Official Languages Committee on May 7th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3) we are continuing our study on the Roadmap and Immigration in francophone minority communities.

Today we are pleased to welcome the Hon. Ahmed Hussen, M.P. and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

Welcome, Minister.

We also have with us today representatives from Citizenship and Immigration: David Manicom, Assistant Deputy Minister; Corinne Prince, Director General; Joel Denis, Director; and Holly Flowers Code, Chief Human Resources Officer.

Welcome to the official languages committee.

You have 10 minutes to make your presentation. Then, as usual, we will move on to questions and comments.

Minister, the floor is yours.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

Thank you, Chair.

I am pleased to appear before the committee to discuss the link between the Government of Canada's immigration measures and official languages.

I have some brief opening remarks, and I'll be happy to take questions after that.

As the committee members likely know, in late 2017 our government announced a plan to pursue the most ambitious immigration levels in Canadian history because we know that immigration positively contributes to both the Canadian economy and our society. We have a plan to steadily increase our immigration levels.

This plan includes efforts geared specifically at francophone immigration, which plays an important role in Canada's future.

To that end, the federal government plans to support and help francophone communities outside Quebec by contributing to francophone immigration and adopting measures in support of such immigration.

Mr. Chair, we continue working toward achieving the target of 4.4% francophone migration by 2023.

To fulfill that commitment, IRCC has already made changes to its programs for French-speaking immigrants.

In 2016, IRCC adjusted the express entry system to make it easier for all temporary foreign workers and international students to become permanent residents. We expect French-speaking immigrants to benefit from these changes. In 2017, to increase the proportion of French-speaking immigrants coming to Canada through economic programs, we awarded additional points under the express entry system to immigration applicants with strong proficiency in French.

We are already seeing positive trends resulting from these changes, even though it's been a very short period of time since these changes have been implemented. The number of French speakers, therefore, invited to apply to come to Canada under the express entry system has now doubled. That is a huge achievement as a result of the change to express entry.

In 2016 we also introduced the mobilité francophone system, which helps employers outside of Quebec hire French-speaking workers from abroad to undertake skilled work, and in exchange for taking a chance on that worker they get a break on the labour market impact assessment. In 2017 we adjusted this stream to facilitate the recruitment of even more French-speaking temporary workers.

We also continued our promotion and recruitment efforts to sell Canada as a destination of choice for French-speaking immigrants. This includes taking part in targeted initiatives such as Destination Canada fairs, which are very effective in Europe, and other similar events in Europe and Africa.

On March 28 of this year, the Minister of Canadian Heritage introduced our government's overall action plan for official languages for 2018 to 2023. As part of this plan, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is committed to supporting the vitality of francophone minority communities.

I'm pleased to also highlight that budget 2018 allocated $40.8 million in new funding over five years to IRCC.

IRCC plans to consolidate what we refer to as the francophone integration pathway to official language minority communities, and to enhance collaboration and accountability within the department.

Our work with the francophone integration pathway will entail the following: strengthening connections between French-speaking immigrants, improving the provision of francophone settlement services, and building the capacity of the francophone settlement services sector. This initiative will help French-speaking newcomers to obtain the information they need regarding francophone communities and services from francophone settlement organizations.

To accomplish this, it will cover the entire integration spectrum, from pre-arrival all the way to citizenship.

I am pleased to note that part of this francophone integration pathway includes adding more francophone service providers at some international airports in Canada. We are starting with the LB Pearson International Airport, a major point of interest for immigrants to Canada.

The francophone integration pathway will also work to increase the availability and accessibility of French-language training that is adapted to the needs of French-speaking immigrants. For example, it will expand online learning tools so that French-speaking newcomers can access the learning opportunities they need to achieve their unique settlement goals.

We are also improving the availability of professional development in French for francophone settlement service providers, including for service delivery coordination networks, the Francophone immigration networks. We have 13 such networks from coast to coast, in every province and territory except for Quebec and Nunavut.

Another part of the francophone integration pathway announced in the federal action plan is a new initiative called “welcoming francophone communities”. This will help targeted communities to improve their capacity to help French-speaking newcomers integrate and remain in these communities via enhanced services and programs. We're also aiming to increase the availability of French-language tests at a lower cost. Currently, we're working with independent language-testing organizations to provide these services to potential economic immigrants.

Finally, we plan to improve the coordination of francophone immigration services at IRCC itself, with increased horizontal policy engagement and the creation of a francophone immigration policy hub within IRCC. This hub will reinforce the capacity of the department to review and revise activities in relation to francophone immigration.

IRCC is also working with a number of partners, including the provinces, territories, and francophone communities on developing a new comprehensive francophone immigration strategy to improve the coherence of the activities meant to support French-speaking newcomers and contribute to achieving the targets set for francophone immigration outside Quebec.

These measures will also be a complement to our plan for enhancing our accountability, reporting, and performance measures, as well as our ability to evaluate the impact of the department's measures when it comes to official languages.

