[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Monday, June 26, 1995
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[English]
The Chair: Order, please. We discovered this morning that we didn't quite finish what we started, and I'd like to start on time, considering the fact that everyone is here.
My name is Mrs. Eleni Bakopanos. I am the chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I'd like to welcome all of you and thank you very much for coming. I apologize for the short notice that was given, but we are running against a deadline. I appreciate very much that you've taken time out of your busy schedules to come before this committee and share some of your views on the settlement renewal process.
As you know from the documents we sent you, the federal government will withdraw from direct service delivery over the next three years. The structures and roles necessary for immigrant renewal have not yet been defined. This affords us, as members of Parliament, the chance to discuss with you, the service providers, some of the issues that arise as a result of the federal government's decision.
I should note that the committee is at the beginning of its consultation process, and today is our first day. You are the experts in immigrant integration, and we are here to benefit from both your expertise and your counsel. At the same time, I'd like to read the terms of reference and three questions on which I hope to focus discussion today.
The first concerns the process of decision-making. If the federal government will no longer decide what services will be delivered, by whom, and at what cost, how and where, in your opinion, should decisions affecting the immigrant settlement system be made? What are some of the considerations that must be taken into account in making decisions affecting the immigrant settlement system? To what extent and where in the process should the service agencies be involved in determining the policies, priorities and strategies of decision-making bodies?
By the way, all of what I'm saying is in the documentation we sent to you - the terms of reference - and I've just added questions.
The second question concerns accountability, accountability for results and accountability for the equitable management of public funds, keeping in mind that program evaluation should provide information on the continued relevance of programs, whether they are meeting stated objectives, whether there are unintended effects, and whether they are cost-effective.
As service providers, how do you or how should you measure the success of your programs? What kinds of tools do you use to evaluate success? Are they satisfactory? Are there currently measurement criteria processes that you think are of little use? What more would you like to see by way of measurement tools? Is this something you see the federal government providing some assistance on?
Third, we would like your views on what role the federal government should continue to play in immigrant integration once it withdraws.
I want to begin by going around the table. I'll start first with the members of the committee and ask them to introduce themselves. Then I will ask each of you - and I will be very strict on this because we did run out of time this morning - to introduce yourself, introduce your organization, and make a five-minute preliminary remark. I will stick to the five minutes. Then we'll open it up to questions, starting with opposition members, then the members of the government side, and then to anyone else who would like to intervene. It will be two minutes for question and answers.
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We will start with the members of the committee. Mr. Nunez.
Mr. Nunez (Bourassa): My name is Osvaldo Nunez. I am the member of Parliament for Bourassa in Montreal North. Originally I come from Chile, and I am the Bloc Québécois critic for immigration and citizenship.
The Chair: And the vice-chair, so that everyone knows.
Mrs. Terrana (Vancouver East): My name is Anna Terrana. I am the member of Parliament for Vancouver East and former president of the Vancouver Multicultural Society.
The Chair: We will also be joined by Ms Mary Clancy, who is at a meeting. She is the parliamentary secretary to Minister Sergio Marchi.
Ms Margaret Young (Committee Researcher): I am Margaret Young, and I'm a researcher for the committee.
The Clerk of the Committee: I am Pat Steenberg, the clerk.
The Chair: Thank you very much, everyone. I will begin with Mr. Hugh Hooper.
Mr. Hugh Hooper (District Principal, ESL, Vancouver School Board): Would you mind if we started in the other direction?
The Chair: Sure, I have no problem with that.
Sandra Bourque.
Ms Sandra Bourque (Lower Mainland Consortium for Successful Settlement): I am here along with Pat Heal from North Vancouver and Ann Roberts from Vancouver. I am from Richmond. Together we are representing a consortium of school districts in the lower mainland, which together have over 80% of the ESL students.
We formed our consortium about five years ago as the ESL population in this area began essentially an explosion. For instance, in our Richmond district, we've gone from 300 students to 10,000 in the space of five years. Of course, you can imagine that had immense consequences in our district.
Our initial goals were to discuss amongst ourselves what we were all doing to communicate our concerns, to come up with an understanding of the basics that we felt ESL students needed, both in language and in settlement, and to share how we were all dealing with children in various aspects.
Our goal, besides cooperating and getting a better understanding amongst ourselves and sharing information, is to influence senior governments, both federal and provincial.
No matter what the immigration policy is, we are obligated to take all children into our schools. We therefore have to accommodate those children's needs, as well as accommodating the host population into which those students go.
We essentially want our senior government to recognize the very great needs we have in our district. After all, whatever policies provincial and federal governments have or make, we have to enact. The children are on our doorstep. We have to deal with them, and we want to do a good job of that.
Our job, first of all, is to get senior governments and all members in those governments to understand the problem. We want, as school districts, as a consortium, to be at the table when those policies are delineated. When any federal-provincial agreement is made we want to be at the table, because we have a very big stake in the process.
Schools, we feel, are the logical place for settlement of children, and the federal government does not recognize any of the settlement needs for children. The provincial government only recognizes the educational needs for which we are funded for students, but they are constantly trying to cap the number of students we can claim as being ESL, because they of course want to limit the expenditures. No matter how many students we get, though, we have to provide those services.
Right now, we redirect resources for settlement needs from our education budget. While that is all right if you have only a small number of students, once your student population becomes as enormous as ours, it becomes impossible to redirect funds continuously from education and the original intent of the education budget to meeting settlement needs, and yet schools are the logical place. It's where all the kids come; it's where the parents have to come. We have to be able to communicate with our parents; we have to be able to provide all those kinds of needs of those children, not just their educational needs but their settlement needs.
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I'm sure Mr. Hooper will outline in greater detail what kinds of specific needs we mean by settlement needs and what we need. We have outlined in a report our goals and our basic understanding of what we all agree to be the basic settlement needs of our students.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms Eddy.
Ms Catherine Eddy (Oakridge Reception and Orientation Centre): I'm Catherine Eddy from the Oakridge Reception and Orientation Centre in Vancouver. The reception centre is the initial reception office for school-age students from around the world who arrive in Vancouver.
During this past year we have worked with over 4,000 new ESL learners and their families. These learners have come from just over 90 different countries. The previous year we saw 4,500 students and in our 5.5-year history we have worked with 17,000 students and their families from a total of 127 countries globally.
When you get this diversity of new learners in a system, of course the impact is tremendous, as Sandra was beginning to comment on. The new learners to our system come from the widest possible range of backgrounds and include children of landed immigrants, entrepreneurs, convention refugees, refugee claimants, embassy and consulate staff, and people who are here on either employment or student authorizations.
Many of the learners are coming to us from strong educational backgrounds, but others have had little or no education, or were born in a refugee camp, or have been forced to witness their parents, other family members, and/or friends tortured and killed. Some are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and other students have health problems because of malnutrition, fevers, or birth difficulties, or are simply members of that minority group in any population who are hearing impaired, visually impaired, and/or have a physical difficulty.
Teachers in the school systems work with all of these children and their parents on a daily basis, and they are committed to settlement and acculturation and have a general vested interest in the students, the students' families, and the settlement issues surrounding them.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Hooper.
Mr. Hooper: Good afternoon. My name is Hugh Hooper and I'm the district principal for English as a second language programs for the Vancouver School Board.
Vancouver has had a long history of multiculturalism. We started our first ESL classes back in the 1920s, and nowadays, just to tie into what Catherine was saying, we have over 33,000 students who speak another language at home and about 23,000 who speak English.
The impact especially over the last five years as a reflection of the changes in the immigration policy has been enormous on our school district, as Catherine has alluded to. Not only do we have roughly 4,000 new immigrants coming in each year, but we also have about 2,000 kindergarten children who begin with the Vancouver School Board in September with limited English. This creates incredible challenges for us as a school system.
We offer a varied, complex ESL program to meet many of these needs. We have multicultural home school workers, 22 of whom provide many settlement services. These also work in collaboration with many of the settlement agencies throughout the lower mainland. We also have OROC, the reception service that Catherine has described.
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The impact on our system has been magnificent in the sense that in the classroom teachers are forced to look at new strategies to support their learners. School administrators are faced with conducting meetings where many of the students and in many cases upwards of 80% or 90% of the parents do not speak English. Teacher librarians are faced with choosing resources that reflect the diversity. Counselling and psychological services are very necessary now when we look at the students who have been victims of torture and who have suffered some kind of trauma.
In essence, we've had to redo everything. We are in that process right now. We are offering settlement services. We'd like to be acknowledged for that, and as has been said before, we want to be one of the key partners with respect to looking at how to coordinate services. Schools make a lot of sense when it comes to offering services. We can be of assistance in the coordinating and certainly in the delivery of services.
As the federal government has aptly pointed out, integration is a two-way street. I think many of the things we're doing in Vancouver to adapt the kinds of services we provide are really critical in order to help new students adapt to a new school, a new culture and a new land.
There is another point I'd like to make. Within our system we need assistance for the students, for the teachers and for the schools in order to be good integrators. I'll give you a little anecdote to show you what I mean.
Six years ago, one of our west side schools had an ESL population of 15%. Three years later it was 50%. Today it's 70%. That kind of growth is an incredible pressure on the school. Of course, if we're not dealing with those settlement needs it's very difficult for us to work on the other kinds of needs that are uppermost in our minds within the school system, and particularly within the Vancouver School Board.
I think the route you're taking is an important one. We look forward to more discussions like this. I'd like to thank you for this opportunity.
The Chair: Thank you. Do you want to proceed the same way, without my pointing anybody out?
Ms Heal. Are you all together?
We'll go on to Ms Blackman.
Ms Joanne Blackman (Executive Director, Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society): I work for the Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society. We provide immigrant services for the central Vancouver Island area from Ladysmith to Qualicum Beach and in some cases farther away, depending on whether clients have transportation.
We provide a full range of job training programs. We have LINC contracts and immigrant settlement programs. I won't go into any of the details because I'm sure you're well aware of those programs.
One of the reasons I'm here today from the island - because it is inconvenient to come over here - is that I think it is very important you get our input because we have a lot of concerns about this process.
Also in a way we're looking at it as a possible opportunity for improving services. I think that's very important, because as service providers we've run into problems over the years with joint funding or with funding to one level of government and then another. I hope you're not going to set up another level of government or semi-government or local committee to deal with these issues.
That's all I have to say right now. Thanks.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Blackman.
Ms Margalit or Ms Nann.
Ms Beverly Nann (Director, Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of British Columbia): I'm representing AMSSA, the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of B.C. We represent 79 multicultural immigrant service organizations and related interests throughout the province. Today's presentation has been developed by our immigrant integration coordinating committee, which is a collaborative network of 24 immigrant service agencies throughout the province.
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We also have developed a discussion paper, which we've left with you as well, that will further elaborate on some of the topics. We can't say too much in five minutes.
The Chair: No. But you did present a written brief, and we appreciate it. Please limit your comments to the five minutes of introductory remarks.
Ms Nann: Canadians take pride in the safety net of social services that have been put into place to ensure a basic standard of living for all Canadians. Yet Canada, as an immigrant and refugee receiving country since its inception, has failed to fully understand and accept the critical need for all immigrants to be provided with a basic orientation to Canadian life and values and with other settlement services that will facilitate and accelerate their integration into Canadian society.
Therefore, the enduring role for the federal government in settlement service must include national leadership in affirming the ongoing importance of immigration to Canadian society and in establishing in the minds of the Canadian public the central place of settlement services in the full spectrum of essential social services in an immigrant and refugee receiving country.
In recognition of this reality the federal government would need to have a continuing role in the following areas.
The federal government needs to provide public education to support settlement services, to establish settlement services as an essential social service, and it needs to provide adequate funds for these services as well as ensuring that national settlement standards are developed in partnership with service deliverers and ensuring that other ministries, both federal and provincial, are accepting the responsibilities to refugees and immigrants.
The federal government should also be developing national evaluation and accountability tools in partnership with the settlement agencies, facilitating in funding national initiatives, including national organizations such as the Canadian Council of Refugees, conferences and projects, and undertaking research.
In regard to the equitable distribution of settlement costs, the shift from the taxpayer to the beneficiary of settlement services discriminates against immigrants. If the government had this plan for all social services for all Canadians, we would consider it equitable. To single out one group of service recipients is discriminatory and feeds the erroneous view that immigrants are a burden to Canada.
It does not acknowledge that immigrants are already paying taxes and that charging them for settlement services is double taxation. We also fail to recognize that we have not had to pay for the education, training or employment experience they bring to Canada. If immigrants do not use these services because of the fees imposed, are we not defeating our goals of integration?
Accountability is not only an urgent government concern; it's also an important priority for the settlement service sector. We are all accountable to the general public for the expenditure of public funds. Therefore, workable accountability measures and mechanisms should be jointly developed between the settlement sector and government.
The mechanisms presently in place to provide this type of accountability are not effective. In fact, the recent implementation of the settlement management information system raises serious questions about federal accountability. This system, designed to measure services, is costly to implement and reduces the agency's ability to provide service by an average of 30%.
