Finance committee  For the default rate, I think the latest evaluation that the government did on the loan program showed that about 68% repaid it.

Finance committee  Just to add a point there, the Syrian government-assisted refugees of course didn't have the loans, but every other government-assisted refugee has a loan.

Finance committee  I think in addition to the wait-lists for language classes, whether they're French or English, one of the things the government has to undertake is a seat availability analysis to look at how many seats there are available to learn one of Canada's two official languages. We prov

Finance committee  I think language is first and foremost. Being able to speak one of Canada's official languages has a far-reaching implication for labour market attachment, social cohesion, nation-building. People want to work. Immigrants and refugees want to work as quickly as possible. They wan

Finance committee  But this is Canada's future.

Finance committee  We're talking about nation building. Our success in integrating immigrants and refugees will have an impact on every speaker you're talking to over the next three, four days. If immigration is our policy lever to deal with an aging population, declining birth rate, and a signific

Finance committee  There were supplemental dollars for Syrians that came after the core budget. I'm not exactly sure how big that was. There were some additional funds, but it didn't get to the root cause.

Finance committee  The worst-case scenario is that they would be transitioned onto the provincial income support system.

Finance committee  Absolutely. This is what we're talking about. This is the 13-month phenomenon.

Finance committee  Absolutely. Then you've got the issue of the impact on the family. If the parents are not learning English, they're staying at home and they're depressed. The teenagers pick up on that, and there's the role reversal and the power dynamics. This has a significant impact on familie

Finance committee  Just to clarify that, you have to understand that the national settlement budget is allocated to each region of Canada, each province, on the basis of the number of permanent residents. Part of the dynamics in the province of British Columbia was a historic record low in the numb

Finance committee  It's all dependent on the government's decision about increasing the immigration levels. Last year, we were at 240,000 or 250,000. If we are moving towards 1% or higher immigration levels, 360,000 a year, we are looking at an increase of a third of the current budget, which, incl

Finance committee  What we see on the ground is increased depression and mental health issues. Ask any immigrant or refugee newcomer and they'll tell you they want to work as quickly as they can. If they don't have the language, however, their ability to attach to the labour market is severely rest

Finance committee  There are a couple of things we have to look at. One is the use of technology, not for everyone, but online learning is an area that I think we have to look at and invest some additional resources in, especially for those who are going into smaller, rural communities that don't h

Finance committee  Right.