Thank you.
We have a large pool of temporary residents living in Canada, and in Thunder Bay specifically, who we would really like to help. We would really like to support their staying here, but they don't have access to provincially funded employment programs. They have very little support in accessing co-op work permits while they are in post-secondary studies. I think our university reported on the percentage that they had for co-op work permits, and it was very low. That is the first integration into the workforce stuff.
There are very few opportunities for them in getting those funded services that support them in their resettlement. It's challenging, it's very challenging.
When I worked as a “matchmaker”, as they called it, with the Northern Policy Institute, we were exploring those gaps facing temporary residents. We found that immigration and career advising, employment counselling, were two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. You can't have an employment counsellor working with a temporary resident who can't also advise them on immigration. You can't advise a temporary resident on immigration without the career counselling side of things. Those two things are really integral for people who are already living in Canada who want to stay.