Thank you.
My name is Jennifer Watts. I represent the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia, the only multi-service settlement agency in Nova Scotia and probably the largest one in Atlantic Canada. We've been providing services to refugees and immigrants for over 38 years. We are happy to be here to address you this morning. I am going to speak rapidly, because there is a lot of information we'd like to convey to you but I also understand that there will be time for questions and answers.
We know that women's experiences are very diverse generally, and that is also true of immigrant women who are settling here in Canada. We know that many immigrant families come here in a small nucleus, which is perhaps different from the experience they've had in their home country. They are relying on family and friends, if they have them here, who may not be aware of services. Generally, there is a lack of information around settlement supports and networks that may support them during this time. Therefore, if a crisis situation happens to them, it often happens very rapidly and in isolation within the community. Particularly, women who face abusive situations do not report that, partly out of fear and partly because they have no money. If their situation changes, they see their economic security very much tied into that family relationship. It is very often a difficult situation.
We also know that immigrant women's economic needs need to be seen through the lens of social determinants, which include family status, race, education, age, sexual orientation, immigration status, and pre-arrival condition, to name a few. This will affect their ability to settle and to feel financially secure. Immigration status affects their economic security. When women become citizens, they lose their ability to access settlement resources. If during the time when they are moving toward their citizenship they are not actively engaged or connected to settlement services, once they become citizens they no longer have access to that. In terms of the transition, it may take them time. They may be at home with child care and taking care of families. They may in fact become citizens without necessarily having the full support for integration. Also, conditional family class sponsorship can be problematic, particularly if it breaks down, because women fear being deported and therefore choose to stay in relationships that are not safe for them.
We know that child care is a very large issue, since women tend to be the primary caregivers for children. If they don't have access to child care, that limits their ability for language learning and employment, increasing isolation and reliance on their spouse. As an organization, we do offer child care, but our resources are limited. Particularly for families arriving with large numbers of children within their family unit—as we experienced with the Syrian refugees who have come—it is very difficult to provide the range of child care that is needed to adequately address their needs. The lack of affordable, subsidized, and appropriate child care makes it difficult for women to break out of the cycle of poverty and have economic security.
The child tax benefit has been very positive. We'd like to thank the government for the recent changes. It has a significant impact on our folks. One of the issues we've seen is that the benefits can take several months to be given to some of our clients, particularly if there are questions around the global income, or if a refugee has filled out the form wrong or has not realized the importance of having that document in on time. Then it takes a significant amount of time to go back, work through all the details of the application, and get that form filled out. It often leaves families without access to the child tax benefit. That's a real problem with the bureaucracy around that.
We've also seen that during the first three months of coming in, refugees don't have access to the child tax benefit and there is no longer RAP funding to support people during that time. Having access to food is very difficult for people during that time. We know that income assistance rates have not risen very rapidly, if at all. There is difference across provinces, but speaking from the Nova Scotia reality, the housing shelter is woefully inadequate. It does not meet the needs of people for finding safe, accessible housing. We also know that, if you are on income assistance, it is difficult to find the opportunity to go to school or to access resources, and therefore to move out of that program and into greater economic independence.
We have recognized in our new strategic plan that if we're going to be champions of an inclusive and welcoming province, we need to be involved in looking at the systemic issues that affect affordable housing, accessible health care, and poverty. Those are real issues that are affecting women, in particular, in our community. We also recognize that women who are living with disabilities or in families that have disabilities or women from the LGBTQ community face further difficulties having a successful economic integration.
Specifically, looking for adequate and appropriate language opportunities, therefore having increased support for tutoring and child care and being able to access services after women become citizens.... Interpretation budgets are huge, particularly for agencies that are not actually immigrant-servicing. We would love for our clients to be able to access the great resources that are now in the community, but they can't, because these organizations either don't have the cultural competency or do not have budgets to support interpretation of their services. They tend to rely on us, when really, if we're trying to be a community that is broad, diverse, and inclusive, we need to change ourselves in all aspects of our society. Interpretation budgets are key to having that happen.
Access to affordable and accessible housing is a huge issue, as well as appropriate and adequate economic support during the person's time as a refugee, and also—if they have to—being able to move onto income assistance so that it actually supports them. We would certainly be interested in any discussion around a guaranteed annual income and the possibilities for supporting women.
Refugee women in particular may find employment in places where it's evenings, overnights, and weekends. Often they're entry-level jobs, and the women tend not to move out of those jobs. Also, there often isn't oversight and protection in those jobs to support women, so it can be a vicious cycle of staying in a place that's not healthy, safe, or appropriate for them, and always at a minimum or low wage.
In closing, I'd like to say that last year we did a program looking at underemployed professional immigrant women. We noticed six areas we felt were important for employers to consider. One is looking at the credential recognition—