We've spoken with Mr. Hussen a number of times about francophone immigration strategies, and we put forward concrete measures.
The main thing we talked about was a distinct request for proposals process tailored to francophones, as opposed to a general process. Under the current system, when the government seeks a service provider to deliver settlement and integration services, our organizations have to compete with those in the anglophone community. We are up against organizations with $25-million budgets that can afford to hire people to put together programs and proposals. That's way beyond our means.
We also asked for staff to help our small organizations prepare their bids. They have to do a tremendous amount of work with meagre resources.
We asked for a central body to coordinate francophone immigration. We want to keep francophone newcomers off the fast track to assimilation by forcing them to rely on an English-language service provider that supposedly provides bilingual service. Many a group offer French-language services in the beginning, only to advise immigrants that, going forward, the rest of the services will be provided in English. That's totally unacceptable. It can't be allowed to happen.
Those are some of the recommendations we've made.
We even suggested that francophone immigration had to be coordinated centrally in order to genuinely support community building, increase the number of rights holders and maintain the demographic weight of linguistic minorities. We recommended that the people working on the ground for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in each of the provinces and territories report to the central body rather than regional offices.
Although very well-intentioned, these people are heavily influenced by the big agencies. Out west, the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society and the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers come to mind. Our small communities simply can't compete with big players like those.
Those are recommendations we've made because we believe they will help our communities get ahead. I can tell you our proposals were certainly met with interest.