Evidence of meeting #39 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was family.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Djaouida Sellah NDP Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Actually, Ms. Hogben, you've already answered my question.
Personally, I'm wondering about cuts to the NPOs, non-profit organizations. These organizations help the communities, regardless of their specific nature. How do you get by with fewer resources? What could the federal government do to help you do your work? God knows how diverse and complex it is.
Executive Director, Canadian Council of Muslim Women
Very simply, I think all of us would say to you that we would like to be treated as if we were partners in any of the work we're doing. One of the things I've been saying ad nauseam for years and years is that we really carry out what you set as your mandate to the government. You say we're going to work on this and this project and then you turn to us and we do the actual work, and it's a hell of a lot of work. We're out there in the community. You don't know the communities, I'm so sorry to say. You know the communities but not the same way that we know the communities. We go out and do the actual work with the communities. So treat us as if we were together on anything rather than as if we're something apart. We're all together in it. I'm a great one for “inclusivity”— Bonnie used that word—and universalizing things. That's what I think we would all agree with. Also, listen to us. Sometimes you feel you're not being heard.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much for your answers.
Ms. Young, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Hi. I just want to say thank you so much for the information that you've brought us today. It's been extremely helpful and extremely insightful.
To address your point, since you were just there—may I call you Alia?
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
I've actually spent 25 years working in the immigrant settlement communities so I do feel I know the communities a little bit.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
I founded the Canadian Immigrant Settlement Sector Alliance, which is the umbrella group for all the immigrant settlement agencies across Canada. I have developed and implemented many different policies and programs in my previous work.
Executive Director, Canadian Council of Muslim Women
So you're a good combination?
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Part of the reason that we're here today is to look at the best practices and to try to learn from them. There are so many, such as the work that you're doing, which has just been acclaimed by the international organization. That is phenomenal. I think that investments of half a million dollars are substantial. As you know, immigrant settlement funding has tripled since 2006 when this government took over. I know that there's been funding being poured into this sector from all the different departments. Perhaps in your area we need to look at sharing those best practices, which is why we're here today.
I want to focus on a couple of questions that I have. One of them is surrounding our people in Calgary. Thank you so much for the incredible work that you do there. I know about Calgary a little bit because I have a very good friend, Fariborz, who runs the Calgary immigrant settlement sector. There's a settlement agency there, which you probably know about.
Just to clarify, did you say that you've now expanded and you now do work in 120 different locations? Did I get that wrong in my notes?
Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association
That's it, exactly.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Has there been an expansion of your services and programs over the last however long you have been in service?
Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association
It has been 32 years.
We had a huge expansion through our head office downtown. But it is really in line with the mandate of the agency to ensure that no immigrant woman stays behind without access to services because of lack of resources to travel to downtown Calgary with three or four children, or any kind of mobility—
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
This is amazing
May I just ask you, in the interest of time, because I only have five minutes and I have six different questions...?
Please, feel free to send us more information, because I'm very interested to know, because this is a sector that I've worked in for more than 25 years across Canada and it's very near and dear to my heart.
Can you share with us how much your programs and services have grown in the last 10 years in terms of budget, as well as staffing and also locations?
Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association
In the last 10 years we've had a growth of 800%. In the last 10 years we went from a $1.6-million budget to $10 million. We quadrupled our space, we tripled the services in the community, and we increased our staff numbers by three times. In terms of client service, we went from 3,000 clients served in 2005 to 18,500 clients served last year.
All of them are immigrant women. Our primary client is always an immigrant woman; however, that holistic support to immigrant families includes serving the whole family. That has seen an amazing increase in employability outcomes for our clients, in the outcomes that relate to family cohesion, and a huge impact on the outcomes that relate to school readiness for immigrant children and school success for youth in high schools in Calgary.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
May I just ask, then, to your knowledge, have agencies and organizations like yours across Canada experienced similar growth and similar growth in funding—?
Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association
They have probably not seen similar growth, but they must have experienced growth.
I can talk to you about Alberta, because I am a member of the Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies. We have seen reasonable growth just because the number of immigrants coming to Alberta annually has increased by quite a large margin in the last few years.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Absolutely, and that's because the Department of Immigration has sustained quite high numbers of immigration, even though we've had an economic downturn and the fragile economy and all of that.
Can I just quickly ask these other agencies to also submit to us their lists of programs and services, funding levels, and growth in the last 10 years?
Thank you very much.
NDP
December 2nd, 2014 / 10:10 a.m.
Conservative
John Barlow Conservative Macleod, AB
Thank you.
I also want to speak to the ladies in Calgary.
Reading through some of the information and listening to some of the things you spoke about today, you talked about our always having that first generation of immigrants, about its being something we'll always have to deal with. I think that something we really want to focus on is how we break that cycle. How do we stop this from continuing from generation to generation?
You talked about the success you've had with your holistic approach. When I was looking through your information, I came across a program called SMILES, the “small multicultural immigrants learning early strategies” program, and I was interested in it.
Could you explain a little bit more about that? I know that it focuses on young children. I'm wondering whether gender-centred sensitivity education is part of that program. If you don't mind, just explain a little bit about SMILES for me, please.
Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association
That's a very good question.
In line with this holistic approach and the community programs and services, this program provides child care support for all of the 120 community locations where we offer programs outside of the main office. This means that all women who attend those programs in different locations also have access to child care. Their children receive language support, cognitive support, peer support, and they work with curriculum. They receive full integration support while the mother is attending whatever program CIWA is offering.
This program is famous for one unique thing. Many children in this program actually speak their first language, English, in one of those locations. That's how the program impacts the ability of an immigrant child and an immigrant mother and the whole immigrant family to slowly start pacing their way in integrating into Canada and in knowing what they need to prepare their children for success.
Conservative
John Barlow Conservative Macleod, AB
You were talking about how, when immigrants come to Canada, they don't necessarily know the laws and culture of their new country. Is that part of the education process as well?
From my perspective, I really want to focus on how we also have to include men and boys in this type of education. Is there some training? Is part of that SMILES for young boys that things are different here?
Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association
Yes. In the program boys and girls are attending together, so yes, the boys are included.
However, for immigrant boys between the ages of 12 and 16, we actually offer gender education sessions in high schools and junior high schools in Calgary. We have parallel groups with boys and girls, and then co-educational groups with boys and girls, for exactly the same reason: to ensure that immigrant boys are well prepared and educated to take ownership and responsibility for the elimination of gender violence in immigrant families.
We believe in educating brothers, sons, and future husbands of immigrant women who live in Canada, assuming that some of those girls will marry somebody from their culture. It's very important that they take ownership of the process.
They are very active. Their attendance rates in those gender violence education sessions are extremely high, and we have had amazing success on that ownership level for immigrant boys.
We also provide men's support groups as part of our family violence program. We provide support for women who report family violence to us and seek support, but we also work with their husbands. We also provide men peer support groups as a preventative option for immigrant men to talk about family violence rather than discuss instances of family violence. It's really orientation and proactive engagement of immigrant men in making sure, as a preventative option, that they know what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and do not engage in those behaviours.