The dialogue between government and service providers on SMIS has been difficult, ineffective and costly for the public. The present measures and mechanisms are inadequate because they've been developed in isolation from those providing the service and have no measurable service standards.
To develop accountability measures and mechanisms that would be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the various administrative styles and capacities of the different settlement partners, we must develop standards of service delivery and performance for the settlement sector.
These standards benefit all stakeholders, including clients, funders, agency managements, and direct service workers. Clients deserve the right to receive the same high quality of service regardless of where they settle. Funders need to rationalize their budget expenditures by measuring outcomes with suitable benchmarks. Agency managements also require benchmarks to evaluate the success of the programs and services offered. Service providers recognize the need for standards to legitimize their professional competence.
Here are some preliminary thoughts on how to develop the accountability that would fulfil the needs of all those involved.
We should develop national standards of service delivery and performance. We should research existing evaluation tools used by agencies and funders and evaluate these tools against the service standards that are developed. All stakeholders should be surveyed to determine their information needs in regard to evaluation. Based on the information gathered, and in partnership with funders and service providers, a user-friendly, flexible evaluation tool to evaluate programs should be developed. Evaluation could be carried out by peer teams, funder panels, community panels, or a combination of these. An appeal process also needs to be put into place to ensure that settlement agencies have recourse if they wish to question evaluation results.
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We believe this joint partnership approach to the development of accountability measures and mechanisms will service the needs of both government and the settlement sector and be a relevant, effective, efficient and useful accountability tool to reduce administrative duplication and lead to a simplification of reporting and funding procedures.
Ita will speak about the next portion, which is the make-up and structure of local advisory committees.
Ms Ita Margalit (Coordinator, Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of British Columbia): First, we are concerned with the issue of community decision-making. We believe there needs to be community consultation, but we are concerned that having communities make decisions about settlement service might cause a situation such as a squeaky wheel getting the programs. It causes a lot of conflicts within the different regions and it's something many of our agencies have expressed a lot of concern about.
It also leaves that kind of decision-making process in the hands of volunteers. Sometimes there is a conflict of interest around that kind of decision-making. Also, the people who are volunteers by definition and know a lot about this area would be in the position where they wouldn't have enough time to commit to these kinds of decision-making processes, or they would be people who have a lot of time but not necessarily the expertise. So we really would like to see some decision-making process that would involve the federal government, the provincial government and other funding bodies with community consultation.
As Bev has been saying, the only way to really make those decisions is to make sure there are standards with which we can evaluate programs. That hasn't been done. We need to develop national standards to make sure people across Canada are receiving similar services. We have been involved in an evaluation project that has been developing some basic service standards and we would be very happy to share that information with you, or there might be other ways we can develop those standards.
In addition, there must be recognition that there are basic settlement services. We're concerned that one region might have ESL while another region might not. If you leave it up to particular regions to decide, you might not have a basic settlement service across Canada. You'll get situations where people leave one province to come to B.C. because there are particular services here that aren't available in their own province.
We've also prepared a list of basic settlement services that include information and referral, access and advocacy, counselling and community development, and education. That's also included in the brief, and I don't want to go over each one, but it could set up a basic service delivery model that people could use across Canada to make sure those services are being provided and immigrant needs are being met.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
We'll go on to Mr. Dobbin.
Mr. Gary Dobbin (Director, Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House): I must say that a lot of work has gone into the presentation we just heard and I agree with much of what was said.
Our organization is a community-based social service organization. Our mandate is to provide all kinds of social services to our community. We have some specific settlement services. We have some LINC classes and we have a kind of innovative youth program called Youth Connection, which buddies up immigrant youth with students who have been in Canada for a long time in high school. We also have parent support groups. But really all of the services and programs we provide are for new immigrants just because of the population that makes up our region. There are about 35,000 immigrants in our area.
Without getting into any details at this point, we're concerned that any process that looks at settlement renewal include immigrants in a real way as partners. They are the real experts on what kinds of needs they have.
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They should also include as partners members of the communities at large with no special interest, who are not newcomers to Canada. They are really the experts in how to accept the issues around accepting newcomers to Canada. When I say partners, I mean we hope the process can be made accessible to newcomers to Canada and to the general community at large without any special interest.
There are just two other quick points that I agree with in general. One is community involvement, which is very similar to what I am saying, although you are perhaps referring also to non-governmental organizations. But there is also the concept of basic services that we feel should be available to immigrants across Canada.
Dr. Cheryl Anderson (Unit Medical Officer, South Health Unit, City of Vancouver): I work with the Vancouver health department. There were some opening remarks this morning by Mayor Owen.
The Chair: We appreciated the presence of the mayor this morning.
Dr. Anderson: So I won't repeat them because the committee has had a chance to hear what the concerns are. I will participate in the discussion. I would just like to reiterate three of the mayor's points for the benefit of those who are around the table.
In terms of the consultation process, we really welcome this opportunity to be able to participate in the settlement renewal process so we can look at how it can best benefit the population we serve, the residents of Vancouver, and how we can collaborate with other agencies and other levels of government in making this an effective service.
We are not in the business of settlement, but we are certainly in the business of adaptation. You know that the demographics of Vancouver are reflected in the kind of programming we do in the city of Vancouver, not only in health, which is my area, but certainly in parks and recreation, social planning, planning, and all aspects. So I would urge you to continue to dialogue with the municipalities now that you've begun this part of the consultation.
I would also add that we really reinforce your desire to meet with the communities themselves, those people who are receiving the settlement services.
Second, in terms of resource allocation we agree with the concept of having more local administration of programs. We look forward to your recommendations for how that can be done in an equitable fashion.
We would urge you to have a tracking system that can better provide the information that is needed to ensure the equitable distribution of funds. The tracking system shouldn't just be on landings, but on interprovincial and inter-regional migration. It should also go beyond the three-year period that is traditionally quoted in terms of adaptation. While many of the people we serve in the city of Vancouver may have lived here for 10 years, they still may not have had the opportunity to acquire the dominant language, which is one of the biggest barriers to integration into the system.
In terms of refugees, this is where we meet the largest number of gaps. While they represent the smallest proportion of newcomers to Canada, their needs are out of proportion and much greater. There are no direct settlement services for refugees, so this is where we really get into the business of settlement in the city of Vancouver.
The Chair: Thank you. We did appreciate the presence of the mayor, as I said, this morning.
Mr. William McMichael (President, TESL Canada): Thank you. TESL is an acronym for Teaching English as a Second Language in Canada. We welcome the opportunity, likeDr. Anderson, to participate in this discussion and would like to thank the organizers for inviting us.
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TESL Canada is the national federation of English as a second language teachers, teacher trainers, training providers, learners, and learner advocates. We are headquartered in Burnaby, British Columbia, and one of our provincial members, the Association of B.C. Teachers of English as an Additional Language, TEAL, I think is familiar to most of the people around this table. We were formed in 1978 and we currently represent more than 3,000 TESL Canadians across the country.
TESL Canadians are among the most ubiquitous of advocates for new Canadians, living, as we do, along the front line of settlement integration. We provide academic, social, cultural, and linguistic instruction, cross-cultural counselling, vocational labour market access, and citizenship training and are very involved in community liaison work.
Looking around the table here, I see that you don't need to scratch very far in order to find a TESL Canadian among the group of immigrant-serving agencies.
Every year we publish two academic journals and two newsletters, sponsor a summer institute for ESL professionals, and participate in the Learned Societies Conference.
That's in your riding, I think. St. Denis Street. I have walked down St. Denis many times.
The Chair: It's a big street in Montreal.
Mr. McMichael: Every 18 months we host our own conference in cooperation with one of our provincial members. For the past three conferences, we have also sponsored a national learners' conference that runs concurrently with our professional conference. We understand that we were the first major organization to have established this practice. Also, we were one of the very first to have established our own World Wide Web site. The address of the World Wide Web site is on the red sheet - if you can sort out the remarks I am making - if you lose me along the way.
It is our view that what is educationally sound must take precedence over what is politically or financially expedient. We are pleased to see that the federal government is adopting an open-minded and consultative approach to the settlement renewal process, and today's meeting is an opportunity to, in the words of Lewis Lapham in this month's Harper's magazine, ``defend the future against the past''. However, we are aware of some shadows on the wall of the process.
An example is the lack of national policies for settlement integration that ensure the accessibility, sufficiency, and reliability of language training across the country. What will replace the national policies currently being implemented once integration becomes a regional affair? What accountability strings will be attached to the funding in order to ensure that it is put to appropriate use?
Second, there is the objectivity of national and regional advisory boards. Although the potential for conflict of interest may exist if traditional providers are members of these boards, as Ita was mentioning, these providers are an excellent source of expertise in settlement matters. Is there a place on the advisory boards for professional organizations such as our own?
Third, there is the scope and sequence of the renewal process. What can be changed and what is the time line for change? For example, refugees are now permitted to obtain employment. However, they are not permitted to take part in the LINC program. Does settlement renewal offer the prospect of change in this regard?
Most of all, we worry about the emergence of a new underclass in Canadian society as a result of cutbacks in local programming that severely undermine the efforts of new Canadians to achieve what all of us want: a life without deprivation, a life with personal freedom, a place where we can watch our children grow up in peace.
These shadows on the wall of the settlement renewal process we view as being the cost of doing business in a social democracy. We remain optimistic that a just and workable solution may be achieved, and we look forward to cooperating as fully as possible in its planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McMichael.
Mr. Canton.
Mr. Gonzalo Canton (Chair, Cross Cultural Education Committee, Richmond Multicultural Concerns Society): I would like to say first that I have terrible hay fever. Forgive me.
The Chair: I hope you took your Seldane this morning.
Mr. Canton: I am a member of the Richmond Multicultural Concerns Society. I am chair of the Cross Cultural Education Committee. We are working with immigrants and we have some concerns, but I would like to tell you first about what we are doing.
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We are especially involved in advocacy, because we think it is a very important topic. We are also involved in settlement programs, community development programs, translation and interpretation, with different groups of seniors, men, women, adolescents. We have a friendship club, at the moment in the Richmond School Board. This is a pilot project that teaches kids about cross-cultural education. We think it's important to start at that level in knowing and learning about multiculturalism. This pilot project, it seems possible, will be adopted all over the greater Vancouver area.
Our concern is that it seems a big campaign against multiculturalism has started in Canada. There are a lot of organizations that have that common thought. But when you are involved with immigrants, we are talking about changes. Every immigrant, such as myself, has fears about changing. It's something unexpected and unknown. I know how to swim in the water in my old country, but when I have to swim in water I am not familiar with, I am afraid to do it.
For example, we talk with people and we find these immigrants are trying to be actors and masters of their own destiny. It is very easy to be involved in paternalism, doing things for others, but they should learn how to do their own things, to integrate into Canada. We believe in that.
We think it is a two-way highway. In your document, you say newcomers have to integrate into Canadian society. Yes; but Canadian society has to adjust to new Canadians. It's very important for that to have an open mind and to be humble.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be here with you and with the members I had the opportunity to meet before.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Canton.
Ms Norman, please.
Ms Alison Norman (Assistant Department Head, ESL-Vocational Department, Vancouver Community College): I'm here today to speak about the role of the British Columbia community college system in the delivery of settlement services, in particular the delivery of settlement language training and employment skills training.
When the hon. members of this committee think of a community college, they may refer to their own experiences or to those of their children who attended a community college right after high school in order to take academic, university-transfer courses or certificate or diploma courses. With that in mind, you might not see community colleges as a suitable venue for new immigrants in settlement language classes. However, I would like to point out to you the strength of the community college system in delivering just such settlement language training and employment skills training.
For the past 25 years Vancouver Community College has provided English instruction to new immigrants, not just to the Polish engineer or the Russian doctor but also the Vietnamese fisherman with primary school education and the Somali woman who has never been to school and has to be taught how to hold a pencil.
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In the classes at Vancouver Community College, all these new immigrants have received instruction from highly trained and experienced ESL professionals with the most up-to-date materials, audio tapes, and computer-assisted language learning software. Indeed, Vancouver Community College has been a leader in the field of ESL in western Canada. A large number of adult ESL instructors in B.C. are graduates of VCC's teaching English as a second language certificate program. Of the texts listed in the TESL Canada bibliography as materials suitable for LINC language training, 20% were authored by VCC faculty.
VCC has also been in the forefront of curriculum development for settlement language training. Our curriculum for new immigrants emphasizes life skills: how to make a doctor's appointment, how to call 911 in an emergency, how to read a note from a child's school teacher. The curriculum also teaches the basis of good citizenship and knowledge of Canada's geography and culture. Our curriculum also includes good study skills and learning strategies for acquiring new languages.
Vancouver Community College also pioneered combined skills programs in courses such as ESL drafting, ESL business and office, ESL building service worker. New immigrants receive language instruction in tandem with employment skills training, which allows them to access job training with lower levels of language competency but still come out with marketable skills in a relatively short time.
Unquestionably, acquiring one of Canada's official languages is the single most important factor in the successful integration and participation of new immigrants into Canadian economic, political, and social life. Immigrants will tell you that themselves. However, settlement is a complex process and new immigrants need other services. At VCC we have highly trained counsellors who are experienced in helping new immigrants adjust, be it dealing with culture shock, finding affordable housing, or accessing job training and further education.
