[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, June 28, 1995
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[English]
The Chair: I'd like to begin. Would everybody take their places, please?
On behalf of the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Citizenship and Immigration, I'd like to welcome everyone and thank them very much for accepting our invitation to come before this committee and discuss settlement renewal.
We appreciate the fact that we didn't give you enough time, but I want to make it clear at the beginning that the committee's report will not be tabled in the House before October. You have between now and the end of September to submit any written brief, and you may in fact be in a better position to submit after this consultation process takes place.
We did appreciate whoever did in fact bring forward their briefs. For that reason, I'd like to proceed this morning without having everyone reiterate what is in their written briefs.
I'd like to begin by saying that we're here in order to hear your expertise, your opinions, and your counsel on how to proceed on settlement renewal, the process by which the federal government will withdraw from direct administration of settlement programs over the next three years. The structures and rules necessary for immigrant renewal have not yet been defined. I want to underline that. This affords us a chance to discuss with you, the service providers, some of the issues that arise as a result of the federal government's decision. Really, there is nothing written in stone. I want to make that point from the beginning.
We are your friends. If you look around the table, with a name like Bakopanos, Nunez, Assadourian, Clancy, or Terrana...most of us have experience in the area of immigration, in the area of refugees, and in the area of settlement. I worked 15 years in Quebec on these issues, as did a lot of the other members, so we don't need detailed information about the background of settlement programs. We're not here for this. We're not here to discuss the details of settlement programs. What we are here to discuss are a number of points that I know concern us, that I will read after everyone has had a chance to introduce themselves, and that have come - these points of consensus - forward based on our consultation in Vancouver on Monday and in Edmonton on Tuesday.
I'd like to begin by asking the members of the committee to introduce themselves. I'll begin with the parliamentary secretary, Ms Clancy.
Ms Clancy (Halifax): I am Mary Clancy, member of Parliament for Halifax and parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Mr. Assadourian (Don Valley North): I am Sarkis Assadourian, member of Parliament for Don Valley North and a member of the committee for Citizenship and Immigration.
Mrs. Terrana (Vancouver East): I am Anna Terrana, member of Parliament for Vancouver East, and I'm also a member of the Citizenship and Immigration committee. It is nice to meet you.
Mr. Nunez (Bourassa): I am Osvaldo Nunez, member of Parliament for Bourassa, Montreal North, official critic of immigration and citizenship, and vice-chair of this committee.
The Chair: We also have with us Ms Sue Barnes, who is on the phone at the moment. She is an MP also.
I want to state at the beginning that all members of Parliament were invited from both sides of the House to sit in on the -
An hon. member: Three sides.
The Chair: Three sides. I said all members of the House, on both sides of the House, no matter what party they belong to, were invited to the meetings. Unfortunately, we have no representation from the Reform Party, the NDP, or the Conservative Party with us today in Toronto. We did have one Reform member join us in Vancouver. Also, the local members of Parliament were invited to come. This morning we had Maria Minna, with whom a lot of you have had a chance to work. Unfortunately, Mr. Chrétien is in town, and she had to be at an activity with him. It is unfortunate for us that she had to leave. It is fortunate for Toronto that Mr. Chrétien is here.
I would also like to introduce two people from the public service who are with us today. There is Ms Nancy Newton, the senior manager, community services, GTA region, client services branch of the Ministry of Citizenship. Also with us today is Ms Elizabeth Gryte, manager, settlement programs, settlement directorate, Ontario region for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, who will be managing the renewal process in Ontario.
I would now like to have everyone introduce themselves and their organizations. We did mention in our correspondence with you that you will have five minutes for introductory remarks, but considering the time limit we have, I'd like everyone to limit his or her comments as close as possible to one minute and a half to two minutes, and depending on how much interest there is in terms of discussing some of the points of consensus we reached in Vancouver and Edmonton, I will allow for more discussion.
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We'll begin with Mr. Barahona.
Mr. Alfredo Barahona (Chairperson, Toronto Refugee Affairs Council): My name is Alfredo Barahona, and I'm here to represent the Toronto Refugee Affairs Council. Since you have already said you don't want us to reiterate what we have written, I would prefer to -
The Chair: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Ms Clancy.
