Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 17th, 2019

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

So there isn't a template; you're saying that each community can be different.

[Natasha Kim]

We'd want to negotiate different elements, such as the endorsement factors that were mentioned in the presentation. There would be some standard parts, but we can look into what we can table, or perhaps a description might suffice.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thanks.

I see in the flow chart mention of communities and employers and employees working together to bring folks in, but will you explicitly forbid individuals selected to come to Canada from paying a company in these 11 communities under this pilot program?

[The Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Very briefly, please.

[Natasha Kim]

As part of our training with communities, we'll be ensuring that program integrity is a key module in that training so that we can ensure that communities are apprised of possible risks or things they should be watching for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

Thank you, Mr. Maguire.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

If I heard you correctly, many of the individuals who are coming here will go to these communities with their landed status. Is that correct?

[Natasha Kim]

We expect that if they're coming from abroad, they would submit their permanent resident application and could land as permanent residents when they arrive in Canada, or they might receive a temporary work permit while their PR application is being processed. If they're in Canada already, they can also apply under the pilot, but their application would be in process.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

For each of the 11 communities where this is being piloted, do you have any projected numbers on what would be deemed a success with the number of people staying in those communities?

[Natasha Kim]

In terms of projected numbers, it will depend on the community. As you can see from the communities that have been selected, there is a broad diversity in terms of size, location and sectoral interests. So quantitatively, we don't have particular targets per community.

As for success in terms of retention, certainly one of the things we're trying to test with this pilot is retention in those communities. We would hope to see people stay after they arrive.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

If you don't have a projected number of how many people you would like to stay in those communities, I don't know how you're going to measure success, really.

Will five people going to one community be a success, versus, let's say, 100 people, or whatever the case may be? I would think there would need to be some sort of analysis of what the targets are in the targeted areas and then what the projected numbers are for it to be successful. Otherwise, we're kind of guessing with that. With regard to the evaluation of the program, it would be difficult to determine how the program is successful or not.

On the other issue, when we studied the Atlantic provinces, many of the people raised the issue of infrastructure and the need to ensure there is the infrastructure to retain newcomers.

With this pilot, will additional infrastructure be provided to the communities to support, hopefully, success and therefore retention?

[Natasha Kim]

On the first point about targets, as I mentioned, the communities range from having populations as low as 3,000 up to 200,000, and include much more remote communities, so we have not established particular targets per community, but we—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I understand that the range will vary from community to community, but even for the different sizes of communities, you need to have some projected targets. I'm not saying you should use one target and apply it to every community unilaterally, but rather you need to establish what some targets would look like in different communities and the different makeup of those communities. If you don't, you have no way of assessing whether or not your program is successful.

[Natasha Kim]

Going to the principle of the pilot, which is really community-driven, we would be looking at evaluating it in consultation with our community partners on whether it has met the needs they've set out in their participation in the pilot. That might be a small number or a large number of immigrants, but we'll be looking at that in co-operation with them.

For the second question around infrastructure, as you can see in the presentation, the availability of settlement supports was certainly one of the criteria we had set out in looking at communities. I will turn to my colleague, Corinne Prince, to expand on that point.

[Corinne Prince, Director General, Settlement and Integration Policy Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

For the settlement agencies that are available to provide settlement services to the participants, it's very important that they can provide the full scope of services.

I might use an example from British Columbia. In Vernon, for instance, the main organization there is the City of Vernon and its economic development department, but the Vernon and District Immigrant and Community Services Society is the settlement provider that will provide a needs assessment and referral process right upfront to determine the specific needs of the applicants—information and orientation—as well as any language training they might need and any support services. The society would also be working very closely with the North Okanagan Social Planning Council, which is our local immigrant partner there. In addition, it would be working with the mentor who would have been assigned to the applicants and their families.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Will federal resources be provided to those communities and partners so they can in fact build up the infrastructure?

[Corinne Prince]

The funding for all of these individuals, in terms of the settlement component, is already included in the annual settlement allocations for 2019-20 and 2020-21. This particular fiscal year, the federal government is investing over $780 million in settlement services across the country outside of Quebec. The particular service provider I mentioned would have already been provided funding for those applicants.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

It's not additional funding; it's funding for the ongoing work. Within it, you now have a pilot and then they will decide, with their regular funding, whether or not they would dedicate additional dollars toward this pilot. That raises a significant issue.

We heard from other witnesses for the Atlantic provinces study that there was a lack of supports in place for existing resettlement services for the existing community. Then, in order to attract and to retain people, they needed additional infrastructure. That is not in place for this pilot, so right off the top I am concerned about that. I'm going to flag this for you and, more to the point, for the government. In the more remote and rural communities, the infrastructure is even more scarce. If you say, “Oh well, our existing resources should provide for that”, I fear we're going to set-up these communities for failure.

The idea is to attract and retain people, and right off the top people would actually have their landed status—that is to say, “If you're good enough to work, you're good enough to stay.” If we acknowledge that as a principle for this pilot, why can't we acknowledge that as a principle across the board for other people with their applications?

[The Chair, Liberal, Nick Whalen]

That's an interesting question, and perhaps we may get to it in further rounds of questioning.

Mr. Sarai.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you. It's good to have two areas, Vernon and the Kootenays, in British Columbia selected for this pilot project.

How do you select the applicants? Do people apply and say, “I want to go to Vernon”? Does the City of Vernon pick the applicants? Does IRCC pick the applicants? What are the criteria? Do the communities have to have x number of jobs there, or is it by economic or skilled categories where you have certain English-language requirements, and certain skills, etc.?

[Natasha Kim]

In selecting Vernon as one of the communities, one of the requirements was that there be, in general, many economic opportunities for newcomers there. As for the actual process on an individualized basis, it could happen in different ways. Perhaps there are employers who want to make use of the pilot, so they recruit someone from abroad who they think will be a good addition not only to their company, but also to the community. In that case, they would submit an application for endorsement to the City of Vernon, and the city would have the final call on whether or not to endorse that individual. It may be that someone's very interested in going to Vernon and will seek to find a job offer to qualify for the pilot there.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

So you would have to have a job offer in order to be eligible.

[Natasha Kim]

You would, and then the city would use the endorsement factors that we work out with them to determine whether or not it's someone they wish to endorse. That doesn't stop people from using other immigration pathways that we already have in place.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

This pathway requires an employer to hire you in order to be eligible to apply.

[Natasha Kim]

That's right.