Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, thank you very much for inviting me to appear today.
My name is Bintou Sacko and I'm the director of Accueil francophone du Manitoba. This service is an initiative of the Société de la francophonie manitobaine.
Francophone immigration is one of the top priorities for expanding the francophone space in Manitoba. Three major themes were suggested to us, and I'm going to talk to you about them in a very concrete and pragmatic way.
I'll start by talking about the consular services that are needed abroad to support immigrants from French-speaking countries, particularly Africa.
For some years now, some visa offices, according to the model that was devised, whether embassies or high commissions that are still found in Canada, have been offering services to many countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the Dakar office has 16 countries in its catchment area, while the one in France has 14. It's also important to look at where international students and French-speaking immigrants come from. Generally speaking, 82% of countries are served by the Dakar office, and 33% by the Dar es Salaam office. Applications from nine African countries are rejected at a rate of 75% to 80%. This has a major impact on the attractiveness of applying, and on the recruitment of people who come from these areas.
It's important for the Canadian government to take concrete action to improve accessibility to services at Canadian embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, it must relieve some of the congestion in visa offices by increasing the number of consular services and application processing capacity in several sub-Saharan African countries. It must also review the mechanisms for assigning visa officers to French-speaking African countries, in order to remove systemic barriers for Canadian citizens of immigrant background who also have experience in the communities and who understand the francophone immigration strategy very well. We also need to review the reasons for arbitrary refusal of visas and study permits, and try to eliminate them altogether. Indeed, it's the system that generates them. Finally, we need to properly align Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada practices in embassies with francophone immigration objectives in our francophone communities. I think this will help increase acceptance rates for francophone applicants.
With regard to temporary residents living in Canada, who constitute an important pool, I think it would be very interesting to take a concrete look at the programs that enable them to access permanent residency. We need to remove certain barriers, such as language tests, for Canadian university graduates and for people working here in a French-speaking environment. French tests are imposed on them and they have to pay for them; it's one of the conditions for permanent residency. We also need to create bridging programs to apply for permanent residency, perhaps in the last year of university studies or afterwards, to help retain students.
There is also a need to make it easier for francophones to apply for refugee status, or to set up a national committee to work with Canadian professional bodies to develop a clear plan for francophones, or immigrants in general, who have degrees in specific fields, such as medicine, nursing, accounting, engineering or teaching.
With regard to the resources and services that need to be put in place to improve the francophone settlement sector, the National Francophone Settlement Advisory Committee has been working for the past three years, in conjunction with a committee, on a national coordination model for the francophone immigration sector. It will soon be tabling its recommendations to IRCC on how to improve the settlement sector. This will have an impact on the integration of immigrants in the future, as the report takes into account the strengthened track record of initiatives by and for francophones. This report will propose, among other things, coordination of the francophone settlement sector and very concrete recommendations that take groups into account.
To improve the approval rate, five-year consular service plans, as well as awareness programs, must be put in place, in addition to equitable promotion and recruitment models, in French-speaking African countries as elsewhere.
Thank you.