Citizenship and Immigration committee  Our agency from Calgary has been in the business for 22 years. The only program funded by CIC so far is language instruction. I can give you another example. There is drop-in ESL funded by the Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta and filled by Canadian volunteers.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The honourable Mr. Kenney came to our agency three or four months ago. He went to classes for students and really made it clear that he wanted new Canadians to speak either French or English.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's a very good program.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Taking care of kids doesn't prevent newcomers from taking English. When newcomers study English, we have programs funded by CIC called child minding, so we do take care of the children at the same time. I don't believe taking care of children is a problem that prevents newcomers

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We do offer English classes on weekends, in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. So if they're working, if newcomers are working full time, they can always study English part time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Just to add to what my colleagues have said, in our agencies what we do... Reasonably, it will be the same for natives and for newcomers, but for a lot of newcomers we do encourage them to do two things. The first thing is to have some Canadian education, which is true, just to u

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For our agency, the best practice remains teaching newcomers how to learn a language, either French or English. They came here at level 1, or below level 1, and you can see the progress; by the end of the year, they manage to speak either French or English very well. For our soci

Citizenship and Immigration committee  For our society, we have benchmarks from one to six. When newcomers come here, they have to go to the assessment centre for newcomers to be tested. They would be tested in four areas of language: writing, reading, listening, and speaking. If the newcomer has a 2, 2, and 2, it aut

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In Calgary we have two ways for newcomers to learn English. The first one is under CIC funding. It's called the LINC program, language instruction for newcomers. We have one assessment centre in Calgary. All newcomers go there to be tested and after that they refer them to any on

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for your question. In the beginning of my presentation I mentioned the soft skills. Right now, I work a lot in settlement services. I help newcomers with their résumés. I get a lot of résumés with their pictures. That is number one. Number two, in answer to y

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In Calgary, I don't believe we have such a program, but I have to do some investigation on it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Oh, for sure it would.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're welcome. Good morning, Mr. Chair and ladies and gentlemen. My name is Noureddine Bouissoukrane. I come from Calgary. I work for the Calgary Immigrant Educational Society. First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me. It's an honour for me to be here. The Ca