Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 16th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'm afraid he doesn't have time now. You ran out the clock.

Mrs. Lockhart, you have five minutes.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for the very in-depth perspectives they have given us today.

Dr. Emery, first of all, thank you for bringing up the fact that the immigration pilot project we are looking at needs to be part of a bigger strategy. I think you referred to the Atlantic growth strategy, looking at clean tech as one example, and trade and investment. As we go out and look for this new investment and new opportunities for economic growth in Atlantic Canada, how much weight is there to having a stable labour force already in place? You mentioned trucking, for example, transportation being one of the key factors, in many cases, for new development. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Dr. Herb Emery]

It has come up a lot in terms of.... It's like the chicken or the egg. You have a company saying that it would like to come but the labour supply is not there. In other cases, we are talking with post-secondary education about whether they should be trying to anticipate labour demands, say, in clean tech, and start training students in advance. What we came out with was that the big risk is then on students, if the demand never comes. The risk is that you bring a lot of people into a region who can do a certain type of activity, say trucking or something else, and the labour demand never emerges. That can be devastating for trying to recruit newcomers in the future, because you've been burned once.

On the other side, if you bring the firms in and you can't find them the labour supply, they are going to argue that this is not a good place to invest and then they'll go away. The challenge for the policy-maker—who has to live in the real world, unlike me—is that you have to figure out how to coordinate these two sides of the market and figure out the best strategy to enable the two things to happen at the same time.

My message today wasn't to be doom and gloom; it was more just to continually remind everyone that we have to think about supply and demand if we want this to work. Focusing on one I just don't think is going to succeed.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

I think you are right. We need to be focusing on it as a pillar of growth. That's good. Thank you for your thoughts on that.

I want to talk a bit about recruitment and who we're recruiting to immigrate to Atlantic Canada. Knowing that the composition of Atlantic Canada is more rural, for example, than the traditional areas that people immigrate to, do you have any thoughts on what we need to be doing, from a recruitment aspect, to increase retention? I would put that out to any of the three.

[Dr. Roxanne Reeves]

In New Brunswick currently the economic stream within the PNP has been reworked so that there are five authorized immigration agents. In the past, it was very difficult to track who brought our newcomer immigrant entrepreneurs into New Brunswick, because the immigration agents could be anywhere in the world. Now there are five from whom our potential newcomer immigrant entrepreneurs can choose. Of course, they are able to submit an application on their own, if they so choose.

The intent of this is so that our five authorized immigrant consultants can do a better job in matching the entrepreneurs, finding the pioneering entrepreneurs who are looking to make the transition to rural, small-town Canada. In doing so, the authorized immigration agents can be tracked over the years, and those who bring immigrant entrepreneurs who stay, create jobs, and grow their families in the region will be looked on favourably, and allocations will increase. If they don't deliver on their goal, which is bringing in the appropriate match to what we need—both with regard to the attitude of newcomers looking to live in small-town Canada, and with regard to the capacity to create businesses that line up with the pillars of economic growth, as projected by the province and the industry—then they are either rewarded or not rewarded with regard to their performance.

I think that this tracking mechanism is invaluable, but it has just begun, so we'll see how it moves forward. Public policy, in my experience, is created with the right intention, and it often works. I am encouraged by this approach.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

That ends our first segment. Thank you very much for your testimony. You can wait with bated breath for our report, which we hope to have out within a month.

We'll take a quick pause as we change the panel and get ready for our next witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

We will begin our second round.

Welcome to our witnesses.

Again with technology, we're going to start with Ms. Walsh McGuire or Ms. McGuire, who is joining us via teleconference. We won't be able to see her, but I've been told we will be able to hear her. Then we will have Ms. McDougall and Ms. d'Entremont with their statements for us.

We begin with Ms. Walsh McGuire, who's coming to us live from Charlottetown.

[Penny Walsh McGuire, Executive Director, Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce]

I'm Penny Walsh McGuire. Walsh McGuire is the last name. Thank you.

Good evening, Chair, vice-chairs, and members of the standing committee, as well as fellow witnesses.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee on this important topic of immigration in Atlantic Canada.

The Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce serves as the voice of business, providing services, opportunities, and advocacy support for members to enhance their ability to do business. With close to 1,000 members, the chamber reflects a diverse network of businesses from almost every industry sector and profession. I can say that diversity has been an area of growth, with close to 10% of our members' businesses being newcomers to Canada in the last five years.