VCC has developed a student advocates program in which immigrants who have acquired English up to the grade 11 or 12 level are trained as peer counsellors for new immigrants from their own language and cultural backgrounds.
Vancouver Community College also has a doctor and nursing team to deal with immediate health concerns and to make referrals to other health care providers.
To conclude, I hope I have demonstrated to you that the community colleges have the human resources and facilities in place to provide the highest quality of settlement language training, employment skills training, and counselling services to new immigrants. With a proven track record over the past 25 years, Vancouver Community College, VCC, is looking forward to future involvement as a key player in settlement renewal and in the ongoing provision of services to new immigrants.
We thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
The Chair: Thank you.
Dr. Kunin.
Dr. Roslyn Kunin (Executive Director, Laurier Institute): I'm here representing the Laurier Institute. This is a think-tank that tries to take an open, unbiased approach to looking at the economic and social implications of cultural diversity. We have done extensive research with respect to immigrant populations.
The part of today's topic that I want to address is what factors to take into account when deciding who, how, and how much settlement services should be delivered as we go through the current era of change. The main factor I want to emphasize, to be sure it is taken into account, is that immigrants are a benefit and not a cost; therefore, settlement services are an investment and not a cost.
We have done extensive research over a long period of time, some of which I did when I was in the Department of Immigration, some of which I have done on my own, some through the Laurier Institute, and some the Laurier Institute jointly with C.D. Howe. These documents were too lengthy to bring today but they are available through the Laurier Institute. They all show, and other research also supports, that immigrants add more to the economy of Canada than they take. They put more into the treasury in terms of tax payments than they take out in the form of services, transfer payments, pensions, welfare, UI, and so on.
So immigrants make a net contribution to Canada. In our settlement services we are enabling them to become net contributors faster.
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Second, if immigrants are a benefit - I hope you'll forgive me, because you an see that I'm an economist by training and the bias shows in everything I say - we have to compete in today's world for immigrants. We may not think this. We, sitting in Canada, may think that really everybody in the world is out there beating down the doors and trying to get into our country; it's not always true. In fact, the most recent statistics have shown that certain groups of Asian immigrants, from which we have attracted the largest component of our immigrant population for many years now, are going to places like New Zealand and Australia rather than choosing to come to Canada.
So to attract immigrants we have to make immigrants welcome. It's a small world and word travels fast if people are accommodated, if people are settled, if people get the language they need, and if people get their credentials recognized. That's one of our big weaknesses in the settlement services; we invite people in because they have certain abilities, skills, and so on, and then we don't recognize their credentials and don't let them work to provide the skills and services for which we let them in.
So we have to remember, then, that settlement services have to be competitive to attract the kind of people who are going to be good Canadians and help Canada grow, and we have to do it now. There is no time-lag.
To show how everything is connected with everything else, I was just looking at the tourism statistics. The fastest-growing number of tourists coming to Canada in general, and B.C. in particular, right now are from Korea and Taiwan. These are also the fastest-growing immigrant groups coming into Canada, as the population from Hong Kong seems to have peaked, tapered off, or decided to go elsewhere in the world.
The pattern of immigration is that first people come on a visit, then they send their kids as students, and then we see the immigration following. So we have to start now to demonstrate to the people who are going to be visiting us this summer that Canada is a good place to visit, that Canada is a good place to study, and that Canada is a good place to settle. When will we put out welcome mats rather than road blocks?
So these are the factors I would really like to see taken into account as we make our decisions, form our policies, and make any future changes. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Last but not least, Ms To.
Ms Lilian To (SUCCESS): My name is Lilian To and I'm from SUCCESS, which is an immigrant-serving agency in the lower mainland. We have nine different offices, serving immigrants at local areas in Richmond, Coquitlam, tri-city, and in the Vancouver area, providing a whole range of services, including airport reception, orientation, counselling, and job and language training, which I don't want to repeat.
We'll be presenting a written document, but I just want to highlight a few points. The first point I want to make will touch on what Dr. Kunin was saying earlier, that settlement services should be looked at as an investment and not a crutch and, therefore, settlement services should be an integral part of the whole social services delivery and not looked at as a marginal provision, not something that's added on. Just as social services for youths, seniors, and women are an integral part of the community, it is an integral part of the whole social service provision sector.
Therefore, immigrant services should not be limited by time constraints and by being told only newcomers are served. Immigrants who have needs beyond one or two years, or the three-year limit, should also be considered.
My second point is about the whole issue of settlement renewal. We appreciate the government's initiative to look at funding in new ways so that the funds would be used in a more accountable, efficient, and effective way. But when we look at a new immigrant settlement authority that will possibly be created, because the federal government is talking about withdrawing from the direct service delivery, there are several points we think are very important.
First of all, we believe the new authority has to be accountable not only for the money it receives but also to the public. There have to be standards set to ensure that the decisions made are based on rational, objective, identifiable, and results-oriented standards of services. Furthermore, decisions need to be made at arm's length and should not be based on conflicts of interests. Decisions should be made not on a political basis but on the basis of objective criteria.
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Along those lines, we therefore feel that the federal government should not abdicate its responsibility of establishing national standards in the settlement service delivery, and that the funding allocation therefore should be delivered on a model that is based on a combined model involving the service providers and the federal and provincial governments, so that they would be able to make strategic planning and policy coordination of settlement service delivery in the province.
In the paper actually submitted by the IICC, the Immigrant Integration Coordinating Committee, which is tabled, we all supported the position that whatever changes are made and however they are going to be delivered, the needs of the organizations that are providing services to immigrants should be recognized, and the expertise, experience, and professional knowledge of these agencies must be recognized.
Finally, we're asking that the renewal process consider the possibility of looking at the provincial government, like the B.C. government, as the body to receive the funds from Ottawa for immigrant settlement in terms of decision-making.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone.
I said I'd proceed with members of the committee, first with the vice-chair Mr. Nunez, and then Ms Clancy and Mrs. Terrana if they wanted to add anything.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: Your presentations were excellent. I think that you are doing a very good job.
This afternoon, you said things that were different from what we heard this morning. Nothing was repeated. I must congratulate you for your work. I arrived in Montreal 21 years ago. My wife, my kids and myself have all used extensively these services delivered by organizations like yours, in Montreal. I always present my thanks to people who contributed to my integration and to my reception. I also took the courses provided by Quebec's orientation and training centres for immigrants.
I also invite you to send us briefs, if you have time, because I believe this will help us a lot in the preparation of our final report.
The issue of kids at school has not been raised this morning. It is a different problem from that of adult immigrants like me, and it is a phenomenon that is found everywhere in Canada. For example, in Montreal, there are schools where there are more immigrant children than children of the welcoming country. Occasionally this is a problem and we should try to find specific solutions to this kind of problem.
You said that you agreed with the creation of a local organization which would manage the fund allocation, evaluation, and so on. However, some people said that we shouldn't create another level, and it is a real problem. There are so many levels. There is the federal level, the provincial level, the municipal level, the school board level, and so on. Since I come from another country, I can see that all these different government levels are an enormous waste of money for Canada.
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One thing is still not clear. You say that services offered to immigrants should not be subject to time constraints. How long are those time constraints?
You spoke of five years. Today, it is much more difficult to integrate immigrants because they come from underdeveloped countries, other continents, because there are more blacks and Asians than before. At times, this society is not as welcoming as it was 50 years ago, when most of the immigrants came from Europe, when they were all whites and when they more or less belonged to the same religion. Today they are from a variety of religions, they are black, they have another culture, and so on. It takes them more time and it is harder for them to adjust. This sometimes causes social tensions which we should avoid.
I would like to ask you what you believe the federal government's role should be. What should be its specific role and that of the provincial government in the future.
This morning, we were told that the B.C. provincial government signed an agreement, of which I am not aware, with the federal government. Is it enough? Should it be the provincial government which should administer the funds, like we do in Quebec, for example? Quebec gets the funds from the federal government and it has sole responsibility over these funds. It evaluates the needs and allocates the funds.
I very much appreciated the presentation made by the mayor of Vancouver this morning. What is the role of a municipality? You know that it spends approximately $500,000 each year. Is it enough? What must a city like Vancouver which gets so many immigrants do? What is its role? I ask a few questions and I don't know who would like to answer. Probably Mrs. Anderson from the city of Vancouver.
[English]
Ms Clancy (Halifax): It's wonderful that Mr. Nunez makes a reference to social tensions among the groups arriving in Canada now being less serious, as he clearly believes, than those between the English and the French in this country. I'm delighted to see we've made some progress.
Mr. McMichael, from TESL, talked about accountability. One of the reasons why we are here, which I know you know, is to have you tell us what you think a better system of accountability would be. We very much want to hear from all of you about the ways in which you think we can make the accountability more accountable - if I can be repetitive - but work better.
I'm reassuring you that we really do want to hear from you and to hear your suggestions on this.
I'm sorry; I have lost my note as to who said this. I believe it was you as well, Mr. McMichael. Correct me if I'm wrong. You talked about the fact that it was an improvement to have refugees being allowed to work, as has been the change in policy, but that they weren't eligible for LANK. I just comment that one of the reasons for that of course is that a number of refugees who have come by the inland method would be waiting for the decision as to whether they are indeed found to be refugees and it's a question of investment of limited resources in that sense.
I just wanted to make those two comments and to thank you all for coming and also to apologize for being late. I had a meeting at noon hour. I hope that you will share more of your opinions with us this afternoon.
Mrs. Terrana: I have worked with a few of you over the years. I was in fact a representative of a local multicultural society when I decided to run. I must say that they were good to me, each and every one of them.
So thank you for coming and for the work you have been, and still are, doing.
I want to reiterate what Ms Clancy said to Mr. McMichael. There are some very nice questions here. We want the answers.
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So I have the same comment, that it would be nice to have what you recommend it should be. You are a very reliable group, and we have been counting on you for the teaching of English as a second language. It's nice to see you here.
I also would like to comment that it's great that Dr. Kunin is here. She reminds us - and she's been doing this all over - how immigrants are a benefit. At times we seem to forget this is the case. It is too bad we don't have the third party here this afternoon to hear these things, because it's so important that we remind them.
National standards: again, we were talking about national standards. What are they? Could we have an idea of what you intend for national standards?
My other comment is that I noticed when AMSSA presented the first paper they said the provincial government should be given responsibility for receiving the funds and allocating the funds. I have some concerns about that.
I also noticed that in the second paper you're not saying that any more. You did change it. But Lilian - and again, I respect SUCCESS a lot - again mentioned that the provincial government should be in charge. I think that would be a better way of dealing with it than having one of the governments...and again, I don't want to point my finger to any government in particular, but one of the governments. I think we can find a better system. I want to throw the ball back to you and let you think about it.
Again, thank you very much for all the work you're doing in the educational field. Ms Eddy has been there for a few years doing all this.
The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Terrana. Before I open it up to the floor - we will make it a free-flowing discussion; it's really a round-table consultation - I'd like to bring up a few points of consensus brought up this morning. Perhaps we could begin with those.
There was agreement around the table that the federal government should continue to play a role, that we should in fact be setting the national standards or principles, with local flexibility. The federal government should take a leadership role. Are you in agreement with that?
Second, the importance of local input on priorities and strategies. But we didn't find there was consensus about creating an advisory group that would actually make funding decisions. For instance, there was mention in the brief that perhaps the B.C. government should be the funding agency.
Third, the importance of employment and language training in integration: should those remain as priorities in any type of settlement program?
There were other issues, of course, but we didn't have consensus on how long settlement goes on. Does it go on for three years, five years? How long? We heard both sides.
We would have liked to have heard from the first group - and again, I throw it on the floor for discussion - what national standards are. Let's have input on that. What do you consider national standards of language training? Should it always be there? Across Canada? Is it a requirement for every immigrant to learn how to speak English or French, or for that matter both?
So I open up the discussion. I'll take a speakers' list. If we're all going to have our say we're going to have to limit our comments to two minutes, if we can. We'll start with Ms Blackman.
Ms Blackman: One comment I'd like to make is that I really believe we should have some sort of provincial involvement. One of the things I did say was we shouldn't set up another level of bureaucracy. One of the models I've heard, and it was actually part of the discussion, was that we have regional consultations, which we now do provincially. There's an island region, and we meet with the provincial government to discuss the funding priorities for the island.
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The other suggestion was for the money you have to come to the province, but not just the province would make the decision; that would be a community-provincial group rather than a local one.
One of the reasons I come from that is because our local MP has already set up a committee not only for job training but also for this. I don't know whether this has happened anywhere else in the country, but we have a committee of three people who are going to work on this. It's quite alarming to us that this has already been set up. He's not a Liberal.
Anyway, with the committee he set up to look into job training, of course anything to do with immigrants was thrown out because it didn't serve the community as a whole and it was a sort of special interest group.
We have a lot of concerns in our community about a local Nanaimo committee as opposed to a committee on the island that would be a regional type of committee. So that's one of my concerns.