Ms Clancy: Just in case anybody thought.... Nobody's limited to the points of consensus that we reached in Vancouver and Edmonton. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you for that clarification. I'll just repeat what Ms Clancy did say. It is open. I just thought that, in order to focus, we might want to begin.... The same thread ran through much of the consultation, both in Vancouver and in Edmonton, as well as this morning. But there are other points you may wish to raise, and it's really a free-for-all. I want to insist on that this morning. Thank you.
Mr. Gordon.
Mr. Ted Gordon (Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture): I'm Ted Gordon, and I'm chair of the board of directors for the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture, which in 1994 served 566 immigrants who were suffering from trauma due to torture. So far this year we've served the needs of 375 new clients, which indicates that this organization speaks from a particularly different point of view in the needs of immigrant settlers in Canada.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Mulugeta Abai (Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture): My name is Mulugeta Abai, from the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture, and I'm the executive director of the organization. We have presented a written brief and would like to take a few minutes to talk about some of the main issues, particularly the terms of reference we were given.
May I proceed?
The Chair: Yes, you have a minute and a half.
Mr. Abai: CCVT recognizes the value and importance of accountability measures to ensure that programs and services are meeting the goals and objectives established by all levels of government and local communities. Based on this belief, CCVT has set up a wide range of mechanisms that will enhance accountability, such as electing a board of governors from the community at large, conducting consultations, organizing annual evaluations and strategic planning sessions, organizing standing committees, annual audits and regular field and site visits. Also, monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting mechanisms are in place, and we usually, as we are obliged to do, report to Revenue Canada.
When it comes to the local advisory committee, even though CCVT is a very small organization, the scope of the clientele group that it serves, as explained in the brief by the director, is large. It's not only Toronto based, but sometimes we do consultations on a national basis and on an international basis as well. I can say it's the flagship of...[Inaudible - Editor]...Canada.
We have good international and national recognition. We have in-house legal and advisory committees, but our recommendations would be to have local advisory committees that are representative of, knowledgeable of, and sensitive to the issues with which we deal and whose roles are clearly defined with input from all stakeholders, such as settlement service agencies, ethnocultural organizations, and immigrant refugee groups.
When it comes to the role of the federal government, over the years we are aware that the federal government has played an essential role in the development and support of services and programs to assist immigrants and refugees. We would like to recommend that this continue, and at the same time we would like that role to be stronger with more federal involvement in the settlement services. We don't really recommend that it be devalued the way it's being planned. Thank you.
The Chair: That you very much for being brief. I appreciate it.
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Ms Peries. Please correct me if I mispronounce your name, and I apologize.
Ms Sharmini Peries (Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants): We do have a presentation, so I will pass it on to Miranda Pinto.
The Chair: Have you presented a written brief?
Ms Miranda Pinto (Vice-President, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants): Yes.
The Chair: Do you have an oral presentation?
Ms Pinto: Yes, we have -
The Chair: If you've presented a brief, I would appreciate it if you don't repeat what's in the brief.
Ms Pinto: No, I'm not going to repeat. I just want to highlight a couple of points that -
The Chair: You have one minute and a half.
Ms Pinto: - need to be addressed. I think one of the things is that we already know Ontario receives the largest number of immigrants to Canada. A couple of things OCASI feels very strongly about and feels need to be looked at in terms of settlement renewal is that the federal government and the provincial government engage in some kind of discussion and have a role for the provincial government in addressing this framework here.
One of the major issues we would like addressed is the issue of the local advisory committees and the role of the local advisory committees, such as what kinds of new systems would be...what the role of the local advisory committee versus that of the federal government would be in that whole issue?
If local advisory committees are to be effective, we want to make sure the membership is very well balanced. There are other examples of how we had local advisory committees and how that could impact the settlement services to newcomers within the province of Ontario. We need to look at the issue of balance.
Another issue is that of local advisory committees. Any possibility of local advisory committees actually taking on the function of allocating or administering grants is an issue that needs to be looked at very, very carefully and addressed. It could end up with a very negative impact on the actual desire for settlement renewal within that kind of context.
These are just some initial thoughts for discussion.
