Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 7th, 2021

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

I'm also out of time. Can you share some—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Your time is up, Mr. Seeback.

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

I just think it would be good for the committee if they can share whatever documents or some of the process with us, if they haven't shared everything already.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

For all the witnesses, if there is something you want to bring to the committee's notice and you didn't get an opportunity today, you can always send us notes and stats on that.

[Emily Lauzon]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to Ms. Dhillon for six minutes.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I guess my first question will be for Ms. Lauzon.

Could you maybe tell us a little bit about how we can expand the lessons learned from the RNIP to other communities? How can we work with other communities to help develop their settlement sector at the same time?

[Emily Lauzon]

Piero, maybe that's a better question for you.

[Piero Pucci]

Thank you.

I think RNIP could be extended. It's something we've been looking at. Before RNIP was approved, we had looked at expanding it outside of Thunder Bay. For those who are familiar with northwestern Ontario, it's quite a large area. It's the size of France. We've looked at other communities. Other communities have reached out to us to be part of the program, but at this time, because of capacity issues and COVID, it's been decided with the IRCC to keep the program in Thunder Bay.

I would recommend expanding it to other communities, if possible. As Emily mentioned, we have found it to be very successful in targeting certain industries that have labour shortages in Thunder Bay. We've had a lot of success with it.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you for that.

Do you think that settlement organizations are important for the retention of newcomers in rural communities? Is that relationship even more important when it comes to newcomers, that is, those people who do not not have previous ties to those communities?

[Piero Pucci]

Definitely, we have a number of partnerships, and I'll mention the agencies. They are the Local Immigration Partnership, the Thunder Bay Multicultural Association and the francophone associations. Ironically, we're all on the same block, so we work very well and closely together with them.

We also work very closely with the international student departments at Lakehead University and Confederation College. They play an important role. Our role is to help fill positions and to work with the employers, but those agencies take over, and we work closely with them on retention in Thunder Bay.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you so much.

My next question is for Ms. Lalande. You spoke very eloquently about the need for immigrants and the importance of immigrants. I'd like to cite a few statistics. There are currently four Canadian workers for every retired Canadian, but by 2035, there will be only two workers for every retiree. Without immigrants to help support the needs of an aging population, younger Canadians will end up paying more per person to provide the same benefits.

Could you speak to this a bit, please?

[Lisa Lalande]

It is at the heart of why Century Initiative was established as a charity. It was to raise awareness of the connection of population growth and immigration with our long-term prosperity.

I'm going to let my colleague, Jon Medow, speak on that point a bit more.

[Jon Medow, Policy and Research Advisor, Century Initiative]

Thank you very much.

The dependency ratio, which you referred to, is something we speak about a lot, that is, the number of working people in Canada supporting each person who is retired. Immigration is very critical to address that issue. The topic we're speaking about today, the retention of immigrants in rural communities, is even more significant. What we see is that an aging population and a population in decline is advancing much more significantly in many smaller and rural communities. In fact, there's a divide that's growing between smaller and rural communities and Canada's large cities.

One of the things that's quite important and this committee is addressing is how do we make sure that immigration is really going to benefit the whole country? How do we make sure that the growth in the workforce that we need across the whole country will not just be occurring in Canada's large cities?

We've had a great opportunity today to hear about the implementation of the rural and northern pilot project in Thunder Bay, and I'm really grateful to the CEDC representatives who have walked us through that.

One thing that is good to point out is that these kinds of programs are quite unique in Canada. Internationally, there aren't that many national governments that want to share responsibility for selecting immigrants. Canada's really out ahead in involving communities in the selection of immigrants, and Century Initiative believes that this is a really important trajectory to continue and keep building upon. The opportunity to hear from those who are on the ground doing it is extremely valuable.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you for that.

I'd like to continue with your organization, Ms. Lalande or Mr. Medow. I have less than a minute to ask you this question. There are some people out there who say, “There's too much immigration; they're taking jobs away.” According to statistics, 26% of people in Canada are immigrants.