There's another thing that relates to when you were talking about standards. I really do believe that LINC should be considered a standard, not necessarily in the way it performs right now, but that this language training should be available in the communities to which the immigrants are going.
The Chair: Thank you. Do you want to name your MP? A lot of people are interested.
Ms Blackman: His name is Bob Ringma.
Mr. McMichael: With reference to Ms Clancy and Ms Terrana, TEAL still exists as a provincial member of our national organization, TESL Canada.
When I speak of accountability...there are a number of kinds of accountability. In terms of curriculum accountability, TESL Canada has been involved in a national project to develop a series of benchmarks of language proficiency, which may be one kind of accountability measure that would be useful in settlement integration programs.
TESL Canada is very concerned for these programs to fulfil three criteria: they are accessible to everybody who needs this kind of training; they are sufficient in that they do what they say they're supposed to do, which is that they meet the objectives they are intended to meet; and they're reliable, such that these programs will be offered on a continuing basis and will have similar results across the country.
While we're speaking nationally, I think it's very important for us to have a national advisory group that's multilateral to look at the criteria for evaluating these programs. This is so not only in terms of curriculum, but also financial accountability.
I understand there is a standing committee on financial accountability. Forgive me if I have the wrong name for that. You people are also involved somehow in that, are you not? Is it the same office? No?
The Chair: There is the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in the House of Commons.
Mr. McMichael: It's an intergovernmental, multi-party standing committee that looks at this. The criteria they use to evaluate funding, or what they have used previously, from the federal government constitutes a national policy to me. These are the criteria that were used to determine how funds were distributed and evaluated. Perhaps it's a starting place.
Ms Clancy: I think there is a little bit of confusion here. Public accounts does reviews, as the Parliament of Canada, but the actual decisions on funding come from the Department of Finance in the budget.
So the recommendations of public accounts are just that: recommendations. Many of those are accepted by the Department of Finance in the budgeting process. But the actual decisions come from Finance in the budget.
Mr. McMichael: I guess the assumption is that there is a national policy. Somehow, it has guided the funding as to who gets the money and in making sure they've done what they said they were going to do with it.
But what will happen when integration becomes a regional affair? Will those same standards be applied across the country? That's our concern. We don't know what the national policy is.
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Ms Clancy: I think we're getting confused about my question. I think what we're saying to you is that, because we are looking at this area, we'd like to hear from you. It's not a question; you're free to go ahead and free associate and tell us what you think would be the best way to do it. We may be hamstrung by government policy, but you're not, so tell us what you think would be the best way to do this.
Don't let the fact that the policy as it currently exists may or may not be completely at odds with what you think get in your way of telling us what you think would be the best way to make this policy more accountable.
Mr. McMichael: Okay, I'll take that to heart.
Ms Clancy: Absolutely. That's what we're here for.
Mr. McMichael: I have just one last thing about refugees. I was wondering if we could revisit the refugee policy. You explained that the process involves people who are applying for refugee status. There is a problem of limited funding for these people. But I wonder whether there is room for us to even consider that. Bearing in mind your previous comment to free associate and not be hamstrung by government policy, perhaps we could revisit this one as well. What I'm talking about is language training for refugees.
Ms Nann: I think we provided a fair amount of detail in the papers we submitted to you in terms of how we think it ought to proceed in the two documents.
I think the key thing is to work in close partnership with the settlement providers in communities, that we both provide what we need to meet our needs, from government perspective and community perspective, to come together and evolve something that makes sense for both of us. I think that's the key to it all.
It will be difficult to tell at the end what it is going to look like, but you can trust that we'll provide our best thinking on it. If we can have an understanding of what your limitations are, then I think we are going to be able to evolve something, but it must be in close partnership with the community and those who are working in the community. When we were talking about the kind of structure, it's really evolving.
Our first document suggested that it was just the provincial government that should be involved, but we are currently discussing the various models and seeing a significant ongoing role for federal and provincial governments, as well as municipal ones.
The expertise of the settlement sector needs to be recognized, as well as the immigrant community and the consumers of services. Other major funders, like the United Way here and the Vancouver Foundation, should play a major role. Other sectors need to have some input, including business, labour, education, health, justice, and other interested bodies.
A structure should be provided that will allow for that broad consultation to take place to develop priorities. There should be a body that will the sift through and develop the policies. Then a funders group will make decisions based on those kinds of directions that are coming from the community. We need that kind of structure.
It is being evolved. It's really difficult to tell where it's going to go, but I think the important thing is to involve everybody who needs to be involved in the process.
Similarly, we talked about national standards in terms of how one needs to proceed. We currently are developing measurement tools ourselves. We felt that there are no national standards anywhere to be found in the world.
So here we are. We are going to have to develop this ourselves.
A lot of standards are being developed by TESL. Certainly we feel core services need to be provided. I think we just have to get on with it and take a look at what's there and build on that. We can't say what the standards are at this time, but certainly there are core services that need to be provided and standards that need to be developed for that. As I say, we have a current research project on that.
I guess that's basically what I wanted to say. It's evolving. Don't superimpose things from Ottawa down to us without our being involved in the decision-making. I think you'll get the best possible model that way.
Mr. Hooper: I have just a couple of things I'd like to reiterate. First, I think the whole notion of outcomes and national standards is an important one so that there's some agreement with respect to what it is that we expect of our settlement services.
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I'd like to echo something Dr. Kunin said about investment. What I would urge us to do is to consider immigrant youth, both immigrants and refugees, within this whole situation. In my experience, both as a classroom teacher and as an administrator, some of the students for whom we have not provided enough service, for example, are refugee students, many of whom end up in criminal youth gangs and any number of things. Having former students who either were killed or got involved in criminal youth gangs, I've lived through this experience within the school situation. It's important that we make the investment, that we coordinate our services, that we work together so those same students can give something back to our country.
Thank you.
The Chair: Mr. Canton.
Mr. Canton: I have only two things. My opinion is also the opinion of our society. The federal government definitely has a role to play, because immigrants, in whatever province, are Canadians and that is important in what is involved here. I know that we are in British Columbia right now, but our first flag is the Canadian flag, for the reason that we think the federal government has a role to play.
Thinking about what you said about what language to learn, English or French, to learn a new language is a difficult task, especially if you are an adult - possibly one language, English, for immigrants who live on this side of Canada and French for the others. The bilingual way might be for kids who will be the future of this country, but for many of the adults it is difficult - we are not saying it is impossible - to learn the language, especially if you are coming from different countries or you don't have the education or you are a bit old to be a student again and start singing in the teaching of the ESL teachers. With all due respect, we hate that. That's terrible for us. I am an adult, and I would like you to respect me as an adult, not as a kid.
I will only say at the end that you are representatives. Please do not only hear us, but also try to implement our concerns.
The Chair: Ms Bourque. I was about to say Madame Bourque. That's the name of the mayor of Montreal.
Ms Bourque: We Bourques all originated from the same family in the early 1700s.
It's important that the federal government be involved, as this gentleman has said. It is also important that local governments be involved. We are elected school trustees. We are accountable to our electorate every three years. Children are crucial in this equation that we are talking about, but up to now they've essentially been ignored in the whole equation, other than hit or miss. We don't think that's right.
Mr. Nunez may think that immigrants are not well treated now, but let me tell you that they are far better treated and far more accommodated.... There are far more services now than existed in the 1950s, for instance.
There is always a certain amount of resentment towards newcomers. As we can see in Bosnia and Northern Ireland, it doesn't matter whether you happen to be the same colour; if people choose to find differences, then they will do so and make your life hell.
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The point is, though, that we have recognized that this is not right. We recognize that we want to provide services. We want the children who come here to integrate and to be functioning the same as every other child when they graduate - within limits, of course. When you come in at the age of 15, it's pretty hard to catch up to that extent. But we don't want people graduating from high school with no ability to speak English or to get a decent job or whatever. We want to provide those services. We want to provide the settlement needs that child has and we want to provide those settlement needs to the host school, because we have to take a proactive stand against racism.
There are a lot of programs we have to institute to prevent racism from boiling over in our schools. We have to take a proactive stance toward our host community so there isn't resentment. After all, when your population has flipped from 300 ESLs to 10,000 in 5 years, that is a big difference. That's hard to accommodate. I have to say that I think, in our whole lower mainland, we are doing a heck of a good job.
But there are costs to be borne. You're right, it is an investment. Nonetheless, right now it is a cost to the taxpayers, who have declared to us and to you that they don't want their taxes to increase. So we are speaking about limited resources that are available right now.
We are given $950 extra per ESL student to meet their educational needs only. For some of us that's fine, but in other situations sometimes that's not fine, that's not enough money. But for settlement needs, we have to take that from our regular education budget.
Imagine yourself in a population and all of a sudden you get a great influx; other services then end up being cut back because new services have to be provided. At some point in time there's a pull that becomes impossible to accept.
Therefore, we would really appreciate being around the table, no matter whether it's with the federal or provincial government. As a local government, the problems, the successes, and the joys are on our doorstep. We have to handle it, and we want to be at the table so you understand and so our needs are understood.
Those children are your future voters; those children are your future plumbers, electricians, doctors, or whatever. They are forming the future of society, and we have to do our best for them because they are the easiest to accommodate in terms of language training, etc. Because they are children, they are more accommodating. We need to spend more effort on the children and not just assume that because we train adults to speak English, that's somehow going to pass down to children, or that because we provide settlement services for adults, that's somehow going to include the children. It doesn't always; in fact, often it doesn't.
By the way, school districts in the lower mainland provide a crucial service to adults in English language training. I know Richmond has been doing it for the past 15 years and Vancouver has been doing it for longer. Thousands and thousands of adults are trained to speak English in our schools, after hours and during school hours.
We also provide a meeting place for adults and kids, and that's often where adults get a lot of their information. We work with SUCCESS and we work with the Multicultural Concerns Society.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms To.
Ms To: First of all, when we talk about setting up national standards, in fact the focus is on how we view that the federal government will still have to have a role. As you say, that's maybe a consensus we've achieved. But essentially we basically do not want to see the federal government abdicating its responsibility; it still has a very important role to play in ensuring national standards.
We recognize that some provinces, because of a change of government or a change in priorities, may not view immigrant services as a priority, and the federal government has a responsibility to ensure that kind of national standard in setting up what's important for the whole country and for immigrants.
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Second, about the decision-making body, in fact I think we have to differentiate between two things. One is consultation and the other is decision-making. We appreciate this initiative and we think it's very important to have community consultation on a regional basis, with school boards, local community groups, municipal governments, and various stakeholders. It's really important for these groups to be consulted and for them to identify the needs, priorities, and so on. Coordination should be the service delivery model. There are different groups providing different services, and these services have to better coordinated to meet the needs of immigrants.
However, these two issues of service coordination and regional community consultation do not necessarily mean these are the bodies that ultimately can make decisions. They may not necessarily be the most effective way of decision-making.
What we're concerned about is that if you have local groups or committees making decisions, it may be in the hands of lobbyists or prone to political lobbying pressure and maybe biases. What is important for decision-making is that whoever the authorities are who make the decisions, the decisions should be based on expertise, knowledge, objective standards, assessment of the community's needs, priorities. Whoever the service deliverers are and whatever their accountability, credibility, and so on, it should not be subject to just whoever speaks loudest or has most political influence.
That's really important. That's why for the body that's going to make decisions we consider that possibly the provincial government could be considered, but maybe it should be in consultation with the federal government, because it still has a role in setting national standards, in consultation with other funders, as was discussed earlier.
The details should be worked out, but essentially what we're trying to say is that for that decision-making body we should be very careful when we talk about local decision-making or giving it to the community to decide. It's a risk. It should not be subject to lobbyists and political influence. The needs of the immigrants and the service to be delivered to them effectively and accountably are really important.
Ms Norman: What Ms To has just said so eloquently I won't repeat, but I would certainly support all of her comments and those of AMSSA on decision-making as opposed to the consultation process.
What I'd like to talk about a little is the philosophy or model of accountability, not so much specific as an overall framework. As far as I see it, there are three players in accountability, and it's a mutual two-way street between them. They are the funder, be it the federal government or some agency that takes the funds from the federal government, the service provider, and the client. Often we leave the client out of the accountability.
The accountability comes from the top down - from the top to provide an adequate level of funding and to provide basic services from the national or provincial point of view. From the service providers, accountability to the client provides them with a quality service that actually meets their needs and provides them with what they need. So there's accountability that way.
On the reverse side, there's accountability from the client actually to make the most of the service they receive. I'm a language teacher, and nearly 90% of the students come to the class and really put their heart and soul into learning, but there are some who don't, or some who use services without really intending to...in other words, don't warm the seat.
So there's accountability from the client to the service provider, because you cannot hold the language teacher responsible for someone else's language learning. The learner has to take responsibility too, for example. Then there's the responsibility of the service provider to the funder to do what they said they were going to do.
It's important in accountability to look at all three levels - the client, the service provider, and the funder - and to look at their responsibilities to each other and not just to look at it as a one-way street.
