Evidence of meeting #21 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was training.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Representative, Scarborough Muslim Association, Greater Toronto Area Mosques
In this case, the community is pitching in and raising community funds. That's how the ends are being met.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
The community is pitching in. Thank you to the community for doing this.
Ms. Niazi, you mentioned that the Syrian refugees come with many issues, including isolation and the number of children with PTSD. What are the solutions? What should the government, the committee, and Canadians do to fix all these issues?
Executive Director, Afghan Women's Counseling and Integration Community Support Organization
One would be that there has to be funding available for the mental health issue, support groups. Also one of the big problems is culture shock. Mostly when they come here, a different population is involved. They are under the impression that everything is different here. Support groups would be very helpful to bring them together. That's what we do. For the refugees we have sponsored, as a SAH, mostly we try to bring five or six families together to provide support and a social network among themselves.
Also, get them enrolled in English-language classes. I heard that some of them don't feel like going to classes. Make it interesting for them. Mostly for women when they go to women-only classes, we have some activities like outings that will attract them to the classes. Sometimes when I have gone to the classes, during the break they sing their own songs and play their own music. It makes it very attractive to them and helps them come out of the home and be less isolated.
There are multicultural women's wellness programs. We work with the Canadian Mental Health Association. We found that very useful for newcomer women with stress. There are other issues. There is a need for parenting programs. We had a loving family, and their children are now at risk of being taken by the Children's Aid Society because of the way they were dealing with them. Parenting programs are needed, not just for women.
As for the host program, the host should be from their own community and connected with other community members.
Conservative
Executive Director, Centre for Immigrant and Community Services
We do also have women's support groups. I think that is very helpful. We can talk about stress management as well as parenting, budgeting, just how to make ends meet in Canada and how to stretch your dollars. I think those are important for mothers.
We also once ran a program called babes in arms. I think we might try that with the Syrian newcomers to see if they would come out. Mothers who are not ready to attend classes because they have very young children can still come out and socialize and learn a little bit of English and through that learn about Canada in general.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Adeena, you also mentioned about fairness in the refugee programs, some people wait longer and some people wait shorter. What do you mean by this?
Executive Director, Afghan Women's Counseling and Integration Community Support Organization
For language classes?
Executive Director, Afghan Women's Counseling and Integration Community Support Organization
Do you mean overseas?
As I mentioned, the waiting period, especially for Pretoria and Islamabad, is five to six years for the refugees to come here. We had some of the refugees sponsored on our program. They couldn't wait that long. One of our sponsored refugees went back and was killed there.
Executive Director, Afghan Women's Counseling and Integration Community Support Organization
Also, one of the women had to be taken from a forced marriage.
Lots is happening. Also, there an is impact on their settlement when they come back to Canada.
Executive Director, Afghan Women's Counseling and Integration Community Support Organization
The longer they stay, the more difficult it is to settle into Canadian society.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj
Thank you, Ms. Niazi.
Mr. Tabbara, go ahead for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you very much. I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Ehsassi, in case we don't have much time for him.
First of all, thank you very much, all of you, for being here.
My first question is for Mr. Mandarino.
You mentioned that a lot of Syrians are being trained in the construction industry. You've set up training centres for support during labour shortages. Can you elaborate more on the types of training facilities you're providing so that they can integrate well into the construction sector?
Executive Director, LiUNA Canadian Tri-Fund
Yes, absolutely.
In almost every major city where we are involved in, as I said, the construction industry, manufacturing, and hospitality, we have a local union to represent members who work in that vicinity and also a training centre to support existing members in upgrade training and also to support apprenticeship and new skills training, which is the type of training we would use for new recruits, including those from the Syrian refugee initiative.
The idea is to bring them into a situation where, after they've done what we call the life skills and the language skills and they're a little more comfortable in the classroom setting.... We start in the classroom setting discussing what happens on a construction site, discussing safety, familiarizing them with, as I think Mr. Kent or one of the other gentlemen mentioned, job site jargon, and getting them comfortable with what they'll see on the job. Aside from that, there's a practical element, which is the most important part of the training, in which they will actually be working hands-on.
The beauty of the way we've set the training centres up is that they very closely simulate what happens on a job site. We've found, traditionally, with every individual we train, from a young apprentice to a new Canadian, that this is the best way to transition them into the work site safely and productively, to subject them to the types of tools and practices they'll see on job sites.
Liberal
Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Could you give me a quick short answer to this? Have many construction contractors or construction companies reached out to you, wanting to hire Syrian refugees?
Executive Director, LiUNA Canadian Tri-Fund
Absolutely.
As I think I mentioned, we see shortages and we're looking everywhere we can for the next recruit, not only to provide opportunities but also to put people into jobs and fill the need in the construction industry.
Many sectors have come to us and asked us what we are doing about recruiting. We are working with community agencies for that very purpose.
Liberal
Liberal
Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON
Thank you. I will just use this opportunity to follow up on my colleague's questions.
I understand, given the benefit of having visited your union previously, that there are two hallmarks of the workforce you're training. First of all, it's incredibly diverse. I think everyone could agree with that.
The other thing is I know there's a very big emphasis on upgrading, training, and things of that nature. Given that there are opportunities available insofar as LiUNA is concerned, and you would be willing to train new people who would be interested, how does it work? Would prospective employees necessarily have to have skill sets or do you have different programs that could focus on different types of prospective applicants?
Executive Director, LiUNA Canadian Tri-Fund
We are prepared so that if someone comes to us with a certain skill set, that's absolutely a benefit, but if they come with a willingness to learn and to become a part of the construction industry and build a good career there, we will take care of the supportive training to get them there, whether it's a pre-apprenticeship or apprenticeship program or an upgrade or training that will help them get to the next level, if they come to us with certain skills. The support is there for every level of individual who comes into our recruitment and sees the potential of working in the construction industry.
Liberal
Ali Ehsassi Liberal Willowdale, ON
I also noticed you said that when people join your programs, they are taught life skills. Also, there is some assistance with developing linguistic skills.
Does this suggest that if someone does not have basic English, they would not be a good fit for LiUNA, or would there still be opportunities for people who don't necessarily speak English?
Executive Director, LiUNA Canadian Tri-Fund
There are some opportunities. We do everything we can to help them overcome that and get to a certain level, because for their safety and in order to operate productively for themselves they need to have some basic language skills in the construction industry.