The Chair: Thank you very much, and thank you for being brief, too.
Ms Lo.
Ms Maisie Lo (Chair, Public Education and Policy Committee, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants): My name is Maisie Lo. I am a volunteer at OCASI and presently chair the public education and policy committee.
I have two more comments to add to Miranda's presentation.
OCASI strongly encourages the federal government to commit to providing, on an ongoing basis, at least the same level of federal support to immigrant settlement programs as is currently committed.
The federal settlement renewal initiative is aimed at decentralization and devolution. OCASI urges the development of a strong federal framework for immigrant settlement, including principles, goals, and minimum program objectives.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms Filippi.
Ms Fatima Filippi (Executive Director, Rexdale Women's Centre, Etobicoke Social Development Council): I am Ms Filippi, and I am with the Rexdale Women's Centre. I do have a written submission, but I would just like to point out one of the difficulties, as a service organization working with eight different cultural groups in our community, in dealing with federal settlement services.
I refer to a meeting I once had with a federal official regarding SMIS, a dear term to all of us. Much to my surprise, we discovered that the position of the federal government with its relationship to non-profit organizations - it was put very succinctly for me, and he said that the federal government was the primary service deliverer and owned the services that were provided and that non-profit agencies were the secondary service providers, subcontracted to provide federal services.
I think this attitude is one of the many problems that makes federally sponsored programs rigid and unable to meet the local needs and priorities. I think, in coming up with some of the solutions, perhaps this view of who owns the services - ownership over service delivery - has to be clarified and redefined so that local needs can be recognized. I think eligibility through immigration classification and a particular service delivery needs to be eliminated.
The federal government must recognize that integration and settlement is an ongoing process for people, not just for immigrants and refugees. I think Canadian-born people, not just immigrants and refugees, still have difficulty accessing certain systems. I think we have to get away from that.
I think all departments, including the levels of government, should try to agree on some form of consistent application for funding and on one reporting mechanism. I think it would certainly reduce the bureaucracy, and it will eliminate the need, as in our case, for submitting 15 proposals to fund services for immigrants and refugees.
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Lastly, I think settlement must include employment strategies that address discrimination faced by our clients and people of colour. Integration cannot truly occur unless there is gainful employment and those issues are addressed.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Goursky.
Mr. Bill Goursky (Executive Director, Etobicoke Social Development Council): We will be submitting a brief. However, I would like to very briefly explain some of the areas we will be pursuing.
The Etobicoke Social Development Council is one of the five local planning organizations of Metro Toronto and has been involved in three areas of provincially directed local planning: child care, children and youth services, and long-term care reform.
Each of these initiatives involved professional community representatives in developing and advising the province on Etobicoke's service concerns and gaps with proposed responses based on these local needs and with local resources. The committee might wish to explore this model in reference to the second term of reference regarding the local advisory committee in the most effective delivery service mechanism.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Xavier.
Mr. Noel Xavier (Program Coordinator, Bradford Immigrant and Community Services): We submitted a brief and I won't reiterate it now, but I will let my colleague introduce the organization.
Ms Lucy Balugas (Program Coordinator, Bradford Immigrant and Community Services): Bradford-West Gwillimbury is a town 40 kilometres north of Toronto. We have a population of 18,000 people with a large percentage of this population being ethnic.
We are also the only agency in our area, being Simcoe County, that is set up for social services and provides assistance to newly arrived immigrants to the area.
I have a brief, which we submitted, and an attachment that we will submit later, but I would like to go over one part to make sure this committee understands.
``Amalgamation'' is the word for the nineties. But when the smaller areas are being asked to amalgamate with non-existent services while funds are still available to those agencies in the larger areas although they may get funding cutbacks, it does not seem fair to the smaller communities. Not only do the immigrants suffer, but so does the community in which they live. We feel it is important that smaller communities be given the same right to provide services to the newly arrived and not-so-newly arrived immigrants as opposed to those people being asked or being told that they have to leave the communities in which they live and travel far to access services. In our particular area, where there is no public transportation, that is difficult.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Lennox.
Mr. John Lennox (Principal, Continuing Education, East York Board of Education, Metropolitan Toronto School Board): Good afternoon.
Sheila.