Over much of this year, I met with provincial and territorial ministers responsible for immigration. I also met with the Canadian francophonie in Toronto at the second forum on francophone immigration. This was an opportunity to discuss initiatives that encourage francophone immigrants to settle in francophone minority communities outside of Quebec in Canada and that help these immigrants to remain in these communities.

Ministers in attendance endorsed the first-ever federal-provincial-territorial action plan for increased francophone immigration outside of Quebec. This plan outlines concrete actions that our different jurisdictions can take. These include promoting awareness of francophone immigration opportunities; the provision of immigration pathways and settlement services to prospective French-speaking immigrants and applicants; increasing employer engagement in French-speaking immigrant recruitment and employment; increasing the availability, awareness, and accessibility of French- language services; and supporting diverse and inclusive francophone communities.

By pursuing these initiatives, this plan will contribute to an increase in the number of French-speaking immigrants settling in Canada outside of Quebec.

The participation rate of French-speaking immigrants in local labour markets is also set to increase. What will also increase is the participation rate of French-speaking immigrants in broader communities and social networks. I should add that, following the FPT forum, a symposium bringing together governments and community organizations was held on March 22 this year in Calgary. This event laid the foundation for potential collaboration between governments and communities to strengthen francophone immigration to Canada, including the FPT action plan.

Before closing, Mr. Chair, I should note that recently I joined the Honourable Laura Albanese, Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to sign three new annexes to the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement. One of these annexes was the French-speaking immigrant annex, which will help Canada and Ontario identify opportunities to increase the number of French-speaking immigrants coming to Canada and Ontario. I had previously signed a similar annex with my counterpart in New Brunswick.

This is just one of the ways in which the federal and provincial governments are working together to maximize the economic, social, and cultural benefits of immigration. To this end, our priority on increasing francophone immigration outside of Quebec will help address these challenges and support the vitality of our francophone communities.

Our government recognizes that the bilingual nature of Canada reinforces both our society and our economy. While we have work to do to reach this goal, we'll continue to make significant progress that supports French-speaking immigrants.

Under the new measures in the Action Plan for Official Languages, we are allocating funds directly to francophone minority communities and improving their ability to integrate and retain French-speaking immigrants.

We want every community in Canada to benefit from immigration and we want to encourage French-speaking immigrants to settle and get established in every community in our country.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We will now be pleased to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We will now move immediately to questions and comments.

Mr. Généreux, the floor is yours.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here today.

Minister, this afternoon in the House, not once but twice you accused the Conservatives of lacking compassion.

Contrary to what you said, compassion is not a value that can be assigned a dollar sign, in my opinion.

Do you maintain your position?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I made my comment with respect to what I felt was the record of the Conservative Party when it was in government. I felt that cutting health care to refugee claimants, a practice that the Federal Court called “cruel and unusual treatment”, is something that demonstrated a lack of compassion for refugees. That is why I made those comments. They were not a personal attack in nature, but a comment on the policies of the previous Conservative government with respect to refugees.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Minister, I was part of that government from 2009 to 2011. The decisions we had to make at the time, both within the department that you currently manage and the government machinery as a whole, were not taken out of a lack of compassion, but out of necessity.

I have to say that I sincerely felt very insulted this afternoon, as did all my colleagues, when you said that we lacked compassion because we made budgetary cuts, or, more specifically, we reduced the amount of money that was allocated to certain places. I must say that this is unacceptable.

That being said, I read your eight-page plan on francophone immigration in Canada and I have questions for you on the large number of illegal immigrants crossing the border, immigrants who are primarily of Nigerian origin.

You were in Montreal this morning. I heard on the radio, just after your interview, that the vast majority of these immigrants were anglophones. In fact, roughly 95% speak English and 5% speak French.

What do you plan to do with these asylum seekers who have been illegally crossing our border for the past year? Last year, more than 20,000 people illegally crossed the border. This year, we expect that number to be even higher.

Many of these people are inevitably going to stay in Canada and will have to decide where to live. Since the majority of them speak English, this is not going to help improve the percentage of francophones who could settle in the other provinces.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

On the issue of irregular migration, we've been seized with this issue from the very beginning. We work very closely with the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba, and any other province that's affected by this. We have an intergovernmental task force on irregular migration that meets frequently. We have a very vigorous and strong outreach program by members of Parliament, and also by our Canadian embassy in the United States, as well as our 12 consulates all over the United States. In addition to that, we have ensured as a government that each and every individual who irregularly crosses our border is apprehended, arrested, and undergoes very rigorous criminal, health, and background checks. If anybody presents a threat to Canadian society, they are immediately detained. They don't actually get to make a claim.

As for what we're doing beyond that, as I said we have been working very closely with the provinces to ensure that the federal government is responsive to their concerns with about the effects that asylum seekers would have on their provincial social services, but our priority remains working very closely with the United States on outreach, on addressing issues related to the border. That work continues to be expressed in various different ways, from outreach to interdiction, to providing the necessary resources for more border security operations, to more money for the Immigration and Refugee Board.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

This all started when the Prime Minister tweeted that everyone is welcome in Canada. According to the same broadcast I was listening to this morning, I believe that you yourself are going to Nigeria soon.

