for the government: how can we use the infrastructure that is in place, the Canadian sponsorship groups, to put into effect a private/public sponsorship program that will help benefit the immigration department?

We need to create this private sponsorship sector to work with the immigration department and produce a national refugee policy with sponsorship groups across the country. We should not place the Syrian resettlement program under its existing immigration guidelines and cap, as this will slow the already burdened immigration process of Syrian families who are coming over.

The immigration department should not be in the relocation business. Government staffing should obviously maintain entrance qualifications for refugees, but once they arrive in Canada, if a sponsorship group is not available, then we would recommend the government source private relocation companies that can execute and support a private relocation in a positive environment.

The Canadian government embarked on a very ambitious and benevolent plan to show how compassionate Canadians are in this time of need. The intent was wonderful, but from the position of most sponsorship groups, the execution has been terrible. I'm sorry that you have to take that as criticism, but it's been terrible.

We responded to the government pleas for assistance to help the Syrian refugee plan, and the government has not communicated with the sponsorship groups and has pulled back the resources needed to make the resettlement plan a resounding success. The government has not recognized the value that has been created with willing and able sponsorship groups across the country. We need a short- and a long-term coherent immigration strategy to provide the thousands of waiting sponsorship groups with Syrian families. It's that simple.

I trust that you're listening to the recommendations that we've all made today and will take them into consideration.

Thank you.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Basically you're saying let us do the work and government shouldn't be getting government-sponsored refugees.