Ms Sheila M. Tait (Principal, Continuing Education, Etobicoke Board of Education, Metropolitan Toronto School Board): We have responsibility for LINC and many other federal programs.
I will pass you to Marg Wolchak.
Ms Margaret Wolchak (Superintendent of Educational Services, Metropolitan Toronto School Board): Even though our heading is the Metropolitan Toronto School Board, we are here today as representatives of the Federation of Public School Boards of Metropolitan Toronto. We have submitted a written overview and will be submitting a more detailed brief.
I will just quickly tell you who we are and a little bit of what we've done, which will give you a context for any remarks we'll make as we go.
The Federation of Public School Boards of Metropolitan Toronto encompasses the seven area boards of East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, Toronto, York, and CEFCUT, which is our French language council in the Metropolitan Toronto School Board. The public Metro boards instruct close to 300,000 day students and more than half a million adult and continuing education learners.
The Metro public boards began in 1992 to deliver language instruction for newcomers, LINC, and from the outset our boards provided LINC classes in collaboration with community agencies as well as providing LINC instruction under their own jurisdiction. At present, we have approximately 30 such partnerships with community agencies.
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Over the last four years the programs offered by the Metro public boards, including those provided with community partners, have grown from approximately 2,000 students to approximately 30,000 students. We've been told that collectively we are the largest providers of LINC across Canada.
We thank you very much for allowing us to be at the table.
The Chair: Thank you very much for coming.
Ms Kerr.
Ms Gillian Kerr (Acting Director, Allocations and Community Services Department, United Way of Greater Toronto): You're a tough chair.
The Chair: Am I being tough? You're among friends, I want to say that at the beginning.
Ms Kerr: There are over 50 United Ways in Ontario. This United Way funds over $30 million in community services across Metro and almost all of them are involved in some aspect of settlement or immigration, just considering the people who live in Toronto. As you say, you have a lot of experience in this so I won't labour the point.
Our reaction in looking at the settlement and renewal piece was to use a template of our own allocations criteria, which we ask every agency to go over when we ask them what they're doing. It's not clear to us, and I know it's not clear to the federal government entirely - and that's one of the reasons you are going through this process - what exactly your objectives are in integration and settlement. There are so many objectives - there's social, there's cultural. Our feeling is that if you don't have economic integration you are not going to have access to full community life. If you have to make choices one way or the other, the economic integration and full access to jobs, professions and money is probably the core one. If you are going to have to cut down you might consider really focusing on those kinds of objectives. That's a defining of the mission part.
The second part is around effectiveness. I think you need to use research, as you've done to some extent with StatsCanada, and really move in to see what the factors are of success and integration. I don't know that the research, some of which has been very good, has been translated into service models adequately. The service models that really are successful and that lead to integration have to be locked in. It doesn't matter what the local conditions are. If English or French fluency is essential, that has to be essential. There are some pieces that should be locked in as part of your funding and some pieces that can fluctuate, depending on community interest, but they should all be tied to your objectives.
The second criterion is accessibility and community responsiveness. We see that the federal government recommended local advisory bodies. We suspect that this might have been done without really thinking through the different mechanisms of community responsiveness. They tend to be very expensive and tend to be used as a way of avoiding accountability. It's as if your local advisory body decided this, so it's not our problem. It's extremely difficult to have a body like that work without investing huge amounts of money that maybe should be used directly for services. Certainly the United Way and a lot of other agencies have been experimenting with different mechanisms of accountability and responsiveness. We really think you need to step back and look at that more carefully.
This relates to our third criterion, which is management...how do you use resources? Again, advisory bodies are very expensive for what you get out of them. Committees are often a very blunt tool for the results. We think every penny possible should go into the services that work and as little as possible should go into administration. It doesn't make sense to us that you would set up other administrative structures all over the country when you might be able to negotiate with the provincial, regional, or municipal governments to use existing administration mechanisms to get the money out. Then you can design parameters and guidelines and various mechanisms...but to get another bureaucratic level, we're really nervous about that. In essence, that's it.
The Chair: Thank you very much. That was brief but to the point.
Mr. Bayne.
Mr. Dawit Bayne (Allocations Manager, Allocations and Community Services Department, United Way of Greater Toronto): I'll just wrap up what she said.