Since 2011, the chamber has operated the P.E.I. connectors program. You may be very familiar with this. I think there are 23 programs operating across the country. We operate a province-wide initiative. It really extends advisory, networking, and professional development services to immigrant entrepreneurs and investors. Our clients are primarily provincial nominee program applicants. In 2006 we served more than 500 entrepreneurial clients, who were at various stages of their business launch. We also are exploring a number of employment development initiatives for both newcomers to P.E.I. and new graduates. One of our top policy priorities is population growth, so essentially what I'm confirming for you is that, as a chamber of commerce, we're very much invested in the topic.

Like many of our neighbouring provinces, P.E.I. is getting older. In 1971, the median age of Islanders was just under 25, and now we see it closer to 44. We are the youngest province in Atlantic Canada, but we're three years older than the Canadian average and six years older than our prairie cousins. I won't belabour stats too much, but give a little more background for those on the line.

While indicators suggest that the trend is starting to reverse, attracting and retaining immigrants must be at the core of future population growth in P.E.I. International migration remains an important factor in population growth and labour market development for Prince Edward Island. At a rate of 13.6 per 1,000, our province has the highest immigration rate in the country. Those were early spring figures; it could be higher now. We were tied with Alberta, and we do have the highest immigration rates in Atlantic Canada.

Of course we're proud of this expanding immigration story, but one challenge for P.E.I. and many other jurisdictions across the region and the country is around retaining new residents. At present, we retain only 38% of our immigrants over the long term. Long term has been defined as, I think, around five years. Many leave P.E.I. after two years.

The province's action plan for population growth focuses on maximizing retention rates for new immigrants and keeping our youth and our skilled workforce here.

I want to touch on one area that I feel Atlantic Canada is well positioned to succeed in, and that is the retention and recruitment of international students. Obviously, international students are particularly desirable because of their age, skills, and their economic impacts as students. I would be remiss to not mention and recognize the international graduate stream through the Atlantic immigration pilot program. This has, I think, a huge opportunity and potential for our region. I'm suggesting, in speaking to my colleagues at the province, that next year would be the earliest we would see major impacts, simply because the program was launched in March.

With that, I think a few barriers still exist for students, and we do hear this. The Charlottetown Chamber of Commerce was pleased to co-sponsor a national resolution with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce in support of giving students more pre-graduate experience, because we continue to see that our employers are demanding that from graduates. We're just going to touch on a couple of areas.

We're looking at recommendations for considering international students having the option to qualify for the Canada summer jobs program. That experience is key. We were lucky to be the recipient of a Canada summer jobs grant this summer, but all the international student applicants who came into our search were not eligible.

I think another area would be to modify student permits to allow international students to participate in co-op terms and internships without obtaining a separate work permit.

There are a few other areas, and maybe I'll touch on them, but in the interest of time I think that pre-grad work experience is key. I want to recognize Bill C-6 is certainly a start to how international students can really be a more important part of our recruitment and retention effort in Canada.

I will also touch on the Atlantic immigration pilot program. I did note that there was an interest in talking about this. I think generally it is obviously still early days, but we are seeing some success. I think we're the second or third largest chamber in Atlantic Canada, tied with Fredericton usually. We have heard from a lot of our members who are interested and excited about this. In speaking to the province's immigration office, they are quite confident that we are going to hit our targets for the first year of the pilot. We have certainly heard a lot of success stories.

One concern we do hear, and we hear this maybe more on the settlement side, is about the obligations and the understanding of the resources needed for an employer to truly support a new employee through this program—really that you're supporting the integration of that individual, not just in your workforce but in the community. Although we think it's an excellent approach still providing a customized opportunity for Atlantic Canada, we have heard some concerns from employers on the settlement side. Our settlement agency does an excellent job, but this is a new initiative and probably employers need to understand what is required of them.

I won't say a whole lot more on that other than—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need to draw you to a bit of a close.

Thank you.

[Penny Walsh McGuire]

I will wrap it up there. Just applying the lessons from the Atlantic immigration pilot program, there is real potential for it to be rolled out nationally, looking at other regions that are having some of the same demographic challenges as our region.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Ms. McDougall, you have seven minutes.

[Amanda McDougall, Councillor, Cape Breton Regional Municipality]

Thank you very much.

Good evening, everybody. Thank you very much for the opportunity to travel here to Ottawa and speak to you today about something that is very close to my heart. I'm a municipal councillor for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, so when I look at issues of demographics, I know full well that I'm dealing with the dollars every single day that are running out across our causeway, but again, I say thank you very much.

