Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 7th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Give a quick, 20-second answer.

[Paul McLauchlin]

I'll go really fast: local solutions for local problems. The federal government could really look for the overarching opportunities, but also look for the boots on the ground, the people who know the community, who know the ideas, whether they are local politicians or the local influencers in a community.

We had influencers in small communities even before the Internet showed up, but it's really about looking at those opportunities for the local solutions to local problems. Those are the ones that can connect.

Rural municipal leaders are aggregators. They are consolidators, and really we can—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, but the time is up.

We will now end our panel with Ms. Kwan for two minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I just want to build on that last question in terms of resettlement services, the support network that is required to attract and to retain workers in rural communities.

Chris, I'd like to come to you. From your perspective, in your work with the workers themselves, what are they saying? What do they need for them to stay in Canada?

[Chris Ramsaroop]

There are a couple of things they have told us. They want to live as equals, they want decent housing, they want decent wages, they want fair working conditions, and they want to be treated with respect by their employers and by the community and, to the same extent, by the government. It's about providing the resources to ensure that they could prosper and live as equals.

That's what we hear day and day again. They don't want to be treated as disposable or as garbage. They want their skills to be reflected and to be valued for what they are bringing to the table. Farm workers are proud to be farm workers. They are proud to be producers. They are proud to grow our fruits and vegetables, and many of the workers I know will continue to do so if we treat them as equals and stop the system where people are tied to an employer and are denied access to the residency that they deserve.

I heard one of the other colleagues mention that they've been here for 47 years. Why do we exclude and deny other people who have built our society the same benefits as some of us received as immigrants and as first-born Canadians? It's not right, and it's not fair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 30 seconds left, Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

For those 30 seconds, finally then, if Canada reflected those supports you are talking about, would it then not also attract other people from workers' home countries as they invited others through word of mouth? Would that have an effect?

[Chris Ramsaroop]

There is definitely a possibility of that, but once again, we need to think about the hundreds if not thousands of workers who previously worked in Canada. That is not thinking about the current workers, but many workers, through no fault of their own, are not able to work in Canada again, so it should ensure that many of those workers are also able to come here and put down roots here as well, and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thanks.

[Chris Ramsaroop]

—finally, that our immigration laws not be used by employers to divide workers based on race.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Ramsaroop.

With this, our panel comes to an end. On behalf of all members of this committee, I would really like to thank all of our witnesses for taking the time to appear before this committee.

If there was something that you were not able to bring to committee's attention, you can always send in written submissions and we will take that into consideration.

I will suspend the meeting for a few minutes to allow the witnesses from this panel to leave and the clerk to do the sound checks for the second panel.

The meeting is suspended for two or three minutes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

I would like to welcome our witnesses for this panel, as we continue our study on the economic imperative and long-term importance for small rural municipalities outside of major cities to retain new immigrants.

For this panel, we are joined by Century Initiative, represented by Lisa Lalande, chief executive officer; and also Jon Medow, policy and research adviser. Our second witness today is the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission, represented by Emily Lauzon, workforce development officer; and Piero Pucci, supervisor, economic development.

Thanks to all of the witnesses for appearing before the committee. Welcome. We are really looking forward to this discussion.

Ms. Lisa Lalande, you can please proceed. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks, and then we will go into a round of questioning.

[Lisa Lalande, Chief Executive Officer, Century Initiative]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and honourable members. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you this afternoon.

I am here as the chief executive officer of Century Initiative, and I'm joined by my colleague Jon Medow.

We're a non-partisan network of Canadians from the business, academic and charitable communities. We share the belief that with the right approach to growth, Canada can enhance our economic strength and resilience here at home and our influence abroad. We also share a vision of a Canada that thinks and plans not just for today or for the next election cycle, but for future generations of Canadians, because prosperity takes planning and our planning must include a smart approach to immigration.