The federal government hasn't really focused on the issues that are shared or haven't researched them enough to be embarking on the kind of recommendation or the devolution of our administration of settlement funding to local authorities.
We are really concerned that this would be a hasty process that eventually would prove to be extremely costly and probably not as productive as it is thought to be. We would seriously recommend that the federal government put enough resources into studying the consequences to fully understand the points raised by Gillian and act appropriately afterwards.
The Chair: On that point I want to say that this is exactly why we're here.
We're at the beginning. There's nothing written down. Nothing has been decided by the federal government, except as I said at the beginning, that in three years' time we want not to be able to administer the settlement programs any more. We don't provide the services. You provide the services.
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We're looking for guidance and for counsel from you to see to whom we transfer this administrative authority, or anything else you may want to recommend. You may recommend that we keep it, for all I know. It's open.
Ms Clancy had a point.
Ms Clancy: The expression, to transfer...even that may be going too far. When you say the federal government hasn't researched it enough, in effect, there has been a great deal of research done but we are here to hear what you think. Anything in the terms of reference are there to give you a jumping-off spot. I cannot underline too often that no decision has been made and that's why this consulting process is taking place. To say you can take it or leave it...those things are in there to give you a point of reference, but they are not written in stone.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Clancy.
Mr. Ord.
Constable Doug Ord (Community Relations, Metropolitan Toronto Police Service): I work out of headquarters. The job of our office is to work with newcomers and with about 10 different communities around Metro Toronto. Most of the officers speak other languages and are very culturally sensitive. We try to build trust in the community so people will want to come forward to the police when they are victimized.
A lot of people when they come to Canada do not always trust the police. Even now, they try to pay us for services and things like that. We try to educate the communities to a different way of thinking. As they come forward they realize that all the systems in Canada are here to work with...and we'll provide good services if they call upon us. That's basically what our office does.
The Chair: Thank you.
Would Ms Gonzalez want to add anything?
Ms Lita Gonzalez-Dickey (Community Liaison Worker, Metro Separate School Board): I'm responsible for community relations. I'm also a volunteer coordinator.
We will be submitting a brief later on. At this point all I would like to stress from Metro Separate is that we would like you to always bear in mind the equitable access to funding and resources for all school boards, particularly for the ESL classes, LINC classes, community relations, and so on.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Charles Smith (Manager, Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto): I'm here with Caryl Arundel.
Just to give some context to our comments, they're primarily regarding the questions you sent out for discussion so we focused pretty much upon that. Just by way of some background, though, Metro is a very large regional government. We not only provide services to immigrants and refugees, but we are also a funder of services. We have issues in the area of economic development, access to government, etc. In many ways we recognize that as a result of the many changes that have happened in our area this is is very key issue to what we do and who we are.
In fact, we have a community reference group. Its members are from various communities who advise us on how we pursue a number of issues across our government.
What I will be responding to, and then what Caryl will follow up on after, is some of the questions you put forward in terms of settlement renewal in Metropolitan Toronto. I can only re-emphasize some of the points you heard earlier about the strong community service infrastructure that needs to be in place and that this service infrastructure should be built upon the many partnerships you are already hearing about.
We know each other across the table. It's good to see a lot of people we meet almost every day in meetings and so on and so forth. This is possibly just a microscope of some of the partnerships that need to be developed if there are clearly any changes to be made.
We need to recognize community in its geographic sense as well as in a sense of common bond...those communities that have many things in common but perhaps they are not located in the same area. We have some communities, for example, that are composed of recent immigrants. They may be disbursed across the municipality and not located in Etobicoke, North York, or in Scarborough, but in small pockets in each of those areas. Sometimes they fall through the cracks and we find difficulties years and years after, even though they may have been here a long time ago.
I think the whole notion of services needs to be accessible and we need to look at issues of non-discrimination, racial sensitivity, and cultural appropriateness. If there needs to be a mechanism that's both flexible and accountable to the community they serve, as well as to the funders, the whole notion of community feedback becomes really important.
Are the consumers in fact receiving the benefit of something we're paying for through our taxes, and how do we begin to find that out so we know we're getting some bang for the dollar, so to speak?
