Evidence of meeting #28 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was yukon.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
I'll let Mr. Nolet answer the question.
Director, Economic Development, Association franco-yukonnaise
If I may, Mr. Généreux—
Conservative
Director, Economic Development, Association franco-yukonnaise
In terms of immigration, we would simply increase our services.
Other provinces and territories have a lot more services that we are not able to provide. This is the first year we've had a full-time immigration position. We were able to hire someone by reducing other activities. It was the only way to hire someone full time.
When you have only one part-time employee, it is often more difficult to carry out activities than with someone working full time. Right now, we are able to do a lot of activities, but we don't have the funding we need to organize them. Beforehand, we didn't have the human resources to organize the required activities. It's sort of a chicken or egg issue, as mentioned earlier.
I hope that answers your question.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Yes, thank you.
Have you previously estimated the amounts you would need to be more active in immigration?
Director, Economic Development, Association franco-yukonnaise
If I'm not mistaken, we have asked—because a new call for proposals was made—for $125,000 a year. Right now, I think we receive $88,000. An amount of $125,000 is significant, but I don't think our request is unreasonable.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Are you talking about additional amounts?
Director, Economic Development, Association franco-yukonnaise
No, that's the total.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
So, in total, we are talking about an additional $40,000.
Director, Economic Development, Association franco-yukonnaise
That's about it.
Liberal
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My name is Daniel Vandal, and I'm from Winnipeg.
You have a 4.4% target in francophone immigration. What is the percentage of francophone immigrants right now?
Director, Economic Development, Association franco-yukonnaise
Actually, the 4.4% target is the federal government's target. It's not really ours. However, we fully support it.
What is the situation in the Yukon? It is difficult to have the numbers on that. I think Mr. Choquette asked a question about that. In the presentation, it was mentioned that, between January and September 2015, there were no francophone immigrants to the Yukon through the IRCC programs.
I know that the provincial nominee program has brought in one or two francophones out of 160 immigrants in the past few years. So we have been way off target.
However, in previous years, we were much closer. Actually, we even exceeded the target a number of times through the Yukon nominee program. I think we even had 10 or 13 people in one year. I think it was mainly because of our participation in Destination Canada.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
There's also the francophone significant benefit program, which was eliminated for a little over a year. That doesn't help us.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To wrap up, you said earlier that there are francophones who end up in your region temporarily. They settled there, they know and like the region. They would like to obtain Canadian citizenship, but it's extremely complicated. How could the federal government improve things here, and how could it facilitate the process of obtaining citizenship for people who are already in the Yukon, who enjoy life there and have settled there?
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
There are two things to consider.
The first would be to broaden the clientele we can serve. Currently, all settlement and welcoming service providers can serve only permanent residents or refugees who already have status. There are temporary workers, students and people with a working-holiday permit who we cannot serve. We can't give them any support, and we shouldn't even speak to them. That said, we speak to them in the context of other services, but the IRCC needs to broaden the clientele we can meet with.
We should also reassess the criteria for speeding up access to permanent residence for people who are already here, who have already integrated into the community and whose children are already going to school in our region. Several things could ensure that these people have access more quickly to permanent residence. We understand that we can't do everything and anything, but it would be good to consider this matter, especially in communities like those in the Yukon, where people come simply to see how it is. Then, they fall in love with the Yukon and don't want to leave. Unfortunately for them, it's extremely difficult to stay there. These people exhaust themselves and go away or leave because they are asked to leave.
These two things are really important.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Mrs. Salesse and Mr. Nolet, thank you for this excellent presentation. Congratulations on the work you are doing.
You have three very specific requests relating to immigration. The committee members very much appreciated your presentation, and it was very helpful. Once again, we thank you very much.
This ends our meeting for today. I would like to remind committee members that we will meet again on Tuesday.
The meeting is adjourned.