Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to appear at this hearing and relay to you our experience in Toronto.
In the last eight months, the Levant Settlement Centre has been involved 24/7 with the settlement of refugees, in addition to sometimes matching sponsors with refugees in Toronto.
Our organization has helped 200 families so far, over 600 people, in their resettlement efforts. Whatever experiences we have had we are going to relay to you. These are first-hand experiences. It is important, and we are glad that you have given us the opportunity for you to hear these concerns.
Our presentation is divided into two sections. The first section is issues, challenges, and disparities. That section follows the structure of the committee's recommendations and guidelines of March 8. After that there is the second section, which contains the recommendations. I'm not going to dwell too much on the issues because, unfortunately, we don't have too much time. I'm going to summarize my first section, but I want to read all the recommendations to you.
I have already provided an English version of all the materials that I have here to the clerk and I am sure that after translation to French you will get that.
In regard to some of the issues and challenges that we and the refugees faced, the first are employment counselling agencies and job opportunities in Toronto. Unfortunately, we found that the federally funded services available in Toronto are not very helpful. They are just referral agencies.
The other thing of concern about this process is that all these referral agencies are competing with each other, because they are receiving federal funding. As an example, if a refugee is registered with one organization, that person is not allowed to register with other organizations, and if you take one set of refugees to one organization, the first thing they ask is whether you are registered with any agency. If you tell them yes, they will tell you to please go and de-register so that they can take you.
This is quite an obstacle for the refugee, and it creates frustration and anger. Many of them abandon the process completely and are on their own now, trying to find employment on their own.
Concerning lack of affordable housing, in the GTA a two-bedroom apartment averages $1,450 plus cable, plus Internet, plus hydro. This is unaffordable for the refugees, especially the privately sponsored refugees, as they are on their own. It is true that they have sponsors and co-sponsors, but because of the large influx of refugees who came to Toronto, all these people were overwhelmed. In some cases the co-sponsorship broke down, because either the co-sponsor lost his job and he could not afford to look after his refugees or, in some cases, he is outside the community where these refugees are living. For example, when refugees arrive in Toronto and their sponsors are in Montreal or Cambridge or St. Catharines, that creates a problem. These refugees are in very bad need of some kind of assistance from the government regarding subsidized housing.
English language assessment is also a complication. Some of them are facing a problem, especially the highly educated or the university students. Some of them interrupted their university studies when they came, and they need to upgrade their academic level of English. We're not talking about ESL or LINC classes. Some of them just graduated from universities, but they need to upgrade. To take the Canadian Academic English Language test or IELTS or TOEFL is quite expensive for these refugees. Many of the refugees, unfortunately, fail the first time, so they have to take the test again and pay again, and that's another problem.
Another important issue for these refugees is the two-tier system created regarding the loans. All of us know that the refugees who came before November 4 have to pay for their own tickets. They got a loan and they have to pay it back.
After three months following their arrival in Toronto, some of them received letters from the government asking them to repay the money, and after one month some of them even received letters from collection agencies asking for payment. This is unfair, and the irony is that within the same family, some of them who came before November 4 and others who came after November 4 have a free ride. This is creating conflict and stress in their families, because many of the families are still unable to find a job. In the best-case scenario, one person in the family is working, but with rent and other expenses, it is quite a burden for these people to repay the loans. That's another issue.
There are a couple of issues related to overseas operations, and one of them is that, unfortunately, some of our offices overseas are giving the refugees conflicting decisions—