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In terms of accountability, there are three key areas.
One is as a funder; there have to be some clear mechanisms in place. Those might be the normal standards of parliamentary oversight. For example, reporting to Parliament on an annual basis is one key way of doing so. Other examples are providing feedback through standing committees such as this and getting input back to stakeholders or partners around the table in various localities across the country.
The other area is accountability to the host communities. These communities tend to be very vibrant, self-starting, enabling, etc., through setting up many service mechanisms and talking about the need for them to participate as residents in this land, in the democratic process of living here and so on. Clearly there has to some accountability as to what's happening, what research issues are being examined, and how best to involve their points of view in ongoing developments.
Finally there's the notion of clear evaluation and performance measures. We need to be able to look at what we're doing, evaluate it, benefit from it and also see whether or not we're in fact achieving what we set out to achieve. What's the intent here in terms of settlement renewal? I guess it will be coming out through the discussions, but whatever it is, it has to be clear and it has to be measured. We should be able to see some positive outcomes as a result.
I'll pass it on to Caryl to talk about service delivery mechanisms and the enduring federal role.
Ms Caryl Arundel (Director, Social Development Division, Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto): Thank you. It's a challenge to talk as quickly as you do.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Ms Arundel: I'd like to focus on the service delivery issues you raised as well as the role of the federal government.
By way of introducing the topic of service delivery, I'd say I feel as though we're into somewhat of a similar debate right here to the debate Metro Council is having today about its future in the GTA and the role of a regional government in the kinds of services that should be provided. There are some parallels there.
We recognize the rich and varied infrastructure Charles has talked about, and we are extremely firm in our advice that any process that is used has to recognize and consult with all of the varied partners around the table: the service users, the groups, the organizations, and the levels of government.
I would add too that it has to be done on a regional basis. We have told Metro Council our position on this as well. You cannot do this on a local geographic basis. A lot of the organizations around this table represent Metro-wide interests or even broader. We have to be very careful of the boundaries that are put around these kinds of processes, because they are absolutely critical.
As to the delivery mechanism, if it happens and whatever form it takes, it also has to take into account the stakeholders and the question of geography. What are the boundaries for this initiative?
Finally, the scope and involvement of the different players have to be defined. Metro Toronto is very interested in participating in this, but as a level of government, just as for the federal level of government, its role needs to be defined. So does the role of the provinces as well as of the other players in the process. What we are doing and who we are representing are critical questions.
Let's talk a bit about the federal role. We've identified six areas in which we think it is critical the federal government play a role.
One is national leadership. This is nothing new, from what you've heard today. The federal government must continue to play a national leadership role in immigration matters.
Following that is the issue of national standards. You've heard already today that we expect Citizenship and Immigration Canada to take the lead role in establishing national standards.
As to funding, we're supporting the provincial position that the allocation of resources must be maintained, must be equitable, and must reflect settlement patterns.
The federal government has a role in research and planning in terms of immigration and settlement issues.
Separate although related is the issue of information dissemination. We need more information, as do other levels of government, service providers, and planners in communities. That is related to research, but it is also a very separate function.
Finally, the federal government has a role as a service delivery partner. It has a leadership responsibility and a partnership responsibility, and they must continue. The federal role as an active partner in the local delivery, whatever form it takes, must continue.
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As a final comment, we'd like to challenge the interchangeable use of the words ``settlement'' and ``integration''. I see a lot of heads nodding. I think you know about that, so I won't go on about it. It is a critical area that needs to be redefined, and we all need to play a role in helping to redefine it; I don't think there's a lot of support for the interchangeability of the two terms now.
Finally, earlier in June a number of people around the table participated in a consultation with us at Metro Hall to talk about who should be involved in this kind of thing. Some of the other people around the table have talked about the need for balance, and I would reiterate that. We heard that very clearly. I mean balance in terms of representation as well as community organizations - the power balance, the balance of ethno-racial and established and public sector organizations, and the balance between women and men and between recipient communities and community agencies.
Thank you.
Ms Tanya Lena (Coordinator, Action Committee, Toronto Coalition Against Racism): My name is Tanya Lena, and I'm here from the Toronto Coalition Against Racism specifically to campaign against the head tax.
