Finance committee  Greetings to you from the settlement sector from across Canada. My name is Wai Young and I'm with the Canadian Immigrant Settlement Sector Alliance, or l’Alliance canadienne du secteur de l’établissement des immigrants, also known as CISSA-ACSEI. Our members represent the 450 s

Finance committee  Thank you for the questions. Indeed, when the government announced new funding for the sector, we were very grateful. We actually issued a news release saying that it was a great first step in addressing the needs within the sector. To answer your question specifically, the red

Finance committee  We would certainly support that. In fact, there are several pilot projects happening throughout Canada looking at regionalization, which is the term we use. Certainly these pilot projects are very small. We would definitely support that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Wai Young, and I'm with the Ottawa secretariat of the Canadian Immigrant Settlement Sector Alliance, which is a national umbrella organization for the 450 settlement agencies across Canada. Our vision is that CISSA, which is our acronym, harnesse

Citizenship and Immigration committee  May I also respond to that?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Certain initiatives have been undertaken in some areas that really outline that where a community is welcoming and provides some of the necessary things immigrants need, such as good jobs, immigrants are willing to move and settle. I'll give you an example. An organization in Van

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We have actually had several meetings with the new Foreign Accreditation Agency. They have established it as primarily a referral agency to provincial organizations. A lot of the foreign accreditations happen at a provincial level. We have been watching with great interest how

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Could I also respond?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think one part of your question was also regarding the comparative services study, and that with the issue of the federal-provincial immigration agreements, how does one look at that or achieve that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The overall question the committee has to ask itself, or Canadians have to ask ourselves, is should we have national standards for some of these national programs. If the answer to that is yes, then is it acceptable to us as Canadians that regardless of which community or which p

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Currently we are not and the sector is not consulted in the area of funding or federal-provincial immigration agreements. These are all technical things that happen between the two departments, federal and provincial. However, I believe there is a role for community groups and f

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There's been no growth in funding for settlement services. It remained static in the previous 12 years prior to the announcement in April of this year from this government, and we are now beginning to see those funds roll out.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As we were saying earlier, the caveat is immigration agreements that do or don't exist with certain provinces. For example, the minister was in B.C. announcing these new funds to British Columbia, but because they're going to go to the province and because of the B.C. and federal

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Exactly, and we're very concerned about that. This is a prime example of what we believe is something the federal government needs to take another look at in terms of how we fence in those dollars.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In Ontario there's a completely different federal-provincial agreement. Fortunately for immigrants who come to Ontario, federal government programs are still delivered through the federal department.