Official Languages Committee on June 13th, 2013

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

We changed the rules last month. There can be no more language skill requirements in such job postings, except for Canada's two official languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

All right, thank you.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I have another question for the minister.

$120 million dollars has been earmarked for the new Roadmap. Earlier, you announced that $149.5 million had been allocated for the language training of economic immigrants. Your department already provides such training under the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program for newcomers. Is this new money or is this money transferred by your department?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

The money was not transferred but several departments are investing in the Roadmap. This is not new funding.

Mr. Sylvester, do you wish to add anything on this matter?

[Peter Sylvester, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I will provide some clarification.

Of the $149.5 million, $22.5 million represented new funding.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

How much?

[Peter Sylvester]

$22.5 million, with $7 million in recurrent funding and, as well, $120 million in funding provided for language training.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages said that the Roadmap represented new funding, but that is not really the case. There is some new money, but not all of it is.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

A certain percentage of the funding does represent a new investment.

[Peter Sylvester]

The total government contribution to the Roadmap was $1.1 billion. This amount, which was divided amongst 13 departments, included $266 million in new funding. This has been spread over five years.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Minister Kenney, could you ask your officials to send the committee a table breaking down, per province, the amounts allocated to immigration under the former Roadmap and the one that has just been developed? I would like to know how much each province received and how much each one will receive.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

We have this information and we will provide it to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

Pardon me, Mr. Kenney.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I have all of this information here, in my notes, and we would be pleased to provide it to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Fine. Thank you.

Mr. Gourde, you have the floor.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Minister Kenney for being here with us today, despite his very heavy schedule.

In your presentation, you referred to the Expression of Interest system. Could you provide us with more details about this system?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I apologize, Mr. Gourde, could you repeat your question?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

At the beginning of your presentation, you referred to the Expression of Interest system. I would like you to provide more details about it and explain to Canadians what this new tool offers.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes, certainly.

It is difficult to explain the system to people who are not familiar with our former immigration system. In all honesty, the system was broken. It was not functional. We had reached the point where more than a million applicants had been waiting in our immigration programs for more than eight years.

The economic situation of new Canadians had deteriorated over the past 40 years. The rate of unemployment amongst immigrants was twice as high as that of the general population. The rate of unemployment amongst immigrants with university degrees was four times higher than that of members of the general public with university degrees. The average income of new immigrants was lower than the average Canadian income.

Fundamental reform was therefore needed. Under the grid system, we attracted too many immigrants based on their human capital. These people arrived in Canada after waiting several years, but found themselves unemployed or underemployed.

With the concept of the new Expression of...

[Peter Sylvester]

The Expression of Interest system.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

The Expression of Interest system.

The purpose of this system is to match, to the extent possible, immigrants with employers. Indeed, our data showed us that immigrants who already had a job waiting for them when they arrived in Canada generated an income twice as high as those immigrants who arrived without an established job. New Zealand and Australia reformed their system, the idea being to create a pool.

We say “pool” in English, sorry. They're going to jump in the pool.

We talk about a pool of applicants. Using an online application process, these applicants indicate their skills, education, language skills, profession while specifying whether or not they are qualified. Should they meet the qualifications, we invite them to submit an official application. Over time, we will develop a pool of several hundreds of thousands of pre-qualified potential immigrants. The provinces, communities and employers can then go through this pool to find potential immigrants that they may need.

That means that Saskatchewan, through its Provincial Nominee Program, will have access to this pool to find francophone immigrants in order to strengthen communities such as Gravelbourg, for example. The idea is to match the provinces, employers and communities with potential immigrants so that we will have a more effective and cost-effective system for immigrants.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

According to your forecasts, which provinces will be receiving the largest number of immigrants over the next 10 years?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I would say all of the provinces, with the exception of Ontario. Immigration rates have increased over the past few years, mainly because of the expansion of Provincial Nominee Programs. As I said, immigration rates have tripled in the three prairie provinces and doubled in the four Atlantic provinces. The rate has remained stable in British Columbia. Quebec has seen a slight increase but, given that it has the power to select its own applicants, we do not get involved. In Ontario, however, we have seen a reduction of approximately 24%. In my opinion, this is not a bad thing because, beforehand, this province received approximately 60% of the immigrants. This percentage has gone down to 45%, which is an appropriate percentage for Ontario with respect to the rest of Canada.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Do you have any statistics about the percentage of immigrants who say they are francophone but who are bilingual compared to the percentage of anglophone immigrants who can speak French? For instance, immigrants from France are francophone but they practically all speak English as well.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

That is a good question. According to our definition, a francophone immigrant is somebody whose mother tongue or first official language is French, before English.

Do you wish to add anything to that, Mr. Sylvester?