The Chair: Excuse me, Ms Lena. The proper terminology - and I'll correct you because I've corrected everybody across the country - is ``landing fee''. It's not a head tax. Thank you.
Ms Lena: I would think that's a point of debate; I'm going to be blunt here.
The Chair: I don't want to start a debate -
Ms Lena: Yes, but the use of the term is a different thing for different people.
The Chair: I know, but the terms of reference of this committee do not include the $975 landing fee. Please go on.
Ms Lena: Okay, but one of the terms of reference for this committee specifically is the most appropriate and equitable distribution of settlement costs, and I think the landing fee you're talking about is being used to cover settlement costs. My main point here is I think it's inappropriate to be transferring the costs of settlement to refugees in particular and also to immigrants. That's the main point I want to emphasize.
I think it's pretty clear. When you're doing that, you're discriminating against certain groups of people more than others - women and people coming from Third World countries - because of the difference in income they're already coming to Canada with and the different ability to pay that landing fee.
Also, people on this committee have already emphasized the importance of economic integration in terms of access to services. You're putting people at an incredible disadvantage by asking them to pay this set of fees. It's not just one; there are several involved in the new policies.
We will be submitting a brief about that, detailing why we think it's a very large problem, but that's what I wanted to make clear.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
I'll ask the members of the committee also to make some statements if they'd like to. We'll start with Mr. Nunez.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: I would like to thank you for coming out in full force. I congratulate you on your presentations and on the briefs you've tabled. I hope to have the time to read them; if not, I will transfer that responsibility to one of my assistants, since we're talking about transfers.
I think the session this morning has been very useful, as were the sessions we held the day before yesterday in Vancouver and yesterday in Edmonton. We admit that Ontario is the province that receives the most immigrants. You have a lot of resources, organizations, experienced people, and your expertise is very broad.
As the Official Opposition critic for citizenship and immigration, I share many of the concerns you mentioned today, especially what Ms Lena has just said.
That is my greatest concern in Parliament. I have already questioned the minister several times. In fact, there is no doubt in my mind, but I disagree with the Chair: in my view, it really is a head tax.
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You mentioned other concerns regarding the speed with which we are acting. In other cities, people told us that they would have liked to have had a little more time to prepare their statements and their presentations. I encourage you, as the Chair has just done, to send us your written briefs. That will help us to write the final report. If the government party does not include all of your concerns, we, as the Official Opposition, will use all the means at our disposal to underscore the concerns that we share with you and which are not shared with the party opposite.
You mentioned your concerns with the creation of another level of bureaucracy. In Canada, decisions are already made at too many levels, the federal, provincial, municipal and school board levels, for us to create another bureaucracy. I do not think that will help immigrants, especially those who use your services and are the reason behind your work. Sometimes, people can say they found a job, but I do not think that is one of the major objectives you're seeking, it is not mine either.
You already have a lot of experience. I heard a lady who spoke on behalf of the United Way. You have a lot of expertise in the area of accountability. I think that is necessary. Public money is involved and everyone wants to know how the money is spent.
I hope that you will shed light on your accountability mechanisms for us, as other organizations have. Is the mechanism the same at the federal, provincial and United Way levels? Do you have many problems? We have been told that organizations devote 25% or 30% of their time to filling out forms and to reporting. Sometimes that is a little too much.
Another one of my concerns as a member of the Official Opposition, is the federal government's goal of spending as little money as possible as part of this exercise. In other areas, like social programs and unemployment insurance, there have been cuts, and now there are cuts to immigration, which is not desirable.
Today, because immigrants come from the third world and have other cultures, other habits, other religions and other skin colours, they have more problems integrating Canadian society. All levels of government and organizations should do more to help newcomers integrate. If cuts are made, the problem won't be resolved: it ill get worse.
Although 50% of the funding for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration already comes from users, from clients, all of its fees have gone up. There are the immigration taxes you've mentioned, the $500 fee to open a file. We are going to monitor the settlement programs very closely to ensure that there are no unwarranted cuts.
You can make very great and laudable efforts, but if public opinion does not really agree with accepting immigrants, and particularly refugees, it would be very difficult for them to integrate.
