Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 19th, 2017

[Charles Leger]

I think what we're really seeing is a fair amount of immigration already in Moncton. In the case of the international students at the University of Moncton, probably the predominant factor for us is some language assistance so that we could offer individuals who graduate from local universities—and we're not alone in that—the support that the students need to be able to enter the workforce. That one is extremely important, along with taking a look at what we do to make the transition much easier for people who immigrate here.

Angelique, who is our immigration strategist, can probably enlighten us a little bit more on what she sees. We've had a lot of really good feedback on the Atlantic immigration pilot, so perhaps she can mention one or two things.

[Angelique Reddy-Kalala]

The reality in the Moncton region is that we're growing very quickly. At any time we have likely over a thousand positions available. The employers that we work closely with are very interested in immigration. They could certainly use additional employer supports. As immigration is still new to Atlantic Canada, we've seen immense increases over the last 10 years.

I certainly agree with all of the points that J.D.I. and the researchers are making, and I agree with focusing on the spouse as well. I think the pilot really allows us to think outside of the box, too, which is really what we need for the entire country. We need to start to take a look more at the ethnocultural associations and places of faith as a support mechanism to the integration of newcomers and make sure we're building diasporas within our community so that when immigrants do arrive in Atlantic Canada within our cities, they are well supported not just by the settlement agencies and the municipalities, but also by their local communities, whether they start to integrate with the ethnocultural communities or their places of faith. Those are key elements that allow immigrants, when they arrive, to integrate in our community.

[Charles Leger]

We've had a lot of success with job fairs, where we've initiated opportunities for employers to meet recent immigrants and try to find a match. I think that's really important as well, because as a community, one of our challenges is our own population embracing what's happening and allowing us all collectively to work together.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Saroya, you can have a question here.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

We heard over and over from a number of panels on the issue of the rural and eastern parts of the Atlantic provinces. What can be done? What can we do to make sure it's well balanced and people feel safe and feel good and have jobs, and we can retain them in the rural areas, so the whole situation is balanced?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I can give you about 20 seconds to respond.

[Dr. Howard Ramos]

I think the answer is really about being bold and focusing on hubs. If hubs such as Moncton or Halifax or St. John's do well, the rural areas will do well. The settlement service providers in those hubs are very successful, as was just mentioned, because they're big enough and small enough. They're big enough to offer a full complement of services, but small enough to make the direct tap into specific businesses, and not just the bigger companies but also the smaller and medium-sized ones.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Ms. Kwan, you have about seven and a half minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your presentations.

I think we're all in agreement that we need to enhance immigration numbers. I know there's been a lot of discussion around the pilot. The pilot is important, although we heard on Tuesday night on the ground that the pilot has not yielded those kinds of results. It's cumbersome, it's bureaucratic, and it's problematic.

From that perspective, should we be looking at an immigration policy shift? Instead of looking at temporary foreign workers programming, should we move into more of a permanent residence programming? Then in that instance people would have the opportunity not only to come to work for themselves, but they could bring their families immediately. If you had a family here, you could grow your family, and so on.

From that perspective, I would like to get some comments from the witnesses around the table here. I could start with Professor Yoshida, because you mentioned the importance of family and how to grow that in terms of retention particularly.

[Dr. Yoko Yoshida]

In terms of the temporary and the permanent, I think the important issue is to open the options to the temporary worker for permanent residency. In a way, the temporary workers are already building their network through their employment as well as their community, and if they wish to stay in the long term, then there might be a higher likelihood of staying in the region, because they have already lived the experience in the local area. That might help bring immigrants who are likely to stay, so there would be an increase in the retention as well.

I'll stop there.

[Dr. Howard Ramos]

I would also like to quickly add that it's also important to expand the NOC categories in that transition, so it would be not just the high-flying workers but also the workers who are going to work in lower NOC categories, because they are the ones who are most likely to stay.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

We used to have a program in Canada called the Canadian experience class immigration program. A range of different people would come and apply as a permanent resident right from the get-go with a whole range of skill sets: high, low, medium, and everything in between.

However, we've done away with that, opting for other programming. It seems to me that maybe it's time for us to go back to that program and bring in permanent residents. I wonder if Mr. Haan could respond.

[Dr. Michael Haan]

I have a couple of points. One of the points I'd like to make is it really goes back to what works as a strategy. In the case of the federal experience class immigration program, we can identify the individuals who were admitted under those admission categories and identify whether or not they are more likely to remain in an area where they started out or if they are more highly mobile.

I think the decision about whether to bring the program back would rest heavily on whether it worked in the first place, and it sounds as if you have some evidence to suggest that it did. We can look at the earnings profiles of people under that admission category and whether they stuck around, and if it turns out that this is an effective program, then I do believe it's worthwhile considering bringing it back.

On another point, though, you mentioned in your first question about whether we need to see a shift in immigration policy. We've already had some pretty radical changes in the immigration system, particularly under the previous government. The minister at the time made sweeping changes to how immigration policies are implemented and how they work, and I think it might be worthwhile to take a look at how effective these changes have been.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

When I talk about the shift, I'm mostly thinking about the heavy concentration from the previous administration on the temporary foreign workers. I don't think that served the Canadian population very well. What we heard from previous panels is that they really want these individuals to stay. In fact, employers themselves say they would rather have a direct policy that says they can come and stay, that they can bring their families and stay, as opposed to going through this temporary process of seeing whether or not they can stay and whether they can bring their families, which often becomes a barrier. That's what I'm talking about in terms of that shift.

