Thank you for the question.
I think there are multiple levels of barriers.
There's the question of learning the languages. I think the experience of our members is that people who come to us, many of them refugees or family-class immigrants, do want to learn English or French. Sometimes they are under pressures that make it difficult for them to make themselves available for full-time language classes. For example, refugees who have to pay for the transportation loan find that they have to go to a job in order to earn the money, and then they miss out on the language classes.
Many people do end up learning English or French, but they don't necessarily have proof of it. Now, with the changes in the citizenship, what has come up is that you have to go for testing. Depending on where you live, you may have travel for the test. You have to pay hundreds of dollars for the test.
Also, the testing context is difficult for people who have, say, survived torture and are easily traumatized. Too, older people can get nervous, which is one of the things we've heard. For example, somebody who has spent their life living in a refugee camp has had very limited access to education. They come to Canada and are able to do their shopping and so on in English or French, but when it comes to a formal test, it can be very stressful, and that makes it difficult for them to pass.