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The other thing I'd like to remind you of is that accountability is not just something that can be measured quantitatively. You can say, well, okay, the federal government spent x dollars, therefore they feel good about it. What happened with those dollars? There's quality that we have to consider here. What did those dollars really do? From the service providers' point of view, it's not just the number of bodies they can chalk up on the computer, or yes, we saw 25 people today. What happened to those 25 people? What kind of service was really provided? What was the outcome of that? That's another quality issue.
We can't just count numbers or dollars spent. Sure, that's one way of being accountable, but we really have to look at what happens. What actually happened to those people and to those dollars?
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Canton and Mr. Nunez, and then we'll take a break, if everybody's in agreement.
Mr. Canton: We're talking about learning English. All the teachers, try to understand me, and be kind, please. I'm also a teacher.
For immigrants, it's a big concern when we read in the papers that 40% of the seniors in high schools fail to enter university or college because of lack of knowledge of the English language. My problem is, what happened? Why did that happen? If we are teaching a language to immigrants, what kind of English are we teaching them?
I have a question for which I don't have the answer. Are we really teaching useful language to immigrants that will serve them to get a job?
I have talked with many immigrants. In our society we have people who speak more than 12 languages. I tried to inquire about this, and all of them said that what they receive is important because they can communicate, but for getting a job, for being actors again themselves....
It is very difficult and very painful for us to be on welfare. We are not used to it. In our old countries, you die or survive, but you are not going to knock on any door. Or you have your family who support you. It is very painful for us to receive that money. Of course there are exceptions, because there are people all over the world who are that way, who are very happy receiving that money.
But I think that concern leads us to an evaluation of what we are doing with the teaching of the English or French language to immigrants. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Nunez.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: I would like to answer briefly to Mrs. Bourque. It is a fact that there are now more services for immigrants than there were 40 or 50 years ago. However, there are more problems today than there were 40 or 50 years ago. Integration was easier back then. It is harder nowadays because the economy is in a slump and because most immigrants come from the Third World.
Immigration has not increased relatively speaking because 50 years ago, immigrants represented more or less 16% of the Canadian population. Today, in 1995, it is 17%. In other words, the percentage of immigrants stays the same. Why then are there more problems? It's partly because of integration problems. The Canadian Government and society in general are not doing enough to educate Canadians and to make them aware of the situation.
Some people have said that immigration is a plus, an advantage and I totally agree with them.
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Unfortunately, many Canadians do not share that opinion. Why? That is the question. That is the real issue. Why is there more xenophobia and racism? This is not particular to Canada. The same thing is happening in the United States and in Western Europe.
We have heard a lot of discussions here this morning. Some have said that they're afraid of more federal cuts; their fear is justified. I am a member of the Official Opposition and therefore I have more freedom to talk than my colleagues on the government side. More than half of the federal budget for immigration is paid for by the users. It's a precedent. In other words, immigrants are now paying more and more for services through the new immigration tax among other things. I know people don't like it when I say this, but immigrants will have to pay $975 over and above the $500 they pay to have their applications studied. This is something totally new. But there are more problems than before.
As the Official Opposition critic, I can see that the federal government is turning away from integration and host programs. I don't know whether you share this impression. I take part in consultations and I am thoroughly aware that there will probably be budget cuts to integration and host programs for immigrants.
[English]
The Chair: The last word before we take a break was asked for by Ms Margalit. Please go ahead.
Ms Margalit: I would like to answer some of the questions around accountability. Particularly, we have been talking about standards, what are they and what should they be.
What we have been looking at is what are the values we have around the service we provide, and what are some of the demonstrated performances that we can say meet the value statement, so in doing this we're going to achieve the value that we have?
We have done some of that work at AMSSA, and again we are willing to share that. That's a good starting place.
We can also define some of the services. I have listed a few of them before. We have a list here of about 50 different generalized services I think are basic for immigrants if you're going to settle people into this country.
Then if you ask what the role of the federal government could be in this, it would be to make sure that all the people who are responsible for the settlement of immigrants and their children are at the table, including other departments of the federal government and other departments of the provincial government.
We seem to have one separate little stream called citizenship and immigration money, and everything an immigrant requires has to fit within that context. I think we should make that context larger. We should bring in all the other groups that should be looking at the general adaptation and integration of immigrants over the long haul, and that includes education, employment and all these other departments.
If you look at how much money is spent on immigrants in terms of employment assistance, it's about 2%. If you look at the population they make up of Canada, you're getting a real disproportionate spread of services to a group of people.
So that's the role of the federal government: bring in everybody; make it a larger issue; make it a bit more universal in terms of how you are going to settle and integrate people. That should be based on your standards and your services that you've already defined.
Some questions are concerned about the province and how we involve the province in this. I think we are very concerned that what happened in Quebec doesn't happen in B.C. What we mean by that is that a lot of the money that had been designated to Quebec in terms of immigrant settlement has been redirected to things other than services, and we do not want to see that.
We have received that information from people in Quebec who are delivering that service, so let's be really clear on that.
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We want to make sure that if the money is coming to the province, then it will be given directly to the groups that are providing direct service and not chewed up with administration and all kinds of other things.
We have isolated or encouraged the settlement department of the province because they have done a really good job. We want to make sure, though, that something is in place so that, should a new provincial government come in, the feelings and the biases of that government won't affect the delivery of the settlement services. We want to make sure that those are there regardless of people's biases within the government.
That's all I have to say. Enjoy your break.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms Clancy: Coming out of what you've said - and I want to ask you afterwards about which government departments - just two concepts might come up: an interdepartmental committee that might relate to settlement and/or a federal-provincial advisory committee such as the one that exists now between Justice and the provincial attorneys general on various law reform initiatives, family law, etc. Don't tell me now; we'll take a break.
The Chair: Food for thought.
Thank you. We'll take a 5-minute break.
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PAUSE
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The Chair: I would like everybody to take their places.
I'd like to begin by inviting Ms Catherine Stigant, who is the director of the community liaison branch of the Ministry Responsible for Multiculturalism and Immigration for the Province of British Columbia, to make a few comments.
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Ms Catherine Stigant (A/Director, Community Liaison Branch, Ministry Responsible for Multiculturalism and Immigration, Province of British Columbia): Thank youMrs. Bakopanos. I just want some recognition for pronouncing your name.
The Chair: Thank you. I hope I didn't mispronounce yours, Ms Stigant.
Ms Stigant: I would like to take a couple of moments to go on the record to explain the B.C.-Canada relationship on settlement renewal. British Columbia has agreed, minister to minister, to slowly work on the settlement renewal process in British Columbia and look at British Columbia as a big pilot project, if you will.
We have begun a process. We've had an initial consultation with our community-contracted service providers. The federal and provincial governments have invited people to come to meet with us. We've had four consultations and have explored some themes, values and beliefs around settlement and the opportunities that exist in settlement renewal. We've had facilitators at those sessions. We expect a report by July 15 that will be an initial opening on settlement renewal here in British Columbia on the culture, climate and opportunities.
We anticipate that report, and information from this committee will inform a broader consultation in the fall. At the moment, we anticipate that might be on a community or regional basis and would include all of the service-provider partners with whom we currently work, as well as larger umbrella organizations and local community people from schools, colleges, police, and social service providers. That has yet to be fully planned because we're trying to take this whole process one step at a time, not be presumptuous about what we might hear or learn, and not overstep our bounds on expectations of what should happen next.
We trust that this process will work well for this province. Given that we are the second-highest receiving province in Canada, we get far less than our population share - much less than our immigrant landing share, unlike Quebec, which is currently getting 32% of Canada's budget and less than 18% of Canada's landed immigrants. We in British Columbia feel a great need to make sure the moneys that are spent here are well spent. We feel that by honest and open participation by the community and government participants we will end up, at the end of the day, with some settlement renewal options that make good sense for B.C. residents.
The Chair: Thank you very much for that clarification and information.
Mr. Dobbin: I would like to say something about accountability. I guess as money gets tighter, governments everywhere are more concerned with accountability. They're looking at the results of programs they're funding and trying to determine whether they're really doing what they're supposed to do.
We're involved with a consortium of other community service agencies and another program that provides services to children at risk. Part of that program has an evaluation component related to accountability. Everybody was quite concerned, particularly at first, about how the program was going to be evaluated and whether they would evaluate things fairly. But it has really helped us a lot in terms of looking at we want to accomplish. We've done that by involving the people who are getting the services and bringing them in so they really own the program. They are partners in developing and determining how the programs will be evaluated.
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What Alison was saying earlier was that it's important to look at the issue of accountability and to evaluate programs to see if they're giving the results they're supposed to give for the money that's spent on them. It's important to involve all partners at all levels in that process, particularly the service providers and the clients or the people who are being served.
If you include that as a requirement of a program, an ongoing evaluation component that really comes from the people who are receiving the services as well as the people who are giving them, it helps to keep the program on track. It makes it more effective because as you're going along you keep asking the questions of whether we are doing what we want to be doing and whether we are accomplishing what we set out as our goals for the program.
Again, I think it's key that all players be included in that process and that it be made accessible for the people who are receiving the services. It must be accessible in that they need to be able to easily be part of determining what the evaluation process will be. How is this program going to be evaluated and what are the outcomes we want for this program? That's the only way a true partnership exists.
I think the government's role in that should be one of monitoring that evaluation and perhaps requiring it, but it should come from the service providers and the people being served.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms Blackman.
Ms Blackman: I just have a comment about the clients. One of the problems we run into with ISAP and LINC is that they're sort of application-driven as an agency and not driven by what the clients need. They have eligibility rules that eliminate a lot of people who desperately need those services. Particularly with LINC, we have a lot of clients in our area who have been here for the three years, have their citizenship, and are not eligible for LINC, but they do not have a functioning level of English. It's been extremely difficult.
I hope that when we're in this renewal process we might look at some of these issues and see what kinds of changes, if any, we can make to some of the existing programs.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. McMichael.
Mr. McMichael: If you like, TESL Canada can help this committee set up consultations with clients. We have a track record of doing this. Our learners' conferences, of which we've had three, have involved the learners directly in the establishment of the language benchmarks, in our case. So we have done this, we know how to do it, and if you would like to meet the people who are the end recipients of our services we'd be very happy to help you set that up. We have mechanisms and we've done this; you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Second is another topic, but I wanted to be sure this question was asked at some point. What is the best way to communicate with your committee once you're gone? Through you or through -
The Chair: Through any of us, first of all, but especially through the clerk of the standing committee - Pat and Christine are here - or through your MP.
Mr. McMichael: Or through Anna?
The Chair: Yes, Anna is a full member of the committee also.
Mr. McMichael: If we send you something, you promise to pass it along to everyone?
The Chair: Yes, we will table it and Anna will table it. It depends if she agrees with it.
Mrs. Terrana: No, I promise.
Mr. McMichael: It also occurs to me that this particular collection of people doesn't get together very often either. Is there a way we can communicate with each other, perhaps through your office? Do you keep a listing of who attends these meetings and is that available to the participants?
The Chair: This is public record. It's being registered. If you want, you can have access to the list of everyone who is here today through the clerk of the standing committee. Any copies of the minutes are also available through the Internet to anyone who wants them.
Mr. McMichael: Through the Internet also?
The Chair: Yes. If you're plugged in you can have access to any committee hearings in the House of Commons, for that matter. You can request the documentation directly from the clerk or, as I said, from Anna, from me, or any one of us.
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What I'd like to say, and I was going to say it at the end of the wrap-up - is that if anyone feels - and I hope you do - we have had some consensus, write down some recommendations based along those lines or even for areas where we have had no consensus. Perhaps your opinion is different from those of the others sitting around the table today. I wouldn't mind having perhaps three or four recommendations you would like to make to the committee.
Eventually we're going to go back to the House of Commons, at the end of September after doing this consultation across Canada. If there are more organizations or non-governmental bodies or individuals who want to come before the committee, we will also hear them. Then we will prepare our report for the House of Commons and for the minister, which will be tabled at the end of September or in early October. We'll see what happens after that.
We hope to have some concrete recommendations for the minister. I'll give an example. I said it earlier. What role should the federal government play? I think there's agreement that the federal government should play a role, even if we turn over all the money to whatever body, whether it be provincial, municipal or whatever.
And how do we set those standards? There were some comments made about accountability. Ms Norman's comments about benchmarks were very pertinent in terms of accountability. Those are the sorts of recommendations we're looking for in order to be able to offer some concrete recommendations to the minister and to the other members of the House of Commons.
Mr. Nunez.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: I would like to give a brief answer to some of the comments that have been made today. It has been said that Quebec is not using the federal funds as intended, that there has been a misappropriation of funds.
I would like to be able to tell you that Quebec must do much more and much better. However, I also have to tell you that Quebec and Canada have signed an agreement and that that agreement is enforced scrupulously, from what I have been told. Otherwise, the federal government would have denounced it.
Secondly, Quebec is the only province with a ministry of immigration.
Third, Quebec is responsible for its immigration because it is a joint jurisdiction between the federal and provincial governments according to the Constitution of Canada. Indeed, Quebec not only deals with reception and integration, as you are doing, but is also screening its immigrants and that is very expensive.