Canada is at a crossroads. Our population is aging, our workforce is shrinking and the need for skilled labour is growing. At the same time, our population growth is sitting at its lowest level in over a hundred years because of COVID-19. This represents a significant threat to Canada's long-term economic health and prosperity. It means fewer tax dollars to support programs and services such as health care, our schools, our roads, public transit and social services. Over time, that will contribute to a decline in our quality of life, our standard of living and the cultural fabric of our country.

Simply put, we have a choice to make. We can manage our growth or manage a decline. If we choose the former—and the fact that we are here before you suggests this committee has—then immigration must play a central role in our plans. Immigration is critical to growing our population. Immigration will contribute to reducing the burden on government revenues, which fund health care, old age security and other services. It would also mean more skilled workers to meet our labour market needs, would contribute to innovation and would fuel entrepreneurship.

This is why last fall Century welcomed the government's 2021-23 immigration levels plan, which represents a significant increase over the previous targets. A recent Scotiabank analysis showed that meeting our immigration targets would add billions of dollars to Canada's economy by 2023. We must ensure that we stay focused on achieving these targets. We must also be deliberate about identifying and attracting skilled immigrants who meet the country's labour market needs not just for today, but for the jobs of tomorrow as well. Of course, we must ensure that as a country we are fulfilling our family reunification and humanitarian commitments. Regardless of what draws immigrants to Canada, we must also support them so that they can succeed and fully contribute to the country's social and economic life.

Earlier this year, Century Initiative released our national scorecard on Canada's growth and prosperity. The scorecard is a unique new tool that we created to help Canada's policy- and decision-makers track our progress in growing the country's population. It takes a holistic view and tracks a range of factors that together will contribute to smart, sustainable population growth. For instance, it shows that Canada remains among the top countries in the world when it comes to our international reputation and that most immigrants report high levels of life satisfaction.

These are powerful tools that we could use to attract people to Canada, but the scorecard also shows that we can do a better job of supporting communities across the country to attract and retain immigrants. This includes in smaller rural communities. In this regard, we know that while our immigration retention rates are generally high, in the five provinces with the lowest retention rates, on average, almost half of immigrants left within five years to other provinces. We need to better understand why and then develop strategies for tracking them to communities that are desperate to grow and to benefit from the social and economic contributions they make. That will require a coordinated and sustained effort between federal, provincial and municipal levels of government.

To date there have been some successful programs in that regard: the provincial nominee program, the Atlantic immigration pilot, which is now permanent, and the rural and northern immigration pilot program. They're all examples of targeted programs to allow provinces to select economic immigrants. Canada has also indicated its intention to focus on locally driven economic immigration through the municipal nominee program. Century Initiative welcomes this commitment to community-level engagement, which will help meet local needs.

We need to ensure that this work continues. While Canada has some challenges that must be addressed if we want to benefit from greater immigration, we are in a fortunate position. Support for immigration in this country is generally high. We need to sustain that support through community-level conversations, which can help local residents see immigration as a key part of their future, and we need the political will to take the steps required for smart population growth.

We look forward to the government's response to the committee's work. These steps and others are essential to ensuring that the benefits of immigration are widely shared across Canada.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today, and we look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thanks you, Ms. Lalande, for your opening remarks.

We will now proceed to Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission. It seems that Ms. Lauzon will be starting off.

[Piero Pucci, Supervisor, Economic Development, Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission]

I'll be starting with some quick opening remarks, and then Ms. Lauzon—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay, Mr. Pucci. Both of you will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Piero Pucci]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

The CEDC is pleased to appear before the committee to discuss the impact of the RNIP program on the city of Thunder Bay.

In 2019, Thunder Bay was selected from among 11 communities to participate in this program. In 2020, we launched the program. Obviously it was a bit delayed because of the pandemic, but we have met many of our targets that we established in 2020.

My colleague Ms. Lauzon will provide more details on that part of the program.

[Emily Lauzon, Workforce Development Officer, Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission]

Hi everyone. Thanks for having us here today.

