Evidence of meeting #28 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was workers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
One of the issues that was brought up is about resettlement support, which is especially important for rural communities as opposed to an urban centre, where I come from. In your regions, in your areas, what kinds of resettlement supports do you think would be useful and helpful to support the workers and to attract people to come to your community and stay in your community?
Vice-President, National Cattle Feeders' Association
Jolayne, do you have any thoughts on that?
Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association
In rural areas, there are always housing issues, and there are transportation issues for different reasons. Their wife's work might be urban, and we want them to become rural. There are transportation issues, and there are housing issues.
Is there anything else, Casey, that you can think of?
Vice-President, National Cattle Feeders' Association
I think one of the interesting things to keep in mind here is that, when you get a group of immigrants together in a community, they start helping each other. Certainly that was my experience as a child growing up in this country. We want to facilitate that, but a lot of it is also organic. We should be facilitating that sense of community being created.
Senior Manager, Policy, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce
I would agree as well. It is integral that you have that sense of community. I know several employers who are trying to specifically recruit the family and friends of immigrants who are coming over and have settled into the community. That has been what they're finding is helping with retention. We need anything that can help support immigrants, whether it be housing or whether it be a frequently-asked-questions document.
Some of the immigrants land here and wonder where you can get a SIM card or where you can find things around the community. Anything that can help an immigrant integrate into a community and settle here is important.
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I'm wondering if language capacity is an issue. Part of the requirement for the new program is language testing. If people are working here already, they are able to communicate with you. Do we really need additional language testing?
NDP
Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association
It is an issue, and there should be more support with that, yes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
With that, this panel comes to an end.
On behalf of all the members of this committee, I would really like to take the opportunity to thank all our witnesses for appearing before the committee and providing important testimony toward this study.
If you have any other things you want to highlight for the committee, and you were not able to talk because of the lack of time, you can always send us your submissions in writing. We can take them into consideration when we go through the consideration of the report.
I will suspend the meeting for a few minutes. Members should log off from this public Zoom and log on to the in camera Zoom meeting. It takes a few minutes for the IT to initialize the in camera Zoom. Everyone can log off from here and log on to the in camera Zoom for the rest of the meeting.
Thank you.
[Proceedings continue in camera]