There also are joint Canada-Quebec committees which monitor the implementation of the agreement and, up until now, I have never heard any criticism about that. I think it mainly my colleagues from the Reform Party who have put that idea forward here in Parliament, in Ottawa. I hope that the province of Quebec will answer something.
Integration and reception cost a lot more in Quebec than in British Columbia or Ontario. The majority of people coming to this country are mostly anglophones. The proportion of French-speaking people who go to Quebec is very low. Those who come here want to get integrated into the anglophone culture because it is the dominant culture in North America, and it is very difficult and very costly to convince them to integrate into the francophone culture and to learn French. It is a terrible problem in Quebec. I have personally lived with it for 21 years.
There is also the fact that Quebec is a distinct society. There are more than six million inhabitants in that province, which has a different civil code, traditions, a different history, etc. It creates enormous problems. So the costs of integrating and receiving immigrants are much higher than in the rest of Canada. I had to say so.
Moreover, Quebec is much poorer than British Columbia per capita. Finally, I would like to ask you a question if you have time to answer it.
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You have said a few things, for example, about accountability. Could you explain to us what your obligations are towards the funding organizations? Is it more severe for the federal government than for United Way for example? What evaluation criteria are you using now? I would like a few answers if possible.
[English]
Dr. Anderson.
Dr. Anderson: I'd like to return to the discussion on the role of the federal government in setting national standards. Any kind of advisory council has to have a very large number of users or a very large proportion of users within the council. These are the people who know what their needs are.
We know what we provide. We don't necessarily know how well we provide it and how well people get on, because the evaluation and accountability end of our services is probably the weakest link in what we do at this point.
I think we need to hear from those who know what they need. As providers we need to be able to have a forum for making sure that what we are giving is meeting those needs, and we need to have an evaluation process in place.
In terms of being the providers, whether the funding comes from the province or comes from the federal government to the provinces or the municipalities, I think we have to be very careful to have an infrastructure that is not going to cost more than the current one. Part of accountability would be that administrative costs would not be more than a certain percentage. I think that has to be worked out in whatever agreements are reached.
Obviously, if we use existing infrastructures that should cost less. Maybe it isn't obvious. Maybe existing infrastructures will need more full-time equivalent staff in order to carry out the functions. I think we have to look at that very carefully.
You've asked about the program in terms of employment and language programs and whether these should be continued. Certainly, from our perspective in the City of Vancouver, those three areas of housing, employment, and acquisition of the dominant language, whether it's French - if that's going to be the official language one chooses in Quebec - or English, come out on top over and over again.
Once those are in place, I think the other kinds of services and changes we need in our society in order to facilitate adaptation and integration can be worked out between NGOs and municipalities with the help of the provinces. But I think those core programs definitely have to be sustained and have to be increased where there are gaps.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms Nann.
Ms Nann: I'm currently attending a Canadian social welfare conference at UBC. Last night there was a keynote speaker who talked in terms of the devolution of the social welfare services that is occurring. She sees the change and renewal process being driven by the non-profit sector agencies. She feels that there's more creativity there and that the community is being asked to play a larger role, so there would be a much stronger partnership involving government, the private business sector, and the non-profit sector.
I have worked in the non-profit sector most of my professional life and I truly believe that creativity does come from the community members. They're closer to where the needs are, they're freer to experiment and a good deal of work gets done by volunteers.
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However, for this sector to be able to do its job - and I think this also applies to the field of settlement services, which has basically been developed by the community and was done by the community before the government ever got into this business, really only quite recently - I think it's critical, if we see this major role for the NGOs, that there be sufficient funding provided to strengthen those NGOs so that there is core funding support and they're not forever scrambling to survive, which all of us do now. I know there is the national voluntary program, and perhaps one needs to begin to look at how that might be focusing in on the settlement services sector and, generally, the social services sector - which we, of course, see immigrant services as part of - to provide stability to these NGOs to be able to carry on that important work, especially at this time.
There is just so much going on for us. Thank God we have Ita working with us for a fifth time, paid for by the provincial government. I don't know how we could have produced the discussion papers that we have without her. The kind of extra work we've had to take on with the renewal process is just unbelievable, and it involves both of us for a good chunk of the time. Who's paying for us to be here to do all of this work?
We have the volunteers who are working along with us, but there has to be some core staff to work with the volunteers in order for them to make the contribution. We have 24 resettlement service agencies that are part of this network, and a large part of the work that Ita does involves coordinating their input. We're sending documents back and forth and having meetings.
We're happy to do this work, but please provide us with some core funding so we can continue to work with the extensive network that we have, because we not only coordinate the 24 immigrant service agencies, but these documents go out to our entire network of 79 agencies. The multicultural organizations get it as well, and those that are not directly providing multicultural immigrant services, that are part of our network, like SPC, the Social Planning Council, also get it.
So we're building support for immigration and the immigrant service program throughout our constituency. In the Vancouver Multicultural Society, of which Anna Terrana was past-president, there are 142 ethnocultural groups that are members. So if we can have the staff in order to be able to work with our extensive network....
You've built a huge, critical mass of support for immigration as well, and I think part of the problem of the current backlash is that the public education hasn't been able to be done because we just don't have the resources to do it. We have a network, but we just don't have the person power to be able to continue to inform and to work with this extensive network we have.
The Chair: Ms Margalit.
Ms Margalit: Committee member Nunez brought up a really interesting question when he asked about what kinds of accountability practices are in place right now and what's going on; I think it's important to look at that. Right now agencies are accountable in many ways to many different funders, through a variety of evaluation forms that often don't measure what we are actually doing, that don't provide information that's useful for us to be able to change our programs to be able to meet the needs of the immigrants and refugees who come to us.
The federal government has consistently had monitoring practices or contracting practices that are very extensive and provide very little information that is at all useful to us. SMIS is a very good example, which I'm sure you've heard about already, where it costs more to implement it.... It's just taking so much of our time away from the provision of services. It's a crazy system.
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that we need to know what you must know, and we need to negotiate. What do we need to know about the services we provide and what do you need to know to make sure it's accountable? Let's negotiate something together that reflects all of our needs.
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I gave an example that if someone was coming to paint my house, I wouldn't ask them the size of their brush or the size of their ladder. I wouldn't expect all this kind of information from them; I would just give them the contract to paint my house. I would look at it and say, I don't like that, change that, or I would say, great job, well done, and pay them the money.
What's happening now is that too many decisions are made - and that's what's costing a lot of money in the federal government. You need to know too much about too many things. I wonder what the bottom line for this is. We don't understand it and it's not helping us in delivering the service we want to provide.
So include us. Let's get together and come up with a system that works better.
The Chair: Ms To.
Ms To: I would just ask a question. First, when the question of accountability comes up, I think there are two main aspects. One is that when we're funded.... Actually, the funds for the community-delivered services don't come only from the federal government; it's the provincial government, municipal government and also community donations. In our agency, 40% of what we do is funded by the community. Essentially, we have to be accountable to the funders as well as to the communities that actually support us.
The first question that's asked is how do we ensure that the money is spent as we say it is going to be spent? How do we ensure that it's well managed and cost-effective? That relates a lot to how the money is used and to the financial management system. It relates to the cost factors.
The second question is are we achieving the goals we set out to achieve, that we profess we want to achieve, and then how do we measure that we have actually achieved that?
These two questions relate, number one, to financial management, control and administration, and number two, to service delivery, how effective it is.
In the Immigrant Services Coordinating Committee, in fact, for the past three years, we have tried to set up some sort of uniform model of evaluation that would be applicable for all the immigrant-serving agencies. We have provincial government support for this initiative to try to identify the values, the standards, the core - what we mean by immigrant integration and how to measure the effectiveness of these programs.
So we're doing it, and agencies have worked on different models of trying to ensure accountability. With Peat Marwick we have worked out a financial management system that is consistently being reviewed to ensure, because of the large budgets some of our agencies have, that the money is well controlled, well managed and well administered. It's this kind of system that ensures cost-effectiveness.
Second, in terms of service delivery, I know that agencies such as ours and some other immigrant service agencies have set up quality assurance programs to ensure that the standards are met, that they're monitored. We have surveyed clients, and there are also client advisory committees that sometimes have input into the programs. So these are some of the measures we use.
However, going back to what Ita was saying earlier, in spite of some of these measures and initiatives that some of the agencies are trying in order to ensure accountability, sometimes there are difficulties in terms of fitting into the criteria of the funders. What this means is that sometimes what the funders require may or may not fit in with what we feel are the community priorities and needs.
Ita mentioned earlier the example of the SMIS program, where the report basically focused more on quantitative measurements rather than qualitative service delivery, which we find may not necessarily be the most cost-effective way of accountability. Although you do need to find out the number of people you have served, that's only one part of the total picture of accountability.
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To conclude, we need more partnership between the agencies and the funders to work out a model that's applicable to both.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms Clancy.
Ms Clancy: I'm going to move this back briefly to the broader topic. Your comments just now and some other this morning and today used the term ``backlash''. It's important to look at what I think may be more a perceived backlash, at least in the national context, than real. I'd like to hear from you about this, because in the big consultation leading up to last year's announcement, the minister and I divided the country and we each did eight public meetings, sixteen in total, across the country. He did Vancouver - he did the big cities; that's why he's the minister. But I went to eight centres across the country. I did not do Quebec and I didn't do Saskatchewan.
Mr. Nunez: Why?
Ms Clancy: Because you were there, Osvaldo, trying to rip it out from his heart.
Anyway, I did all the other provinces. I suppose the largest single city was probably Hamilton or Winnipeg - I don't know which one's bigger. Only in one place, which shall go nameless - but Paddy Torsney's the MP - did I get a really bad response on immigration. With the greatest of respect to the gentlemen in the room, it was all by elderly English-speaking males with accents of a colonial base. That's my Irish influence coming in here.
Everywhere else - and these were public meetings; it wasn't just NGOs and stakeholders, it was members of the public - there were concerns, yes. There were concerns around the questions of cost, jobs - the issue that all of us fight all the time, about whether immigrants take jobs, when we all know that the worst-case scenario is neutral and the best-case scenario is job creating.
Am I wrong? Do you think there is more backlash in one area than in another, or is it part and parcel of a special agenda of certain groups of people?
Ms Nann: Well, I think it's part of the Reform agenda in terms of -
Ms Clancy: Gee, I wonder why you said that.
Ms Nann: - moving back to a country that was and not recognizing the fact that these are changing times and that we do have a multicultural act in place. I think the backlash is linked to multiculturalism and the fact that minority groups and newcomers are now being assured equity, or attempts are being made to respect their diversity.
I'm a third-generation Canadian of Chinese descent. For my grandmother's generation and for my parents there was no expectation that immigrants would integrate. I was raised in an ethnic ghetto in Chinatown. Most of my social life took place there. I went to Chinese school every day after school and I really felt like a second-class citizen. It wasn't until the multicultural policy came into place that we began to see the emergence of immigrant services that are tailored to immigrant needs and also multicultural programs that look at respecting diversity.
The different kinds of expectations now on the part of newcomers coming in and minorities are part of that whole backlash to diversity. Yes, there is a growing backlash.
Ms Clancy: There are two things that I think we sometimes forget in the waves of immigration and integration. Can I tell you that feeling like a second-class citizen in Vancouver as a Canadian of Chinese descent, when you were growing up.... My mother felt exactly the same way in Halifax in the 1930s and 1940s as a fifth-generation Irish Catholic, because she moved from the place where her family had lived for five generations to a city that was essentially English and Protestant.
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So it may be more everybody's experience, then, in a changing society, and I appreciate your comments. But I still ask you today, is the backlash we're told about - and agendas of individual political parties or whatever aside - really there or is it being pushed?
My perception is that the majority of Canadians - and I appreciate what you said about the time for education - when faced with the real truth of immigration, are accepting. From the nation-wide consultation and from all the work I have been doing in immigration over the last 16 months, I saw that more Canadians are tolerant than not.
I would like to know what your experience is on that, what you really think.
The Chair: Mr. McMichael.
Mr. McMichael: I have a point of information to Mr. Nunez's query about the United Way and how it evaluates its applications.
I happen to be a bridge coordinator at the University of British Columbia 1995 campaign, and I have the bible for the campaign right here. It's interesting. We are talking the same language, and I'll just read what it says:
- The United Way believes that member agencies are in the best position to ensure their own
accountability to clients, donors, members and the community. United Way's role is to assist
the agencies in doing this.
- assist agencies to improve their service delivery, management, fiscal development, board
development, and organizational problem-solving.
- United Way needs ongoing feedback from agencies on emerging community needs, changing
financial requirements, shifts in program delivery, emerging organizational challenges.
There is a series of supplementary criteria, which I will be glad to share with you directly.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms Margalit.
Ms Margalit: We've had some really tangible recorded incidents of backlash, if you want to call it that, particularly with the administration of government funds. When you have local MPs here sending back money that's targeted to a program - Reform MPs, excuse me - because they don't agree with the idea of that program.... They are willing to send back money that is designated to use, because while these programs were supposedly in the non-profit sector...and we all know there are no jobs in the non-profit sector, so we're sending back the money.