It's really exciting to be part of what's going on in Thunder Bay right now. I had first-hand experience working with the international students when the international student boom happened at Lakehead University here in Thunder Bay, and then moved over to working for Northern Policy Institute, helping to bridge some of the gaps for temporary workers in Thunder Bay. That rolled into the development of the rural and northern immigration pilot.

Now, working at the CEDC, seeing a solution actually happen in Thunder Bay for many of the international students who have come to Thunder Bay has been really amazing.

I'm kind of new to the CEDC, but working on this pilot has been very eye-opening. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have about how the pilot is going in Thunder Bay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now start our first round of questioning with Mr. Seeback for six minutes.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Great. I'm going to start by taking Emily up on her offer. Why don't you explain to us how the pilot is going and how it's working?

[Emily Lauzon]

In Thunder Bay, the pilot launched officially in November 2019. We got started with our first round of recommendations in about April of 2020, and that was due to a number of factors. First, the MOUs were being negotiated with each of the communities, so we didn't really get started until after the MOUs had been finalized. The second part was that when COVID hit Canada, we had to rethink how we were going to manage this program. It was primarily a paper-based program, and with all of us having to switch to working from home, both at IRCC and at the Thunder Bay CEDC, we had some challenges in getting it up and running.

Once we got it rolling in April, we found that there was very positive response. We weren't surprised to see that most of the success was from the local pool, those who were graduated and already living in Thunder Bay and had a desire to stay here, and then also temporary residents living in other parts of Canada, who had skills and qualifications that met the needs of Thunder Bay and were looking to relocate here for work, and also for their permanent residency.

In the first year, which we count as being January 1 to the end of December 2020, we recommended 69 principle applicants and their families. There were 50% of those people who were international students. Also, 50% of the occupations that were filled were in the health care industry, and we were really happy about that. It was very successful in supporting two of our major employers, St. Joseph's Care Group and the Thunder Bay regional hospital, with RPNs, RNs and PSWs, so we were really excited about that.

So far this year, we've recommended 53 principle applications. We're already almost at the same number that we did in the entire first year. I think we have a better sense of how the program goes, what the story of an application is like and how it gets from point A to the end. We're doing a lot better at the processing element of it, and we have a lot of support from the employers in Thunder Bay.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

When you look at the numbers that you're talking about—69 in the first year and I think you said 53 halfway through this year—where would you ideally like to see the numbers? What's the size of the program?

[Emily Lauzon]

That's a great question because the sky is the limit, but having a small team managing the pilot from the CEDC also limits the amount of intake we can do. We feel that 150 to 200 or potentially 250 is a really good range to be able to work with for this pilot. We weren't disappointed at all by having 69 applicants in the first year. We thought that was a very realistic goal and one that we met very easily with the local pool.

It's also something we have to think about. Tapping the local pool in the first year was very easy and then there was a shift. Half of the applicants this year were actually people who have never set foot in Thunder Bay. We have more employers coming out now saying they haven't been able to find anyone and asking if they can start looking at people who are overseas. We're like, yes, of course.

It's about half and half right now. In terms of numbers, we think that's a pretty good range. It's a manageable range for us to be processing applications.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Would you see this pilot being replicable for even smaller jurisdictions than Thunder Bay? Compared with some of the municipalities in my riding.... They're significantly smaller. Would you see it as being downscalable so they'd be able to manage it, with the complexity and other things?

[Emily Lauzon]

I do. I think it is replicable in smaller communities because the scale of the community and the need is also kind of compatible with the size of the community. Thunder Bay is quite large. We're still small, but we're bigger than some of the smaller communities that also need to benefit from immigration.

With the IRCC's support.... They do have the dedicated community service channel that we receive a lot of support from when it comes to more complicated applications and issues. As long as that support is being provided to the smaller towns in helping to make decisions about whom to select, how to select and meeting the needs, then I think it would be replicable and something that is desired, as well.