My experience in council isn't exactly why I'm here. It's more so the experience that I've had in the past working with Cape Breton University under the rural-urban immigration pilot for Cape Breton. That really lends my voice to this committee today. The rural-urban immigration pilot for Cape Breton was proposed as a response to the “Now or Never” report that was produced by Ray Ivany in the One Nova Scotia coalition. That report clearly identifies that Nova Scotia simply can't sustain economic growth over time unless there is renewed population, which really means that we need more workers, we need more entrepreneurs, and we need more consumers.

With that came the realization that Cape Breton Island is home to more than 1,200 international students, and it was a natural fit for Cape Breton University to launch an island-wide initiative with the goal of increasing immigration to our island. What guided this pilot was essentially three questions. How can Cape Breton Island, specifically, achieve an immigration rate of at least 1,000 newcomers a year? What proportion of those 1,000 immigrants would be some of our international students who are already at our post-secondary institutions, and their families? Finally, what changes are required in governance, regional coordination, programming, and support services to reach these quite aggressive targets?

We began to address these questions by forming an island-wide task force on immigration, and we engaged our international student body by way of a survey. Questions in the survey focused on the interest of these students to immigrate to our region, how they viewed Cape Breton as a welcoming and supportive community, and what changes and recommendations they had to make immigration more appealing to our international student body.

A summary of these results is that, in their opinion, Cape Breton lacks front-line and face-to-face supports and services for immigrants. This is one of the biggest barriers for our island. It was interesting to note, however, that the majority of respondents in the survey did identify as entrepreneurial and well-educated and, most importantly, they found a connection to Cape Breton Island and wanted to stay on after graduation. In fact, 88.4% of our respondents were planning to apply for a post-secondary work permit, and 35% of those respondents actually said they wanted to start a new business. You can imagine that, when you consider that 67% of respondents were between the ages of 20 and 25, these students and this data really offered a glimmer of hope for us in reversing some of the demographic issues we've been facing on the island.

I'm not sure if anybody is familiar with some of the issues we're facing, but on Cape Breton Island right now, we are losing a minimum of 1,500 people per year. We look at that and we know that number is going to stay and increase year by year, but when we lose 1,500 people on the island that means we lose $19 million in consumer spending. It's quite shocking when you combine it with the fact that in 2015 we had, in the province of Nova Scotia, 2,005 immigrants come and settle in Halifax, and only 92 people came to Cape Breton Island. Other regions across the province saw a shared number of 10 people. This pattern of settlement has been the same for decades. In Nova Scotia, we continue to watch Halifax, which is our capital, grow while other regions in the province shrink. With a population today of less than 130,000 in Cape Breton, this simply cannot continue. We won't have an island. Hence our enthusiasm to come here and work with you all to help with the implementation of the AIP.

What we would like to see in this is a very fair, region-based program. It's really heart-wrenching to see student after student leave the island after graduation, and there's only one reason they do it. They say they simply can't access the services that they need to immigrate here.

Where does that leave us now? Well, as I stated before, Cape Breton saw fewer than 100 newcomers settle on the island last year. We need, at minimum, 1,000 people just to begin to stabilize our population. There's a very deliberate reason this is happening, and it all comes down to money. It's funding. Immigration services and supports stay in the provincial capital, and there's no plan in place to promote immigration to other economic regions across our province.

As the AIP continues to roll out, I hope you consider the following recommendations that I've brought today.

With the AIP still in its early months of implementation, it would be very helpful to see a full briefing of the pilot and regular follow-ups with all our municipalities across the Atlantic provinces. I've heard from several immigration service providers that they're having a great deal of difficulty in the employee designation process. This is resulting in employers on the island refusing to participate in it, because it's simply too difficult to get into it; and they're the ones who need workforce more that anybody.

We have to be more conscious of our economic regions, rather than implementing this from a provincial point of view. We have 15 economic regions in the Atlantic provinces, and nine of them are in constant decline. The funding provided by IRCC for provincial immigration programming should very much come with a specific stipulation that distribution of funding has to reach all regions based on need. It's not about expanding services in one area or duplicating services, it's about making sure each region has what it needs to welcome newcomers.

With that, economic regions should be able to dictate their needs, be that labour market shortages or feasible immigration targets. By putting economic regions in direct communication with IRCC, immigration caps can be adjusted in a timely manner. This is a huge issue, we know that, so labour market needs can be met and our communities stand a chance to grow.

My hope outside the AIP, and this might be a little crazy but we would like to see our very own nominee program in Cape Breton one day. We have a very interesting tourism-based, fishery-based economy; let people tell you what they need and what they can handle, and then do it.

