Evidence of meeting #34 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 alberta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
We will now proceed to Mr. Sidhu.
Mr. Sidhu, you will have five minutes for your questioning. Please proceed.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to be with us today.
My first question is for Madame Lalande.
Ms. Lalande, to come up with the current immigration levels plan, IRCC engaged with and sought perspectives from provinces, territories and other government departments, municipalities, francophone and official language minority communities, immigrant organizations and not-for-profit organizations, as well as academia, employers and industry and sector councils.
From this large list, are there any other sectors that you believe should be consulted going forward?
5:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Century Initiative
That's a great question.
What we've been advocating for at Century is a shift away from a focus just on the targets and more on how we actually grow the population in a smart, sustainable way in looking at issues of affordable housing, city development and placement outside of city centres for encouraging newcomers to other communities. Doing so requires planning for the long term and investing in our education system, urban development infrastructure investment and skills development and training.
In our view, as we're thinking about this, one thing I always want to start out with when I'm talking about it is that immigration is not an either-or. Sometimes when we talk about issues related to housing or GDP per capita, they're often used as an argument against immigration. Our demographic challenges right now make this a must-have. It's simple math. We must proceed with immigration. The question is not how much: It's how do we do it, and how do we do it well.
Along those lines, I think there's an opportunity to have a different type of consultation: to link population growth with urban infrastructure and investment discussions, for one example, and addressing labour market needs. I think that would be really valuable.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you for those insights.
Ms. Lalande, in your opening remarks, you mentioned immigration targets. According to the 2020 annual report, about 58% of permanent residents were admitted to Canada under the economic category in 2019. Is this figure in line with your organization's immigration targets? Can you can provide more insights into that as well?
5:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Century Initiative
We've actually worked with the Conference Board of Canada on our population modelling. Our Century Initiative has a goal of advocating for a population of 100 million by 2100 in what are actually staged increases in line with the current immigration level targets. We've looked at them broadly. We haven't gone deeply into it in terms of specific classes. Century doesn't have a specific position on those, but we've advocated pinning the population growth rate at about 1.25% of the population a year, versus what it is right now at under 1%.
As we said, we've achieved much greater results in the past. In 1913, we brought in 400,000 people, which represented about 5% of the population, so it's been done before, and we can do it again.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you for that.
My next question is for Ms. Lauzon.
In December 2018, a study by Statistics Canada found that for the economic immigrants in the 2004 and 2009 landing cohorts who initially settled in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver, out of these, “93% remained” in those three cities “five years later”. The findings also revealed that “the initial location decision” of the “economic principal applicants” was “a very strong predictor of their location years later”, as the report says.
Do you have any ideas and insights on how to attract economic immigrants to smaller municipalities? Ms. Lalande touched on this earlier in a question, and I'm hoping to get your feedback as well.
5:20 p.m.
Workforce Development Officer, Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission
Yes.
5:20 p.m.
Workforce Development Officer, Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission
Sorry, I have to wrap my head around the question. The question is on strategies for retaining economic immigrants?
5:20 p.m.
Workforce Development Officer, Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission
In rural communities.
5:20 p.m.
Workforce Development Officer, Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission
One of the things I do have to say about that is I think we often think we're going to draw on the international student pool more so than we actually can.
The international students who come here love living here and love working here. They really do want to stay and sometimes the opportunities career-wise for their education aren't quite a fit, so there need to be options for retaining them that are not tied to their employment.
The rural and northern immigration pilot does fill one of those gaps. It does allow them to get jobs and go through this pilot, but often they are overqualified for them so I do have concerns about that. I wish there were a way to retain that talent pool.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Ms. Lauzon.
We will now proceed to Madame Normandin for two and a half minutes.
5:25 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
I would like to put the same question to Ms. Lalande or to Mr. Medow. Should a different approach be adopted for temporary residents and for permanent residents? Should our programs be structured based on the differences between those two groups?
5:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Century Initiative
Jon, I'm going to let you take this one.
5:25 p.m.
Policy and Research Advisor, Century Initiative
Sure.
One of the issues we have been really focused on has been the growth of two-step immigration in Canada. It used to be that there was much more of a division between temporary residents and permanent residents, with temporary residents in Canada then leaving Canada and permanent residents predominantly drawn directly from individuals applying from abroad.
One of the things we have seen is a growth of many different programs for temporary residents to apply for permanent residency. What we have heard today, including in Ms. Lauzon's presentation, is the real problem we have with temporary residents not having access to settlement services. In a way our selection programs have gotten out ahead of our settlement programs.
The selection programs are looking to temporary residents as a pool of potential permanent immigrants, but the services we fund to support immigrants are not yet fully accessible to them. We hear about the issue of someone who is in the community with the potential to stay here, but needing language training and not having access to it.
I would say there's a lot of potential for settlement support services to catch up in supporting temporary residents who may become permanent residents.
5:25 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
My next question will be for the representatives of all the groups.
The previous witness panel talked about financial incentive measures, such as tax credits, to keep newcomers in the regions. Can you quickly tell me what you think about that?
5:25 p.m.
Policy and Research Advisor, Century Initiative
In the other panel reference was made to tax credits for settlement in specific communities. I think it's an interesting idea. It's not something we have explored in depth, but I think it's worth looking at all mechanisms when thinking about how to promote settlement long term in rural and smaller communities.
However, I do think at the same time that most people are really looking at the full package available to them in their life when it comes to their employment opportunities, their educational opportunities, the amenities that a community offers, and I would have some questions about whether a tax credit could fully offset those kinds of considerations, which are really core.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you.
Your time is up, Madame Normandin.
We will now go to Ms. Kwan for two and a half minutes.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'm going to direct this question to Ms. Lalande if I may. It really is premised on the notion of retention, whether you be a temporary foreign workers or an immigrant coming into a rural community.
In our last panel, part of the issue that was discussed, of course, for temporary foreign workers is that if they don't have access to full status, they are already at a disadvantage right from the get-go.
From that perspective, do you think that the Canadian government should be bringing in immigration measures to attract and retain immigrants in rural communities? If so, what do you think we need to do with our immigration measures?
5:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Century Initiative
I might let Jon take a stab at that one because he has a little more background on that one than I do.
5:25 p.m.
Policy and Research Advisor, Century Initiative
Thank you very much.
There is a wide range of different programs under which people come to Canada, both temporary and permanent status. As I mentioned, one of the factors that has really grown in Canada over time has been the increasing pathways between temporary status and permanent status—things that often did not exist in the past.
I think that's an area that's continuing to develop, and over time we're going to see a greater focus on all of the different mechanisms to support temporary residents of Canada to become permanent. We have heard about some of those in Thunder Bay today as well.
5:30 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I know they used to have immigration streams that target the full range of labour skill sets—high, medium and low. However, we have now really primarily focused on the high-skill level, the economic level—not to say that agricultural workers should be devalued, because our system as it stands right now devalues them.
Do you think we should bring back an immigration system that brings in the full range of workers from the labour force—high, medium and low skills?
5:30 p.m.
Policy and Research Advisor, Century Initiative
Yes, I would say that the immigration system really does need to look at the full range of labour market needs across communities, and the involvement of communities, whether it's businesses, economic development corporations, municipalities in smaller centres. Helping to identify those labour market needs is a very positive development in the system.
We can continue to try to look at labour market needs very broadly and not characterize that as only one specific type of person.