We have people who are against immigration -
Ms Clancy: We are overriding that. That happened in my province too, and we overrode it.
Ms Margalit: Are you talking about the one in North Vancouver? In my understanding it wasn't -
Ms Clancy: No, ours was overridden.
Ms Margalit: Yours was overridden, but basically it was because you told that MP they would lose the money. This other MP in North Vancouver said, fine, take it away, we don't want it.
Mrs. Terrana: Yes, but they got it back.
Ms Margalit: Okay. Well, it's just an example of the situation.
Ms Clancy: Just let us know.
Ms Margalit: The other issue is tolerance. I took those questions that were developed across Canada and I have been putting it to my.... I teach an immigration settlement training program and I teach the program on the history of immigration and settlement. These are all people who are going to be working in the settlement field.
They looked at those questions and one of the first comments they had was, what do you mean, ``tolerance''? They challenged the questions themselves as slightly intolerant, as slightly insulting to them, and feeling that from the way you ask these questions there is already an assumption that immigrants are a drain. There is already some of these assumptions in the basic questions.
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So I just put that out to you, that those questions themselves were not necessarily -
Ms Clancy: [Inaudible - Editor]. What I'm trying to get at.... Believe me, I don't think the Department of Immigration is perfect. I don't even think the minister and the parliamentary secretary are perfect - but close. But sometimes it's hard to find the right words to get at what we're trying to get at. But what I'm saying is that when I come to Vancouver - and this is probably my fourth time here in the last six months - I hear from service providers and from the immigration bar this real fear of a backlash. Believe me, no one is more concerned about a backlash than I am. But what I'm asking you is: from your experience, do you think that the majority of the people who live in the lower mainland are anti-immigrant?
Ms Margalit: I couldn't say that for a fact. But I could say that many immigrants in the lower mainland experience prejudicial treatment and some outright racism, particularly in Surrey and some of the schools. It does exist. I think in the schools if you ask for specific incidents you'll find some of that as well.
When I talk to people I know, or friends who are not in this industry, they say things such as ``My kids aren't getting enough teaching time because of all those ESL kids.'' There's a concern that people are getting less because of the presence of immigrants. Whether or not that's intolerance, they do have that concern. They see it as a problem and they see that there's less of the pie for them.
Ms Clancy: I'll say one final thing and then I'll drop it.
The Chair: Because we're getting off topic.
Ms Clancy: Well, it's not, because it relates to settlement, I think, very strongly and it relates to the way we allocate funds.
The one thing I will say is that is I hear exactly the same thing as it relates to the indigenous black community in Nova Scotia, which has been in Nova Scotia since 1750. So maybe what we're dealing with is racism and prejudice that is not just peculiar to immigrants. It doesn't make it any less pernicious, but maybe we should be looking at something as a widespread response.
The Chair: I have Mr. Dobbin on the list next.
Mr. Dobbin: I think this issue of backlash is relevant to the discussion. I think that the amount of backlash is exaggerated by people with political agendas. I think they can potentiate it by the concern these days on tightening financial belts. So they can use that concern as a kind of catalyst for their own political agenda to exaggerate the backlash against immigrants in the community. That's done in other ways as well with health and other issues.
But I believe that does happen here, and I think it shows us the need for the federal government to be involved at some level to ensure some basic services throughout the country, because political parties come and go, including federal ones. But if the services are in place and have been put in place through a process of consultation, I think it would be much harder to eliminate them.
I think language and employment services should be among the basic services for new immigrants. Also, in order to address this backlash issue and to counteract it to a certain extent - because, real or imagined, it is there and it's in the news - there should be a public education component to the basic services for immigrants.
The Chair: Dr. Anderson.
Dr. Anderson: In terms of the authority that might be transferred to the province from the federal government, I think it's important to take into account that refugee claimants have never come under the authority of the province. While we around the table have talked about this as a group whose settlement needs have not been met, I think that even the little bit that we can get....
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For example, I work at a clinic where there's a settlement worker provided by the immigrant services society to help in the settlement around health issues for the newcomers we serve. So there's a collaboration there with settlement. That worker works with refugees who have landed status as well as those who do not have status. We need to keep that in mind in order to have a safeguard that the province will then ensure that some of these services will be continued or increased for the refugee population. I know with transfer payments and health that you have some kind of a way, that you have some leverage there. You have to make sure there's some kind of safeguard in place that provinces will have to follow to get their funding.
Now I have another point around how long to integrate. This question keeps coming up again and again.
Integration, as we've said, is not a one-way process; it's a two-way adaptation. People can be fifth generation and not accepted into the society. Where is the adaptation in such cases? Where is the integration when the barrier continues to be there in society?
In terms of the length of time, we cannot separate that from racism or from the other services that need to be provided in collaboration with the core services. We will have to address that. Again, I think it goes back to collaborating not only between different ministries, departments, and service organizations, whether they be governmental, non-governmental...that it's with the user again.
I want to give some concrete examples of what we have done in the city of Vancouver that address the length of integration.
There are many women in Vancouver from the Asian and south Asian communities. It was noted that they were having double the increase of mortality from cervical cancer. This came out first from the Asian community noticing it, then there was success working with different groups in the city, including the city health department, to put into place a culturally sensitive clinic to do the pap smears for this group of women, and similarly for the south Asian women. That's a concrete example of how different agencies and groups in government can work together to provide a service for immigrant women.
It may be that there are immigrant women whose grandparents immigrated. They may have immigrated themselves within the last one or two years. We don't distinguish that. But if they don't feel fully comfortable going to the usual service providers for this, then that need still has to be addressed. We shouldn't be having mortality rates that are double for any group of women. That's a concrete example.
The other example is the work in education with the Oakridge Reception and Orientation Centre. The school board and the health department put together a reception centre that doesn't only look at the need for English in the classroom for the children who come through there, but asks what their developmental status and health care needs are. We then work together so that the health services we provide are for those children in the same way that the English will be provided in the classroom. We collaborate, so it's not directly settlement; we are working together in these settlement issues.
Those are just a couple of examples. There are more, but I won't go on. There are examples that address length of stays. I think the flexibility can come down to a regional level as long as the values and goals are maintained on a national level. We need to be accountable in our programs....
For example, I don't care how long a woman has been here, even if she's been here ten years. Most of the people we provide service for in terms of programs targeted to newcomers have been here less than a year: 70% of people at one place I worked. Another 30% had been here 2, 3, 5 or 10 years. It's a matter of readiness.
Some women we see have been in the home for 10 years raising their children and are now ready to enter a language program, but they no longer qualify for funding to do that. Our funding formula has to allow for the readiness of the client.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Anderson.
Ms Norman.
Ms Norman: Actually, Mr. Dobbin very eloquently expressed what I wanted to say in terms of the backlash. I think it really is a political agenda and it concerns me deeply about this province. That's why it is relevant to the whole issue of national standards. There have to be some safeguards across this country so that when governments change and agendas change there is still a national standard of service.
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The Chair: Mr. Canton.
Mr. Canton: In our opinion, as we said before, we are concerned about the campaign against immigrants. It's a growing campaign, and we think it's all over Canada, not only here.
We have other concerns. We are talking a lot about immigrant women. What happened with immigrant men? Are there no problems for them? There is a discrimination. What happened? We are talking about problems with family violence. In that part, there are two people. Usually we are concerned about the women. How about the men?
When we are immigrants we feel like second-class people, because you lucky Canadians don't have the possibility of having to go to the immigration office to try to get your papers to be a Canadian, to be a landed immigrant, and we don't feel well over there. That's the reason we are concerned and we are feeling that way.
Also, there are social programs for Canadians. Those programs are different from the one that exists for immigrants. We would like to see the balance between those programs more conserved for the immigrants.
I would like to share with you very briefly what happened to me and what happened only last week to a person who entered a university here. I got my PhD in Mexico City in communications, and my Bachelor of Science in my old country, Chile. When I arrived to get my masters here in Canada, the first question the dean asked me is how much I paid for my degree. I was insulted and I was really angry, but I couldn't say a word because first I had to receive the green light to start my masters degree. That situation is repeated over and over again.
Two weeks ago another fellow who has academic degrees outside of Canada suffered exactly the same thing. The situation is being repeated all the time. I think it is not possible to continue accepting that. That's the reason I said that we are concerned about this campaign against immigrants.
The Chair: Ms To.
Ms To: Getting back to this question of backlash, I think the Angus Reid survey has indicated an increasing intolerance against immigrants. It may be superficial; however, I think there is one point that is quite clear from some of the polls. The intolerance seems to be directed more against visible minorities, partly because of the increasing number of visible minorities from Asia-Pacific countries coming to this country. That was from some of the polls that were recently released.
The Angus Reid poll recently has indicated the increasing level of intolerance. There was another survey done, I think it was last year -
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Ms Clancy: Ms To, if I might ask, where's the polling done? These aren't nationwide polls.
Ms To: I think it was national.
Ms Clancy: I'm talking about the Angus Reid poll.
Ms To: I could give you a copy of the report.
Ms Clancy: Are you sure? That's not my information. I'll take your point, anyway.
Ms To: Okay. This is a report that maybe I could show you about that research. However, what I'm saying is, as was indicated earlier, maybe by you, I don't know whether it is necessarily an issue of immigrants per se or whether it is more an issue of racism.
In the greater Vancouver area, as recently as last week, there were incidents of hate - hate literature was part of it, and vandalism, with the cars of some recent immigrants being damaged, demolished, in a Burnaby neighbourhood, and some notes written saying you should go back to China, and that sort of thing. There were a few incidents actually happening in that neighbourhood alone. We've certainly had reports from our clients of some people playing t'ai chi in the park and people throwing stones at them and yelling that they should go back, that sort of thing.
There are incidents, but we haven't measured the extent of it. It's not every day. I can't say the extent, but it has happened.
In fact, it's a little more tense in the Richmond area where there's a large concentration, for example, of Chinese residents. The Richmond News has had a lot of negative correspondence from readers and so on, and coverage of very negative sentiments against immigrants, a lot of complaints and everything, and talking also about that being...what is it called, a solitude? It's like two lonely solitudes, like the Chinese and the reds kind of thing. I mean, that's happening. That's some kind of a sentiment. We don't know; we can't really measure the extent of it.
There are certainly other groups working very hard in dealing with hate literature, in combating racism and so on. That's also community movement, which is encouraging.
What I'm trying to say, though, is that I think we don't exactly know how much to believe those polls. I want to say that it's still very important for the government to enforce, to uphold, the legislation you've enacted, such as the legislation of multiculturalism, the act of multiculturalism, which basically focuses on improving race relations and on improving equality of opportunity. It's really important in spite of the backlash against multiculturalism. It's still very important for the government to enforce that, the human rights legislation and the Employment Equity Act, which also has a lot of backlash against it, such as is happening in Ontario with the new government, and so on.
But unless there are some legislative assurances and unless there's a lot of community efforts, the government still has to encourage through your multiculturalism program. In fact, what it has done is try to encourage community input initiatives to combat racism. I think these still have to be in place.
I don't think we should just sit back and be complacent - that is what he was saying - using that as a way of dealing with funding cuts or changing legislation. I think the government still has an important role to play.
The Chair: Mr. Nunez.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: We have heard very interesting presentations. Mrs. To told us that her organization involves the clients in program assessment. That is wonderful. Normally, they're the ones who can best assess whether the programs answer the needs or not. I congratulate you.
Concerning United Way, you have very valid criteria. I can see that you are very concerned about the way new immigrants are dealt with and about their integration. In Quebec its called Centraide. As far as I know they do not fund many programs. I think that's fine.
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Today, these problems of integration are even worse in the case of the refugees. As I understand - I find that surprising - , no organization deals specifically with refugees in British Columbia.
When the minister decided to re-establish the work permit for refugees, as the critic of the Official Opposition, I congratulated him. I think it's an excellent decision. But I do not understand why refugees are not allowed to take language training. I find that very strange. That is the next question I will ask the minister. Why on earth are they not allowed to get language training? To establish the refugee status, it sometimes takes months and even years.
Concerning the refugees, I do not know whether Ontario has the same problem as Quebec. I have received several letters from people who had been granted refugee status, but who cannot bring in their family, their children or their spouse because they cannot pay the immigration tax. That is going to make integration much more difficult. Integration is impossible when you're alone, without your family. They have to wait one year, two years and even three years at times.
In Toronto, for example, I am in contact with certain organizations such as the Comité inter-Églises pour les réfugiés, and they are extremely concerned. The churches do a tremendous job. I support them when I can.
If the federal government requires a special identity card for immigrants, it will make integration even more difficult because it will create a distinction between the immigrants and the rest of the population. They, and in particular the refugees, will be considered as a burden for society. We're coming to that.
I would like to hear that there will not be a special identification card for the immigrants.
Refugees face huge problems. You only have to look at the tremendous traumas suffered by those women who come from Bosnia. In Toronto, a centre for the treatment of victims of torture has been opened because of the large number of refugees from Latin America. Psychologists, doctors, psychiatrists have treated refugees who had to deal with incredible problems.
You have a lot of work to do here, and I congratulate you again, but I think more effort should be focused on the refugees.
