Madam Speaker, in November we learned from the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism that the government was cutting $31.5 million for immigration settlement services in Ontario. These cuts have been made without giving settlement service agencies the fair warning that they deserve. Settlement service agencies across the province are already struggling due to similar cuts by the Conservative government last year.
These services have a track record of producing results for newcomers, helping to ease their transition to life in Canada. They provide language training, assistance with finding housing, employment services, counselling services, community programming to help newcomers integrate into their communities, skills training and generally form a support network for those who have left everything behind in their home countries.
Despite these invaluable benefits, the government is cutting 5% of the funding to the settlement and immigration funding envelope. That works out to approximately $53 million in 2011-12 and an additional $6 million to be cut in 2012-13. Eighty per cent of the cuts for 2011-12 came out of the Ontario allocation. With the implementation of the new settlement allocation model in Ontario, an additional $20 million in cuts is anticipated in 2012 if the 2009 landing numbers are used. Yet the government claims that no cuts are being made, but rather that funds are just being reshuffled.
Even with the shuffling of funds, we are still looking at an overall cut of $6 million and $45 million in cuts from just two years ago. This shuffling is removing a disproportionate amount of money from Ontario and pitting province against province. This comes at a time when the number of newcomers is at an all-time high. Ontario still receives over 50% of these newcomers, the greater Toronto area being the final destination for the majority of these newcomers to Canada. Rather than respond to the needs of the provinces and these newcomers, the government has decided to balance the books on the backs of those new to our country.
Once again, consistently pitting province against province is not going to solve the deficit. Abandoning these programs is not going to solve the deficit. Newcomers are hard-working people who contribute greatly to our communities and to our economy.
At the federal level, we should be looking for ways to help ease the transition and help these newcomers better integrate into our society. We should not be abandoning programs that have a track record of producing results when the number of newcomers is at an all-time high. We need to ask more from our government. We need to ensure that it is not neglecting the needs of the hundreds of thousands of newcomers in Ontario and across the country.
Why is the government making it harder for newcomers to access the services they need? Will the minister maintain the key supports and services that newcomers need to thrive in our country?