Finally, this is of course outside the mandate of the AIP, but there is no question in my mind that there needs to be more of an emphasis on making the transition from international student to permanent resident of Canada, and choosing to live outside capital cities more accessible. One of the survey respondents said rural communities are a blank canvas of opportunity for new business. Where Cape Bretoners see an empty space, he sees his future. So that rings in my mind when I'm continuously advocating for immigration to our region, but there is so much opportunity that we don't even recognize as Cape Bretoners, that our newcomers are just filled with creativity for.

I will wrap it up on that as I think I'm over my time limit, but I want to thank you all so much for inviting me to participate in this, and also for taking the time to listen. It is wonderful to be a part of this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

We will continue with Ms. d'Entremont, from New Brunswick.

You have seven minutes.

[Katherine d'Entremont, Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for inviting me here today to speak to you. Some of you have English as a first language.

For others, it's French.

Therefore, I will try to strike a balance in both official languages.

Nelson Mandela once said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

In my capacity as the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick, I have two main roles: on the one hand, ensure compliance with the Official Languages Act of New Brunswick, and on the other hand, promote the advancement of English and French in the province.

Immigration has a determining influence on the vitality of the two official linguistic communities. Hence we are speaking out on this matter under my promotional mandate.

Our position on immigration can be summarized as follows. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms upholds the equal status of New Brunswick's two official linguistic communities. As a result, the policies, programs, and interventions of the two levels of government on immigration should not weaken the vitality of one linguistic community in comparison with the other. Unfortunately, for a number of years immigration to New Brunswick has benefited the anglophone community much more than the francophone community. Our office has been intervening in this matter to ensure that immigration to New Brunswick maintains the linguistic composition of the province, namely, one-third francophone and two-thirds anglophone. In other words, our actions in this respect are not designed to determine how many immigrants the province should welcome, but rather the distribution of this immigration within each of the two linguistic communities.

I will now summarize our various actions in this matter, and the results obtained to date.

A few months ago, after his appearance before your committee in June, the former premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna, wrote an opinion piece in a provincial newspaper in which he explained how central immigration is to the future of the Atlantic provinces. He ended his article with the words, “Demography is destiny.” That means the destiny of the Atlantic region depends on its demography.

That phrase really captures the imagination, and for good reason.

New Brunswick is facing the serious challenges of an aging population and a low birth rate.

On February 8, 2017, Statistics Canada announced that the population declined by 0.5% in New Brunswick, the only province or territory to record a decrease from 2012 to 2016. I want to reiterate that it was the only province.

Our future depends on immigration. Action is urgently needed.

However, we must be careful. Immigration must serve the interests of New Brunswick's two official linguistic communities. In other words, it must not weaken one community in relation to the other.

Immigration is a lengthy and complex process. One has to be very persistent to get through the various stages of a highly regulated framework. This regulatory framework is quite a contrast to the rather lax attitude of previous governments on the impact of immigration on minority language communities. How could this issue have been disregarded for so long?

As always, in terms of language and minority rights, awareness is still and always necessary; awareness to make the needs of the minority communities known, awareness to explain the relationship between the language of the minority and that of the majority, and awareness about the risks of assimilation.

The interventions undertaken by our office have helped make politicians at both provincial and federal levels, as well as public servants, aware of the needs of New Brunswick's francophone community. We never used to hear about targets for francophone immigration to New Brunswick, but now it's quite the opposite.

Awareness is certainly necessary. But that is not all. The two levels of government need to be reminded of their constitutional obligations.

As I mentioned earlier, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifies that New Brunswick's two official linguistic communities have equal status. Therefore, with our immigration initiatives, we always remind the two levels of government that they have a constitutional obligation to ensure that their immigration policies, programs and practices respect the principle of equality and do not disadvantage one linguistic community in relation to the other.

To achieve progress in francophone immigration, we gathered and published data. In 2013, we commissioned the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities to prepare a snapshot for us on the language situation in New Brunswick, using data from the 2011 census. A new snapshot will be prepared in the spring of 2018 using the most recent census data.

The first snapshot showed us that the majority of recent immigrants to New Brunswick, 81.1%, had English as their first official language in 2011, whereas only 11.7% had French. Remember the proportion I told you about earlier, that francophones make up one-third and anglophones make up two-thirds. Recent immigration patterns have not kept up with that split.