[English]
Ms Nann: Regarding the needs of refugees, our agencies deal with both immigrants and refugees, so they are not necessarily separated out in our work. There is an organization called VAST, the Vancouver Association for Survivors of Torture. So it's not that there isn't a focus of attention on refugee needs here - there is - but our agencies deal with both. There are just not specialized organizations that deal with it, aside from VAST.
Oh yes, there is the Inland Refugee Society and the health clinics.
Dr. Anderson: The Inland Refugee Society is funded with $100,000 a year, approximately. So we have this, but we don't have settlement issues per se for the number of refugees we get.
In Canada last year I believe there were 18,000 refugees. Between 28,000 and 32,000 were planned for, but there really have been only 18,000 in terms of what can see as the numbers currently. Of that, we probably end up getting at least a quarter of the refugees to Canada in Vancouver. Even if their claim is made or they enter elsewhere, very often the migration brings people to B.C.
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So we have service organizations and umbrella organizations like AMSSA and the Vancouver Health Department. We certainly do not discriminate on the basis of that, but there's no set funder for refugee settlement issues per se. That's where the problem is.
VAST, the Vancouver Association for Survivors of Torture, and we ourselves find that until one's refugee status is assured or one's landed immigrant status is assured, it's very hard for people to get on with the business of taking care of the psychological repercussions of torture, let alone the physical. So all of that is delayed until their status and housing and very often language as well.... That's further down the road, that part of it.
The Chair: Thank you.
Did you want to add anything, Ms Nann?
Ms Nann: I just wanted to finish off and comment on the backlash. It looks as if it's just a political agenda, but there wouldn't be any support for that political agenda in the public unless there's a significant critical mass to support it. So I think it's real.
Here there are issues of youth gangs and mobster houses that are being used by Asian immigrants. All kinds of stereotypes have been developed. Even at UBC there's a complaint that a large proportion of the Asian students are taking the top honours. There's a lot of resentment as a result of that.
Ms Clancy: Why? They want them to be stupid; is that the idea?
Ms Nann: It's just that the established population is not used to that kind of competition and there's a great deal of resentment. There's intense competition now to have those seats at the university.
We just had a youth forum with 34 high schools last fall. There's a great deal of tension in the schools as a result of the changing cultural demographics. Of course, there are many more visible minority immigrants coming to the country now with a different cultural heritage from that of the established population. I think people are just afraid of change and they don't know what this means for them. So I think there really needs to be a great deal of focus on this whole area of the two-way process of integration and a focus on intercultural relations.
Also, there should be a focus on helping newcomers to understand multiculturalism as well. A lot of our newcomers come from societies that are unicultural or are not accustomed to the diversity here. I think we all need that kind of preparation. There's no cultural community that has a corner on racism. We've all been socialized that way, including the Chinese community, which is not used to dealing a lot with different cultures.
So the immigration is bringing in a significantly larger number who don't have that European-based culture, which is -
Ms Clancy: Which is not so great either.
Ms Nann: Yes, but that's been the dominant cultural community, and they are the ones who are feeling very uncomfortable. Many of them are friends of mine - I've grown up with them - and they're asking me questions. These are people who I thought of as being very liberal-minded, but they're very uncomfortable with the change, and I think that's what we're seeing.
I think there are a lot of people who are sitting on the fence. With some education perhaps and certainly with more intercultural exchange and addressing those kinds of issues, we can get on top of this one, but we've opened a Pandora's box in terms of multiculturalism and now it's a question of how we deal with this.
I think it's challenging us. I see this as a positive change, but it's just that change is extremely difficult for most people. They don't see it as an opportunity for them to grow and enrich themselves.
Ms Bourque: I've been sitting back doing a lot of listening this afternoon and I have just one comment before I must leave, unfortunately.
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I've heard a lot of comments this afternoon about standards, the need for national standards, creation and implementation of standards, programs, programming, evaluation, consultation as a process, the need for public awareness, and the creation of a much stronger two-way process by having clients more thoroughly involved in identifying needs. When I listen to all of those statements, which I have heard repeatedly this afternoon, they say to me that there is a heightened need to perhaps proceed more slowly and to do the planning of the who and the how in an upfront way, rather than speeding along on a track, as we are all sometimes inclined to do, and trying to do the patching after the fact.
Ms Clancy: I guess one of the things I'd ask about the response out here...and I am not necessarily saying it's peculiar to this part of the country, even though that's where the majority of that political agenda is coming from.
I think we saw some representatives of school boards. I don't know if we have anybody from the provincial department of education. I'll put this to them. Is anything being done to address this through the education system? You talked earlier about the need for education and the fact that you are overstressed, as is anybody in your kind of work these days.
As a federal government, we have a problem in that we get our knuckles rapped if we get too far into education. Let's face it, the best place to start this kind of education is at the earliest level in the schools. I wonder if either the school boards or the provincial department of education has programs to deal with this and to combat this.
I do know that in Nova Scotia, for example, the connections and the echoes are so strong on the ugly face of racism. In my part of the world, we have an unemployment rate of 27%. I don't know why immigrants are necessarily beating a path to our door. As I said, we do have the largest indigenous Afro-Canadian population of any city in the country. It's the same thing; it's just in a different guise. I wonder if immigration might almost not be.... It's really the bridge; the racism is there and is innate.
I wonder if the schools are addressing this.
The Chair: Perhaps Mr. Hooper would like to answer the question. Mark, did you also want to answer? I'll start with Mr. Hooper.
Mr. Hooper: Thank you.
Look at the Vancouver School Board, for example, where the majority of our learners speak another language at home. I am not sure if you heard this earlier, but each year we receive about 6,000 new students who have limited English.
The school board, in consultation with the province, has implemented a number of things. For example, we have the SEED program, which essentially looks at how to integrate different perspectives in history rather than using only some European ones. It includes looking at a first nations approach or looking at things from the perspective of an eastern civilization rather than only that of a western one. The school board also offers something we call Queen's Harbour Institute, where we have simulations to deal with issues around racism, gender issues, ability and so on.
I think what you're seeing in the lower mainland is something that's particular to what we are experiencing. Probably 80% of the immigration is right here. The intensity has really been turned up, and I think that's part of the equation we have to look at.
Within particular schools, the dominant language that you'll often hear is Cantonese or Mandarin. The average age of our teachers is 50, and for anyone at that age level, no harm intended.... When many of these teachers did their teacher training, it was basically a unilingual, monocultural school system. Now they are faced with incredible change. I think a lot of teachers wouldn't say anything, but now they are feeling a bit freer to at least say they find this really a huge challenge because it affects how they teach within their classrooms.
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We offer programs, certainly at the school board, on anti-racism, multiculturalism, fostering respect for linguistic diversity, and looking at ways, through counsellors, to develop programs, friendship clubs and so on.
But it's is an enormous issue. It touches everything, and it is complex. In my earlier comments I was talking about that two-way street of integration and what we're doing to support new immigrant youth within our system. But we also need to say to teachers, for example, and administrators that this has been a huge change.
We haven't acknowledged that in many cases. We've just said, as my father used to say to me, that it doesn't hurt and that we should just get on with it. I think teachers and other support staff within the school system need some time to learn some new strategies. They need to feel supported.
Many of these programs are in place right now, but we need more. We need to look at the role of UBC teacher training. They are not necessarily getting all the skills at UBC for new teachers to teach within our schools. I know some of my colleagues from UBC will perhaps like to differ from me, but in our books they need a lot more.
What we are essentially doing is helping mainstream organizations look at ways to adapt to those who are now the majority of our students.
Ms Nann: There is quite a bit going on provincially. We have a multiculturalism act at the provincial level requiring the ministry of education to address this issue. We have a social equity branch, which really promotes the multicultural agenda. Of course, immigrant students are all part of that.
They developed guidelines for implementing multiculturalism in schools and also ESL guidelines for all school districts. The British Columbia Teachers' Federation has a program against racism. There are coordinators in every school district in the province.
There is a consortium of educational stakeholders, including principals, trustees, superintendents, teachers, parents, first nations groups, ourselves, and early childhood educators, who band together to again promote the multicultural agenda. Our next major conference is going to be on getting a multicultural policy in every school district. AMS itself has a major youth initiative whose end goal is to have a multicultural club in every high school.
There is a great deal of collaborative work going on to address this area of educating the students to prepare them for living in a multicultural society and integrating immigrant and aboriginal students and other visible minorities. This addresses anti-racism, multiculturalism, immigration and refugees.
So there are a lot of things going on. It's very powerful because of the collaboration that's going on.
The Canadian Council for Multicultural and Intercultural Education held a conference here two years ago. Because of the consortium, we expected initially about 300 to 400 people. It turned out to be about 700 to 800 who came to that conference. So it is very powerful when you can pull all the networks together to work together: community, government, teachers, etc.
Ms Heal: I would say that in the last several years things have started to happen. Vancouver is an example of a type of community. On the north shore, we mainly have Iranians coming in. In Surrey, they're mainly from India. There are different problems in the different school districts.
Another problem we have with the school districts is that we are trying to deal with the children in school, but you are trying to deal with their families also, as well as the health language concerns of the children. There are a lot of issues that schools are dealing with, because you are not just dealing with the children. There are an awful lot of things going on that are happening because people see a need for the groups to get together and work. It's been in the last couple of years that a lot of positive things are starting to happen. So it's improving.
The Chair: Okay. I am not going to continue on this issue; we've beaten it to death. Thank you.
One minute, Ms Margalit.
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Ms Margalit: I'm just concerned that we have spent so much time on this, and I don't want to see that reflected as the major impetus of the settlement renewal. I don't want to see all of these programs coming out of the Citizenship and Immigration pool of money or funds. I think we should pull other departments in to address this. So let's not make this the main road for settlement renewal or the main road for what we've been talking about all during this day. I am concerned about the amount of time we spent on this.
The Chair: Thank you.
Is this on the same subject, Mrs. Terrana?
Mrs. Terrana: I want to congratulate everybody, because we were really working towards this for a long time and we had a lot of resistance on our hands. In the last three years since I've gotten into politics, things have happened, so thank you very much.
Ms Susan Papadionissiou (United Way): I'm Susan Papadionissiou and I'm with the United Way. Since there were a number of comments made about the United Way, I thought it was apropos that I respond to some of them, although I thank you, Mr. McMichael, for responding on our behalf.
We had a speaker in this morning who did the formal representation, so I won't go into details, other than to say that partly the United Way approaches its relationship with agencies on a basis of trust. I think that in terms of final comments when we are wrapping up, some of the things to remember in the future planning is that agencies do have some form of accountability and we have to trust that they will do what is best for their clients. But we have to empower agencies to do that, and empowering them means giving them core funding and then, beyond that, giving them incentives for special programs, for being responsive, because they will not be responsive if they're faced with meeting just basic survival needs.
That's all I have to say.
The Chair: Thank you, Sue.
Does anybody want to add anything at this point? Are we all burned out?
I'd like to do a little wrap-up, if you'll permit me, based on some of the discussion we had this morning and this afternoon, and if there is anything you would like to add, please feel free to do so. I'll be repeating myself, but I think it is important.
The points of general consensus this morning and this afternoon were these. First of all, the federal government should assume a leadership role in determining the overarching principles and national standards that govern the immigrant settlement system. Such principles and standards should make provisions for some degree of local flexibility. Local settlement communities should have input into the decisions about local settlement needs and priorities. However, the allocative funding decisions should be made by a body that has no vested interest in the outcome.
It is essential that the needs of children be taken into account when determining immigrant settlement services. Presently, all federal settlement dollars are spent on program grants. Local levels of government, municipalities, and school boards should be at the table whenever settlement decisions are made. The importance of employment to successful integration and the importance, of course, of language training, which go hand in hand....
Funds should be earmarked; that was found to be true in both this morning's discussions and this afternoon's discussions. There was also the importance of reaching out to women and, as I said, there were other related issues, such as the length of time during which settlement services should be made available to immigrants, a funding formula has to account for readiness.
This afternoon there was emphasis put on the educational aspects of settlement. Language training was again brought up as being important, as were the problems of public schools as they work to meet children's needs. The need for these groups to be involved in the settlement renewal process was discussed, and we had a lot of examples of groups working together and coming up with creative ways to deal with some of the problems with which you've been dealing at the local level.
I want to thank everybody for his or her input. Is there anything anybody would like to add at this point?
Mr. McMichael: I would just add the point about involving the clients in the evaluation process, and let's not forget the refugees.
Ms Margalit: When you develop those standards, you take the leadership role, but that's not [Inaudible - Editor] input, not a separate exercise.
The Chair: To have a consultation when we arrive at the standards.
Ms Margalit: We jointly develop it. It's not as if you take it away, develop it, and come back and bring it to us. It's a joint program.
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The Chair: If I'm not mistaken, it was Ms Stigant who made the point that the B.C. government is working with the groups in order to arrive at certain priorities and standards.
I want to say that the minutes and the transcript are automatically sent to all the participants. So will the final report of the committee.
I thank you very much for your time this afternoon. We look forward to seeing you again before the committee on other issues also. Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.