Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 2nd, 2016

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

In British Columbia we heard from a witness the other day, from Amer, who's living in a bug-infested two-bedroom apartment with seven people. He didn't get ESL and couldn't find any place to go to ESL, and after 13 long months he can't find a job. Do you have any suggestions or any comments on that, Mr. Calla?

[Mario Calla]

Did you mean in terms of ESL accessibility, Mr. Saroya?

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

Yes.

[Mario Calla]

In Toronto we've been fairly fortunate in that regard, in that most of the refugees are now in ESL programs. We have been following up with each family. We actually hired a Syrian refugee to make the calls.

There is one area where we are stretched, and that is with classes that provide child-minding support. That is basically the LINC program, because the provincial ESL programs do not provide child-minding support.

We are finding that we now have some long waiting lists for those programs, primarily for the women who need to access these classes. Making those classes accessible for them is a concern for us.

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

Again back in British Columbia, the funding for last year was $4.6 million and the funding for this year is $4.2 million, which is almost a 9% reduction in the total funding for LINC.

In addition, the B.C. Liberal government is taking $680,000, which it is saying is needed for overhead expenses for this program. How will you manage for the upcoming year? In the meantime, the people from the previous year are still waiting to go to ESL classes. How will you manage for this coming year? Remember that there are no ESL classes, no English, and no jobs.

[Mario Calla]

Is the question again to me, Mr. Saroya?

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

Yes.

[Mario Calla]

In Toronto there were cuts also. I know your figures are for British Columbia, but the way we've managed it isn't a perfect solution either. Rather than cutting classes, we basically closed down for the summer. We have 27 LINC classes that, at the end of this month, will be closing down until the end of August or early September, denying people access to those classes over the summer months. That's how we're coping with those cuts.

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

Is this the right solution, or is it just that your hands are tied?

[Mario Calla]

Our hands are tied.

It's a compromise solution from the point of view that rather than cutting the 27 classes to 24, the decision was to actually have a pause over the summer months.

However, people need to learn English over those months. My concern is that many of the refugees want to work, but we encourage them to learn English first. They have 12 months of government support, during which time they should be making the most of that time. To then have a two-month pause really works against that.

We try to get them into some of the provincial ESL classes. We do workarounds to ensure they still have some access to programs, but, as I say, usually the women get cheated in that process because child-minding isn't available.

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

How is the housing situation? You mentioned that 50% of their income goes toward housing, and we still hear from a witness, Amer, who's living in bug-infested housing. There was only $200 per month left for a family of seven.

Any comments?

[Mario Calla]

I do have some comments on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have five seconds, please.

[Mario Calla]

It's very worrisome.

What we've done to help people is gotten the mosques involved, which are providing food hampers and other supports until the third month, when the child tax benefit kicks in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Kwan, you have seven minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To all the witnesses, I want to get some clarity around the funding cut.

Earlier we had government officials who came to this table to say that the LINC program funding has not been cut. What we're hearing now is that it has been cut, in Ontario and in other jurisdictions.

Particularly for VCC, is it the case, Ms. Shortt, that there's been an 8.5% cut in the LINC program for VCC?

[Karen Shortt]

Yes, that's absolutely correct. We have an 8.5% cut.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The implication for that is that in addition to the cut, you have 800 people waiting to try to get into the program. Not only are they not getting into the program, but with the new influx of Syrian refugees, they have no hope of actually getting in, yet you have the capacity, if funding was available, to open up classrooms today and to have teachers in the classrooms today to accommodate the Syrian refugees and others who need English as a language programming.

[Karen Shortt]

That's correct.

We've been teaching English as a second language for over 40 years. We have the curriculum, we have the expertise, and we have the classrooms.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

To be more specific, aside from early learning in terms of English, the beginner level, you also have programming that will cater to specific employment streams. That is in the area of professions that they might be coming in with and to have that a specific training to get them then into the workforce.

[Karen Shortt]

That's correct.

We have a pathways program that can be specific to the curriculum language needed for new immigrants. We offer combined skills. The students will go to school half the day to learn English language, the other half of the day they'll be learning whatever course they are in, for example, culinary arts.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The only thing you need is funding to make that happen and to get the Syrian refugees learning English and getting them into the workforce.

[Karen Shortt]

That's right. We are ready to go.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

To Gini and Sanja, your organization provides support particularly for children under six and particularly for women so that they can get out of the home and not be isolated. You have also experienced a funding cut in this area to the tune of 6%. Is that correct?

[Sanja Sladojevic]

Yes. We did get a little bit of Syrian top-up, actually, but it's only for three months. We had another huge cut from another fund.