Furthermore, our office publishes, in each of our annual reports, the distribution by official language spoken of persons chosen under the New Brunswick provincial nominee program. During the 2012-13 fiscal year, the percentage of French-speaking and bilingual English and French nominees selected amounted to only 12.2% of all nominees welcomed to the province. Fortunately, this percentage has increased over the years. I will come back to this in a moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have about a minute left.

[Katherine d'Entremont]

Okay, I will be quick.

To increase the number of francophone immigrants, our office recommended that the provincial government adopt a government policy and clear guidelines to ensure that immigration practices benefit both linguistic communities equally. Our office also recommended that the provincial government adopt a francophone immigration strategy.

Our actions in this regard have yielded positive results. In July 2014, the Government of New Brunswick adopted an action plan to promote francophone immigration to New Brunswick.

The goal of that plan is for immigration to better reflect the linguistic makeup of our province. New Brunswick is aiming to ensure that 33% of newcomers under the New Brunswick nominee program are francophones or francophiles by 2020.

To do this, an annual increase of 3% is planned. In 2016, the annual target was 20%. This target was exceeded, given that 24% of successful candidates under the nominee program were francophones or francophiles.

Since immigration is a shared jurisdiction, there must be strong co-operation between both levels of government in order to achieve the francophone immigration goals. For that reason, in 2014, my counterparts, both federally and in Ontario, proposed that the federal and provincial governments adopt four principles to ensure that immigration contributes to the development and vitality of francophone communities. I'll skip over those principles, but they are still valid today.

Over the past few years, our office has recommended that a Canada-New Brunswick framework agreement be established to take up the challenge of francophone immigration in New Brunswick.

On March 31, 2017, in Moncton, the governments of Canada and New Brunswick signed an immigration agreement that includes an annex on francophone immigration, the first of its kind in Canada. It outlines how Canada and New Brunswick will work together to attract and retain French-speaking immigrants and bring in more skilled workers.

Needless to say, I am thrilled that this annex on francophone immigration has been signed.

We must now ensure that this agreement between the two levels of government produces results: more resources and coordination for francophone immigration, common initiatives to support host communities, innovative strategies to take up the challenges of francophone immigration in rural areas, and so on.

The future of minority francophone communities depends on immigration. That is clear. Now we must ensure that adequate resources and means are in place so that immigration would be a true vector for the vitality of the French language not only in New Brunswick, but throughout Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Ms. d'Entremont.

I am going to instruct the clerk to make sure that when we have the commissioner's remarks in both languages, those four points will be appended into our records so that we will have it as part of our committee evidence.

We're going to begin with Mr. Tabbara for a seven-minute round.

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

Mr. Chair, I'm going to pass it along to my colleague, Alaina Lockhart. We'll be switching.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

Ms. d'Entremont, could you tell us what the four principles of immigration are?

[Katherine d'Entremont]

Yes, absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Go ahead.

[Katherine d'Entremont]

Okay.

These principles were developed by me, my federal counterpart at the time in 2014, who was Graham Fraser, and François Boileau, the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario. There were four principles that we jointly came up with. We wrote to the federal immigration minister at the time and met with, in my case, the provincial minister. There was a lot of correspondence and meetings back then. We also had occasion to address all the ministers responsible for immigration and francophonie in Moncton in March. Mr. Cormier was there. The three of us spoke to this on that occasion.

The first principle is, immigration must contribute to maintaining, and even increasing, the demographic weight of the francophone communities of Canada. Second, federal, provincial, and territorial immigration policies must be designed and adapted to meet the need for recruitment, welcoming, integration, training, and retention of francophone immigrants in francophone communities. Third, solid federal, provincial, and territorial community partnerships and long-term strategies are needed in order for immigration to support the development and vitality of francophone communities. Last, all levels of government must develop an evaluation and accountability framework to measure progress achieved and to ensure the attainment of immigration objectives in francophone communities.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you very much.

In your experience with immigration, are there particular areas that Atlantic Canada can reach out to in order to recruit francophone immigrants? Are we having success in particular areas?

[Katherine d'Entremont]

I know that you've had our former provincial minister here speaking with you. I'm not an immigration expert; however, I do know that in New Brunswick we can reach out to francophone countries or countries that have French as an official language or not.

I do know that in the northwestern part of our province, one industry attracted some 30 folks from Belgium to come and work there. I think New Brunswick is unique in that regard. We have francophone communities throughout our province, and we have many communities that are very bilingual. I know that our folks who work in the provincial department do a lot of outreach recruitment to francophone countries, but I don't have the list of those countries.