Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 10th, 2016

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Well, those came so fast and furious I wasn't even able to write them down. Can you ask the first question again? I'll try to answer it, and then perhaps the officials got the other ones too.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The first question was how much funding is allocated per GAR, and do you have the figures, broken down by province, and the total funding of GARs by province?

I can actually provide this in writing to you, Minister.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I think those questions are so detailed that we'll have to take some of them back with us. I doubt that even my officials have answers on every one of those detailed points. We will certainly take those questions and get back to you, to the extent we are able, on all of the details.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In that case, then, if it's too detailed, maybe I can skip to some of the pertinent ones at this moment. Can the minister confirm that the funding for the LINC program is being reduce by 3% to 8% after a 7% cut last year? This is a program for language training.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

What I can say, as I said earlier, is that the global amounts for language training are high and have gone up certainly as a consequence of the Syrian refugee program.

In terms of LINC specifically, I'd refer that to the deputy.

[Anita Biguzs]

Perhaps I can turn to my colleagues as well.

In terms of settlement services funding, the overall envelope as the minister has stated has not been reduced. In terms of the allocation of funding, we have put funding into pre-arrival services based on evidence from evaluations that demonstrates if we can provide more services before individuals arrive in Canada then that's a benefit to the newcomers. That's based also on the experience of the Aga Khan Foundation when they also did their big resettlement program.

In fact we have reallocated funds from within the settlement services envelope to pre-arrival services. That may have had some impact in terms of the level of services or funding available for domestic services to service provider organizations in Canada.

I don't have the amounts on hand, and I don't know if our officials do, but we can certainly follow up on your question and get back to you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

On that specifically, I know of three organizations in my riding, MOSAIC, SUCCESS, and ISSofBC that are getting funding reduction with LINC. There are others as well because as I understand the LINC program funding is across the country. I would love to get that information broken down in terms of allocation for all the organizations that get LINC funding for the country.

More specifically I'd like to get the information for the early years—

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Excuse me. I think Dawn Edlund might be able to answer your question.

[Dawn Edlund, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I'm sorry, I don't have the answer specifically about the LINC funding, but I will make the point the minister made earlier that the settlement funding writ large is done through a settlement funding formula that looks at the last three years of where immigrants are destined across Canada, including refugees.

There have been impacts on some funding arrangements for particular organizations because of that funding formula.

In addition we have the pot of money for the Syrian refugees that is following where the Syrian refugees are settling, and in a lot of instances that will top up organizations where they need extra money. We're doing needs assessments now on what extra funding they need for the Syrian refugees in particular.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much. I'll look forward to receiving the detailed information from the minister and also the detailed information for the early years refugee program as well, because I think that's significant.

In terms of the IRCC budget, how much of the IRCC budget goes to overseas for pre-arrival orientation, and was the money for that initiative taken from national resettlement services within Canada?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, the allocation for this year for pre-arrival services out of the overall settlement services budget is an amount of about $45 million.

As I had indicated previously it's based on the fact that through evaluations it has been determined that the more we can provide some services before individuals arrive in Canada; it helps their integration into Canada more effectively. It's an amount of about $45 million out of the settlement services budget.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In terms of backlogs, the minister touched on live-in caregivers, parents and grandparents reunification, and spousal and children reunification. Are funds being targeted to address the backlogs for those categories as well? If so, how much?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

We will have to move to the next committee member, but we do have an undertaking for all of the questions you have put during your round from the department. We are over time.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I can get that in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Tabbara, for seven minutes.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, and thank you, Minister, for being here, and thank you to the staff.

I also want to thank you for your housing initiative. I know that's been a big issue, and I'm glad to see the number has now increased from 52% to 67% for permanent housing.

My question is to the minister. Now that the initial goal of 25,000 refugees have been resettled here in Canada, what activities need ongoing short- and long-term funding?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

For Syrian refugees?

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I think the biggest job right now is to equip the 25,000 refugees for success in Canada in terms of housing, language, jobs, and all of those things that we have discussed.

In addition we are committed to 7,800 additional government-assisted refugees who will arrive here before the end of the year, and those have already been funded. We will have a number that is not precisely known because we will have privately sponsored refugees from Syria, but we will also have privately sponsored refugees from other countries. There will certainly be as well a good number of additional privately sponsored refugees from Syria.

Would we have an estimate of approximately how many? It's difficult to know because they will be coming not just from Syria, but also from other countries.

[Dawn Edlund]

I don't have an estimate on that, but I have a bit more information on the settlement dollars that we're pushing out the door for 2016-17.

For settlement services, which include such things as language training, language assessment, helping people connect with their community, and helping people find work, we've already allocated to our domestic regions $27 million in 2016-17 for these purposes. There will be another $11.6 million, which was discussed earlier this week, added to that total. That's $38.6 million for 2016-17 to address the particular settlement needs of Syrian refugees. That's in addition to what we're doing for income support and to what we're doing to support the resettlement assistance program's service provider organizations.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

My next question is, what portion of the budget for the initiative is for income support to resettle refugee families?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I don't have the precise percentage. Can somebody give that information?

[Dawn Edlund]

I can't do the math fast enough, but we can get you the answer.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Is it a third, a half? I know it's significant.

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, $9 million out of the $45 million in 2015-16 is for income support under the resettlement assistance program.