Mr. Chair, I hasten to add that there is another government department that is going through some extremely serious questions about a similar process in the Ontario region. There were major questions raised in the human resources department about a similar kind of process with similar kinds of problems that we have experienced in British Columbia. The minister probably knows a lot about that certain situation.
I have a couple of other questions about settlement. The minister raised the question of the new arrangement with Ontario that was recently announced. I think we all agree that it is good to spend more money on settlement services. We have been calling for that across the country for some time. Ontario certainly needed that assistance, but we are seeing great disparities now between the settlement services available across the country. Ontario has a great deal at the moment, but other provinces are not doing as well in that department.
When the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration was in Alberta, we heard how a lot of new immigrants to Alberta first landed in Ontario. Ontario got the settlement money that was available, but Alberta is doing the work because people end up in Alberta fairly quickly. It is a very unfair situation and is putting huge pressure on the agencies serving immigrants and refugees in Alberta. I am wondering if the minister has a proposal for dealing with that.
In British Columbia a recent report by Simon Fraser University looked at the settlement services and language training services. It showed that a full 47% of the money that the federal government sends to British Columbia for those services goes into general revenues in the province of British Columbia and that it does not go for the services to which it is directed. The provincial government claims that it goes into general revenues and is then spent by colleges for language services, but that is fee for service language instruction. My understanding is that is not what that money from the federal government is to go toward.
I am wondering what steps the minister will take to correct that situation in British Columbia and make sure that the money that is being sent by the federal government for those services is actually spent for those services in British Columbia.