Could you please talk to us a bit about this?

[Jon Medow]

Public opinion and public sentiment research that Century Initiative has commissioned has shown a consistent increase in support for immigration. There is an understanding among Canadians of how critical immigration is to the country's future.

Similarly, an analysis conducted by organizations like the Conference Board of Canada is consistently showing the effects of immigration on GDP growth and government revenues, including that critical measure of the dependency ratio, which you highlighted initially. Those are very much supported by immigration. We think there's a recognition of the facts by Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Medow.

Ms. Dhillon, your time is up.

We will now proceed to Madame Normandin for six minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank both witness panels for their testimony.

My questions will be for both panels, so don't be surprised if I put them to both.

I would first like to hear Ms. Lalande on the knowledge of one of the official languages as an integration and retention factor in the regions.

We know that, if they do not speak one of those two languages, newcomers tend to go to large centres where a community that speaks their language already exists.

[Lisa Lalande]

Thank you for that question. I think it touches on the issue of how we attract and retain newcomers to communities, and then there is the connection to rural communities. There was a comment made in the previous panel about what the role of the government is in supporting that. I think one possible role the government can play is in informing people before they come where they can settle and what the opportunities are in this great big country they can come to so that they're not necessarily coming to certain communities, and they can understand more about the unique aspects of those communities, including language.

Jon, is there anything you want to add to that?

[Jon Medow]

Sure.

I would just reinforce the points that have been made by other panellists today about the role of communities in really creating that holistic and welcoming environment. I think that language can be a really central aspect of that. When local communities are supported to attract immigrants who do speak the local language, that is a very important factor in retention. The ability to participate locally in the culture and life and vibrancy of a community would be a key factor.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

Would Ms. Lauzon and Mr. Pucci like to comment?

[Emily Lauzon]

I would. I think that's a very, very important question, and it's something we very much considered when we were developing our little point system for how we were going to manage the rural and northern immigration pilot. We do look at the language proficiency of the principal applicant and we also look at the proficiency in either language, either French of English, of the spouse. We look at that as we are deciding how successful that spouse is going to be. How isolated might that spouse be when they arrive? Will they be able to enter the labour market right away or is that something we're going to have to work on with them in terms of settlement? As you know, it's part of the consideration.

One of the challenges we face when it comes to language is that with the rural and northern immigration pilot, most often people are coming and they're on work permits, and the PR process takes a year, and with COVID maybe even longer. In the interim, they do have access to a variety of settlement services. Language upgrading is not one of them. They're still temporary residents. They're still temporary workers while they're waiting for their permanent residency, and they're not eligible to receive the language upgrading, nor are their spouses, until they have their PR card. I find that really problematic, because it doesn't take long for someone to decide that they're isolated, they don't like it, and they want to go.

We have a couple from Mexico. The spouse doesn't speak English. They're a fantastic family, and we want them to stay. There isn't really an option right now for settlement-provided language upgrading for that spouse, and I think that's problematic.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Pucci, would you like to comment before we move on?

[Piero Pucci]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

I just look at my own parents. When they came to this country in the late sixties or early seventies, they didn't speak a word of English, but they came to Thunder Bay because there was a large Italian population here. They were able to adapt to the community because of the supports that were on the ground here in Thunder Bay. It's very important, and Emily and I take it very seriously and are working with different groups in Thunder Bay. When we put the application in for the RNIP program, it was amazing the amount of support we did get from local agencies. When people approach us, we quickly reach out to our partners in Thunder Bay—it doesn't matter of which ethnicity—and work closely with them to help support RNIP applicants.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I may turn to Ms. Lalande and Mr. Medow in the next round of questions and answers. Right now, I am still addressing Ms. Lauzon and Mr. Pucci.

Do temporary workers or residents have the same needs as permanent residents? In terms of retaining newcomers in the regions, are those communities' needs the same or are they different?