Are you able to tell us which country you will have to go to in six months to repeat the message to refugees all around the world who want to enter Canada through the United States, given that that country issues visas more easily than Canada?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Just to be clear, last year the makeup of the nationalities who were coming irregularly across the border tended to be mainly Haitian and other TPS-affected populations. We therefore ensured that we had outreach efforts directly to those communities in the United States. We clarified a lot of the misinformation they were receiving about our immigration system. We made it clear that coming to Canada irregularly was not a solution to their problems. You have to actually have a—

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

You and the Prime Minister are the ones who created the problem. This problem never used to exist. In 2016, 2,000 people entered Canada illegally. Now there are 20,000 and that number will continue to climb this year.

The Prime Minister has 4.3 million Twitter followers. Your department, the IRCC, posts warnings on its web site. By the way, that is a good thing because at least you are warning them about something. The Prime Minister could do the same thing through his tweets and offer the same recommendations to all his Twitter followers around the world.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I disagree with your contention, of course. That's because I think you're mistaking the Prime Minister's statement of a fact that we in Canada offer protection to people who are fleeing war, persecution and terrorism, and that we have a commitment to our international obligations to provide refuge to those who are seeking refuge....

That is not the same thing as saying we agree or concur with people crossing our borders irregularly. The Prime Minister and all the ministers, as well as members of Parliament on our side, have said it very clearly. We do not condone people crossing our borders irregularly. We've taken action to address that. I can point to the many things we have done, including extra funding to make sure that refugee claimants are processed faster so that those who have legitimate claims can stay in the country, and those who do not can be removed faster.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Généreux.

We will now move on to Mr. Vandal.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your presentation.

My first question has to do with retaining francophone immigrants who arrive in official language minority communities such as Saint-Boniface—Saint-Vital. One of our concerns is that immigrants who arrive in our community end up leaving and going to a major francophone centre where they then integrate into the anglophone community.

Does your department have programs to try to resolve this problem or to ensure that new arrivals stay in the official language minority communities?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

It's a very important question because it's not just a question of attracting French-speaking immigrants to contribute to the vitality of French-language communities, but also retaining them there so that we don't lose them to secondary migration. According to IRCC's evaluation of the immigration to official-language minority communities initiative, communities outside Quebec gained more French-speaking principal applicants from Quebec than they lost between 2003 and 2014, but that's not enough. As I said on March 2 this year, the ministers responsible for immigration and la Francophonie endorsed a federal-provincial-territorial action plan for increased francophone immigration outside of Quebec. This plan will target areas of collaboration, including accessibility of services in French—this is really important—and the development of inclusive francophone minority communities to retain newcomers. It's about having the facilities and the capacity and the critical mass of newcomers in a particular community so they can be retained through the provision of those services, but also providing the services in French to attract them in the first place.

A lot is being done. There's money to make sure that we make those investments. Horizontal policy coordination within the department through the francophone immigration hub will certainly help in that regard.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

Often universities, such as the one in my riding, the Université de Saint-Boniface, have a large number of francophone foreign students, but a very similar problem, namely, the trend toward students going back home after graduation. Is the government or your department doing anything to make it easier for students who want to remain in Canada to do so, and are there any specific strategies for minority language communities?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

It's a very important question. At the end of the day, I think you and I agree that international students make one of the best groups to become future citizens. They're young, they speak English or French, have studied in our institutions and are keen, so why would we not want them to stay? I'm happy to note that we're the first government in Canadian history to go around the world to recruit international students. My predecessor and I, as we have recruited international students to study in Canada, don't just ask them to come here to study. We say, “Come here to study, and if you'd like to stay, we want you to stay.” We deliberately send that signal.

We have made it easier for them to stay by various means. First, we've made changes to the express entry system to give more points to international students. You can see that the percentage of international students under the express entry system has grown. Second, we have given more points to French-language speakers under the express entry system. Combined with those two, an international student who demonstrates strong French-language skills has much higher odds of getting picked up by the express entry system now, as opposed to before.

Those changes are having an impact. As I said in my speech, the changes we've made under the express entry system to give more points to francophone applicants has already doubled the number of successful people who have come through that system. That's very encouraging. We need to do more, but we've already done a lot.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Thank you.

I'll cede the rest of my time to Mr. Samson.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you.

Minister, thank you for being here.

I want to begin by commending you on how quickly your French is improving.

Francophone immigration is crucial to the vitality and survival of communities. We have been talking about it for a long time. The fact remains that if 100% or 95% of the people who arrive in a community are anglophones then assimilation is all but inevitable.

I want to share a few important points.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair? Two minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

No, Mr. Samson, you have 20 seconds remaining. However, you will have the opportunity to speak again later. We can cede the floor to the next speaker and when it is your turn you will have a little more than six minutes.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Will the minister still be here? I don't think that the minister will be here for the whole two hours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Yes, he will be here. It's not a problem.

Mr. Choquette, you have the floor.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to learn that the minister will be staying with us for the next two hours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

No, that's not what we said. We said that the minister would probably be prepared to stay with us to answer our questions.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

I understood that you were staying for the whole two hours.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I wish I could, but I can't.