I'm going to go to the folks on the video conference.

There was a lot of talk about the need to ensure that communities provide the infrastructure to retain individuals so that people can build communities. From that perspective, people on the ground who live in the community, the employers, and the local government representatives know that very well.

We also heard from previous panels about resettlement services. The absurdity of it is that the resettlement services in the community cannot provide the plan of resettlement. They have to rely on the big five that the government identifies outside of the Atlantic provinces, which is counterintuitive, to say the least.

I wonder if I could get some comments around this. Would it benefit, for example, if the government looked at infrastructure programs in terms of supporting communities to build the kind of support systems that would be required to help maintain and retain not only immigrants, but, I would argue, Canadians who are already there in those regions?

We'll go to the folks on video conference, and I would like Mr. Leger to start.

[Charles Leger]

I think our experience with the pilot so far has shown that there are multiple components in this approach, certainly in the support and the processes you touched on, the settlement process and so on. I'm involved with the Multicultural Association of the Greater Moncton Area, and certainly there are some challenges, no question.

Maybe Angelique can touch more on some of the things. We have some initiatives. For example, we've opened a branch office in a northern New Brunswick community north of Moncton to help with some of the transition that they're seeing with respect to having jobs available but no one to fill the jobs.

[Angelique Reddy-Kalala]

Your perspective around policy is very interesting. To one of your points on pre-arrival services, you mentioned the big five, the five other cities outside of New Brunswick, and we do see that as a barrier in New Brunswick. Our settlement agencies have expressed that as well. The Province of New Brunswick is extremely active, and they are doing, from our perception, a very good job on the pilot in terms of employer recruitment and support. If they could do the pre-arrival services themselves, our province is best placed to talk about our own cities, and that would allow the immigrants prior to arrival to be able to better prepare themselves and their families to come.

In terms of infrastructure, we certainly agree with that. If we're going to be bringing in more people to New Brunswick—which we're working on very, very hard, particularly in the Moncton area—our settlement agencies need to be able to access funding very quickly to make sure that when immigrants do come, we not only have the primary applicant working, which is fantastic, but also the spouse. They need to be able to get into language classes very quickly. Oftentimes, from what we see, they're also coming with young families, so childminding on site to expand that would be huge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I think I need to cut you off there. I'm sorry that we're well over the limit on that one, but thank you very much.

We'll now turn to Ms. Zahid for about eight minutes.

You have about eight and a half minutes, if I'm balancing.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I'll share some time with Mr. Whalen.

Thanks to all of you for coming today.

My first question is to both Professor Yoshida and Professor Ramos. I would like to talk about international students. We all know that Atlantic Canada has a lot of universities and colleges, and students from around the world go there. They spend two to four years in Canada. They get integrated into our society, and many of those international students would like to stay. They would seem to be the prime candidates for retention after graduation.

Do you see any barriers to the retention of international students? Do you have any suggestions on what we can do to ensure that more of them stay in Canada, especially in Atlantic Canada? Do you have any data or research on the retention of international students and what affects their decision to stay or not to stay in Atlantic Canada?

[Dr. Howard Ramos]

We're just beginning to look at whether or not international students stay or don't stay. A report came out last week, I believe, on international students, showing how many stay and leave, and I think about 25% to 30% would stay or were interested in staying in Canada versus the majority who want to leave. Still, that's an important share of people to potentially attract to stay in the region, especially given how many universities are in the region and the labour needs of employers.

I've had a Ph.D. student working on the issue, and I think the biggest obstacle I've seen is that the complexity of Canada's immigration system is often very daunting for university students, and they are unsure which program to apply to, whether it's the provincial programs or the over 50 options available in the federal system.

The most important thing that could be done on this front is offering better support to students to navigate the complexity of the system.

[Dr. Yoko Yoshida]

As Howard mentioned, one of the obstacles to retaining these international students is to create some sort of match with the jobs available in the local area, as well as an awareness of the availability of those jobs among the students.

Even if there are opportunities, students are not necessarily aware of where to go to find that information, so there is a slight disconnect in job availability. I think these days universities are working with the community as well as businesses and providing job fairs, and those are probably very important venues to explore further.

That said, I am launching new research looking at whether or not the experience in Atlantic universities is turning into permanent residency, and after they become permanent residents, whether or not the prior experience as a temporary resident, such as being a student or a temporary worker, is likely to influence them to stay in the region or if they're more likely to migrate elsewhere for better opportunities. I am just looking at the data for that information.

[Dr. Michael Haan]

Very briefly, I'm also working on a report for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency on the retention of international students in Atlantic Canada. The project is under way, but it's in draft format. It may be possible that I could produce an advance copy for the committee if you find it useful.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

That would be really great.

[Dr. Michael Haan]

Sure. It's done with Victoria Esses, Chedly Belkhodla, and Sonia Nguyen.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Yoshida, you talked about the integration of families. Many of the international students come with their families. Are there any suggestions about what we can do to integrate their spouses or their families so we have a better retention rate?

[Dr. Yoko Yoshida]

What can we do? If you are a permanent resident or already in Canada and your spouse comes to join you, the people who are sponsored to join family members tend to do well. They already have a foot in the door of the community.

The important thing is to help family members who are not accompanying the international students or the newcomers themselves. It's essential to plug in one of the people in the family to the local community.