Citizenship and Immigration committee  The council is very much aware. I talked about our research study, “Making Ontario Home”, which clearly stated, and we heard from immigrants themselves, that the key issue for them is employment and economic integration. All of our member agencies are autonomous. They're stand-al

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We believe that pre-arrival services are important. The country is looking at scaling up pre-arrival services, but we also know there has to be a seamless transition between the kind of information that folks are getting overseas and the kind of services that they need once they

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The mandatory long form census gave us better numbers in terms of specific groups of immigrants and how well they're doing in the labour market. When I talked about the research report “The Colour Coded Labour Market By The Numbers”, that was based on the voluntary national house

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm sorry, you'll have to repeat the question.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was going to wait while Sherman chats.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's one of the major challenges facing our sector in terms of how we ensure service supports in rural areas, especially as we're wanting immigrants to go where there are good jobs. The conversation has been around the use of technology for distance learning. Then we run into whe

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely, the conditional permanent residence rules that we have disadvantage women. While the government has listened to our concerns around violence against women and has put in an exemption, we know that immigrant women do not have the kinds of information in terms of how it

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We've been hearing the stories from sponsored spouses who are already here, but because the process is taking such a long time, they haven't been able to engage with the labour market. We know that some spouses are choosing to return to their countries of origin, because they c

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Good morning. OCASI, as many of you know, is the collective voice of immigrant- and refugee-serving agencies in Ontario. The council was founded in 1978. We have 220 agencies around the province that work with immigrants and refugees on many issues, including violence

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In conclusion, I want to say that we welcome the government's efforts to prevent violence against women and girls. We suggest once again that the best way to do that is to withdraw Bill S-7, remove existing systemic barriers such as conditional permanent residency for sponsored s

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the case of missing and murdered aboriginal women and the ongoing call for a public inquiry so we can take a look at the root causes speaks to the purpose of a bill like this. So that's my answer to your other question. We strongly believe that violence against women is

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Affordable housing, advanced education, entrepreneurial supports, labour market participation supports and child care are the kinds of supports that women need to participate fully.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think that we need to approach violence against women through criminal law. By approaching violence against women through immigration we create double jeopardy, as I said. Immigrants are punished for being in violation of our criminal law and then we deport them. Violence again

Citizenship and Immigration committee  OCASI, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, welcomes the amendments introduced in Bill C-6. I was here for Bill C-24, and it's good to be back. We hope it will remove certain barriers to citizenship, particularly for disadvantaged groups, such as racialized immigr

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Oh. Then let me jump to applicants with disabilities. At present, certain applicants with disabilities, such as those with vision or hearing impairment, are exempt from language and knowledge requirements, but the rules are vague with respect to everyone else, other than sugges