Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[Benhaz Azad]

Sure. I was talking with one other agency, and they have received funding. They are planning to have some programs for mums and kids from Syria. These are customized for Syrian refugees, but they have noticed that the uptake has been higher than anticipated, and many people have been willing to attend the program. Now they are facing a lack of space.

What is happening is that at the beginning, when the Syrian refugees came to Canada, we were not thinking of interfacing with large families. When it came to the point that we had the opportunity of providing services to them, and we were providing one-on-one counselling to them, we realized that the families had very young children and that we needed to come up with some programs that could fit the range of ages of children. This is becoming a problem for us because it is hard to have a holistic program to cover all ages and in the meantime to be able to serve all of them.

The other piece, interestingly, is that they have been placed in rental buildings as a group. In order not to have the feeling of isolation, families have rental units in one building, so in one specific—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Azad, you have 10 seconds, please.

[Benhaz Azad]

Sure. There are many of them living in one building. In order not to discriminate, we have to include everybody. This is a challenge for us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Tilson, for seven minutes, please.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Miedema, I should tell you that you're probably the first witness this committee has ever had who has given testimony from a hotel lobby.

[Jennifer Miedema]

It's a pub. We're outside a pub in England.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

That's even better. We've never had somebody in a pub give testimony.

Ms. Miedema, fairness in the selection of refugees, while recognizing the most vulnerable, is clearly something the government should be striving to achieve. Do you have any suggestions regarding how the government should prioritize from which countries refugees should be selected?

[Jennifer Miedema]

That is an important question. I'm sure the committee wrestles with this continuously. I think Canada does work with the United Nations Refugee Agency, and that is vital, but there are times perhaps when there are certain refugee populations that resonate with the Canadian population in a certain way. I think the government needs to be careful about making decisions just based on who gets the media coverage.

It's extremely important for the government to have a long-term plan for refugee resettlement and for prioritizing the most oppressed and vulnerable people. The long-term plan should have some capacity to be flexible to respond to current crises in the world, but maintaining focus on yearly goals for refugees from countries where there is longstanding and ongoing oppression needs to happen.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

You've expressed great frustration about the way in which the refugee allocation numbers for other parts of the world have been handled this year with the Syrian initiative under way. I wonder if you would like to tell the committee to recommend what the government should do in the case of the Eritrean refugees your church is trying so sponsor.

[Jennifer Miedema]

What I'm asking the government and this committee to recognize is the unique situation of asylum seekers in Israel, particularly Eritreans. The process needs to be amended so that private sponsorships can be carried out despite Israel's hesitancy to give the label “refugee” to these people. Eritreans are clearly recognized around the world as true refugees. Their status is not in doubt.

Enabling groups of five and community sponsor groups to sponsor these people would break through the current logjam of our only being able to sponsor through sponsorship agreement centres. That's where the cap exists. Recognizing how desperate and urgent the need is for these African people in Israel and moving the resources to that Tel Aviv visa office would greatly help the processing times.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

How can the government do a better job communicating its reasons for its numbers in each source country, and do you feel that the numbers seem arbitrary without policy reasons to back them up?

[Jennifer Miedema]

I do feel like the numbers are arbitrary because I don't know the policy reasons, and I'm not sure how the government communicates those now. Whatever they're doing now, they need to change. I haven't had it communicated to me. I don't know where the numbers come from. I don't know how the government chooses which countries to focus on. I don't know the process by which I could engage with the government in a discussion about that, which I would love to do. I know the need is great and you can't do everything for everybody. I would love to know the policies.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you.

How can the government improve the way in which it deals with sponsorship agreement holders? The committee has heard significant testimony about the potential improvements needed in the lines of communication.

[Jennifer Miedema]

This has definitely happened with our sponsorship. In dealing with our sponsorship agreement holders, they hoped we could get some applications in for November and December, but it didn't happen. Every week that went by we hoped and they hoped. Then March 31 came and there seemed to be this opening. John McCallum made an announcement, and we worked for many hours straight to hit that deadline of midnight and get everything in. It wasn't clearly communicated that it was just for Syrian refugee sponsorships, so we didn't know until May that our applications hadn't gone through.

I think there should be more communication with the sponsorship agreement holders, more clear communication, and maybe better response times when they're asking questions, just to get back to them faster. There's definitely a lot of frustration at that end from the sponsorship agreement holders.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

We've heard from some private sponsors that they would be willing to accept government-assisted refugees, but they don't have access to that stream. Would this be something that the committee and the government should be pursuing?

[Jennifer Miedema]

Definitely. I know just from the community that I live in that many people want to help and are unsure of how to do that. We had numerous groups mobilize in Dufferin County , as you know. I think a few of them, or one of them at least, did connect with that and they are involved in one of those types of sponsorships. I don't know that it is difficult to connect with. I think the information is out there, and I think it's an excellent way for people to help the people who need it the most.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

We've heard from some private sponsors about renting apartments, only to have them sit empty. Other examples have been given as well. Have you encountered any financial impact or hardships while waiting to receive your family, and have you entered into any leases, for example?

[Jennifer Miedema]

No, we haven't had that problem. I was involved in refugee sponsorship some years ago, and I know that the process is a long one. I think that some groups heard that the Syrian refugees were coming right away and they were inexperienced at this, so they jumped into those kinds of agreements. I think, generally, we know that you don't do anything like that until you hear that it's going to be within the next week or two that your refugees are coming. The process is normally so long, with all the interviews and the medical checks, that you really have to have an idea of when they're coming.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Ms. Miedema, you have 10 seconds.

[Jennifer Miedema]

No, we did not have any financial hardships of that kind. We just have some money sitting there not being used, while we wait for our refugees.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Miedema.

Ms. Kwan, for seven minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses.

I'd like to ask my first question of Ms. Azad.

You mentioned that there are difficulties for families, particularly those with children, with service provision. You mentioned children of all ages. I wonder if you can elaborate on that. Is it the case, for example, that women who have young children are going to language training classes but don't have any child care for their children, or is it a case of older kids who need after-school child care provision and youth programming?

I wonder if you could just elaborate on that.

[Benhaz Azad]

First of all, yes, it goes to the children. For parents with children under the age of 18 months, who are accessing English classes, some of the Link programs provide child care. It's actually child minding for the kids over 18 months. This is something that is preventing moms from taking English classes. We are talking about after-school programs that can help moms and kids to spend quality time together and help the parents to learn about the system. They also have productive activities for the children. It's,s an after-school program, but it's mainly for kids under 13 years old. We are having problems with providing space in these programs.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

For the Link programming, do you know or have any sense if there are wait lists? If so, what are the wait lists like?

[Benhaz Azad]

Yes. The wait list is because of the age of the babies. It's not a long waiting list for the parents, specifically, but because they need child minding, it means they have to stay on the waiting list until the child reaches the age of 18 months.