Citizenship and Immigration committee  One of the arguments we have been making is that there are people who belong to particular social groups who, even within democratic countries, are discriminated against and at times even killed. In particular, we are looking at lesbians and gays. For example, I come from the C

Citizenship and Immigration committee  But it won't. Bill C-31 gives parents the option of no choice. They can have their children detained with them, or they can give up their children to the state. As someone who is seeking asylum, being faced with a Sophie's choice, not at all to belittle the Holocaust, is a presup

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think we generalize to the detriment of those bona fide refugees that we keep hearing about while we continue to talk about refugees as a group who are taking advantage of our system. But I think Francisco wanted to comment on this specifically.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I should say that the latest statistics from the Ministry of Community and Social Services in Ontario do not bear out the fact that refugees and immigrants are overrepresented in our social assistance system. We can certainly take a look at those statistics.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll begin for OCASI. Thank you for having us. The Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, better known as OCASI, is the provincial umbrella group for agencies that work with immigrant and refugee communities here in Ontario. OCASI and our member agencies are very conc

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Government-funded programs are free to clients. If agencies are charging, then they should not be doing so under the federal program.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Citizenship and Immigration program eligibility criteria are based on status. However, the department has an unwritten policy that the funding should be focused on initial settlement, so between one and three years. But to be eligible, one must be a permanent resident as opposed

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely--and not only after they started working, but sometimes after years. We know that immigrant women in particular often come to settlement at a later date because of family obligations. We also know that new immigrants, regardless of education, often take survival jobs a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One of the things I wanted to impress on the committee was the whole sense of partnership that's been building over the last five years in Ontario, not only between the federal government and the provincial government, but also the funding stakeholders like the City of Toronto, w

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm trying to decide what to start with to answer your questions because you've raised a number of points. Let me start with your last question. As I said at the top of my presentation, we know that because of the huge change that happened in 2005-06, there was a delay in the ro

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, that is our experience, in terms of the secondary migration research that you are speaking to. It's a research report that was commissioned by Citizenship and Immigration. It's an internal report to the department. What we do know from that report is that in Ontario we have

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we do. On an annual basis, during the membership renewal process, agencies are asked a number of questions, such as number of clients served, number of staff, levels of funding, and sources of funding.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Not at all. One of the areas I'm hoping this committee will probe is the connection, the direct line, that's being drawn between the number of clients and positive outcomes. I don't think that CIC itself has reported out that any of the agencies that have to report on a monthly b

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I actually would submit that we should get those numbers from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which has a more accurate picture.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Let me go to the conclusion. We thank you for the opportunity, but we do want to end by letting you know what our demands are, which we believe will mitigate the cuts. We are asking for CIC to implement a review of the decisions and the decision-making process for local settlem