Someone mentioned programs to combat racism. I think that is very justifiable. The government has a role to play in education and public awareness. I would not like to see cuts in that area. In fact, I would like you to talk a bit about how you perceive the roles of the federal government and the provincial government.
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In Quebec, all funds earmarked for integrating immigrants are sent to and administered by the provincial government. I think the experience has been successful up until now. There is an agreement between the two governments. There are not many squabbles in this area, like there are in other areas, because the agreement is very clear. A bilateral committee gets together often. The terms of the agreement are clear, and even if Quebec wanted to assume additional immigration responsibilities, until further notice, immigration is an area of shared jurisdiction where things are running quite smoothly.
I'd also like to hear what you have to say about the role of municipalities, because they also play a very important role, they're closer to newcomers and have a better understanding of each region's needs. There's someone here from a small region and we'd like to know about that experience.
In Quebec, the biggest problem is that the vast majority of immigrants are in Montreal. Yesterday, in Edmonton, there was someone from a small city, Moose Jaw, who told us about a rather successful experience. That shed a lot of light on the way that local communities not only can resolve their own problems but also successfully integrate newcomers.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Nunez.
[English]
I will ask the other members of the committee if they want to make any remarks and then we'll end with the remarks of Ms Clancy.
Mrs. Terrana.
Mrs. Terrana: I bring you the sun of British Columbia. By the way, I'm very disappointed to find the rain here, very disappointed.
I thank you for your presentations and for your commitment to this area. I was also involved in this area for twenty years in Vancouver. I was on the United Way board for six years, so I know.
You made a few comments that were interesting; one of them had to do with the small communities being involved. I think it was Ms Balugas who mentioned that the small communities should also get their fair share. My comment on that would be that we are having problems with the distribution of funding, as you know. There are areas like British Columbia that get 9% of the funding and 30% of the immigrants. I think this is the same in this area and in other areas. So that's something that maybe we could discuss, if you have any suggestions to that effect.
The other area was the community of interest that Mr. Smith brought up. I think it's extremely important, in fact, that we work keeping that in mind because there are many challenges we have and that's one of them.
There is the role of the government in all of this and the role of the provincial government and the local municipalities. We are talking about putting together an advisory board. I have great concerns about how it's going to be put together.
As I said, for twenty years I was involved in many areas of volunteering and with many agencies and I saw a lot of conflict of interest. So my question has to do with the composition of the board.
I think everybody is actually discussing what this advisory board would be, and I'm going to ask organizations such as the United Way or TESL, who was here this morning, what about having an organization like the United Way or TESL?
I'm not saying them, but like them; they are all over the country, they already have all of the various criteria in place. Again, maybe we should try starting from there and of course getting all the other levels involved, because that's very important.
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I think that's it. Thank you again.
Mr. Assadourian: Thank you very much for coming here this afternoon. We had a wonderful session this morning. I don't know if you noticed, but some members of Parliament used this session for a free political broadcast. We won't go into details on that.
I am interested mostly to hear the views of the board of education members. Specifically, I'd like to ask you to rate settlement programs of the federal government, keeping in mind all other programs. How would you rate the settlement program on a scale of one to ten, one being lowest and ten being highest, as to the importance to society overall, the Canadianism we think of or dream of?
The Chair: I'll take it after, when we do a speakers list.
Did you want to add anything, Sarkis?
Mr. Assadourian: I have to leave early; that's why I did it now.
The Chair: All right. We'll go to that right after the introductory remarks.
Mrs. Barnes.
Mrs. Barnes (London West): I am not a permanent member of this committee by any stretch, but I actually operate as the vice-chair of the justice and legal affairs committee for Parliament. I'm here in Toronto today in my capacity as Ontario caucus chair.
I was with the people from One Step, which is a service provider in the various communities, as their lunchtime speaker. They were across the hall, so I found out where this committee was because I wanted to hear what was going on and to see who showed up and to get some material so I can take it back to London with me later today.
I won't be here until the very end, probably only till around 4 p.m., and I just want to say how very happy I am that Ontario is always included, because we're so necessary. I also come to Parliament with the perspective of an immigrant Canadian. I wasn't born in Canada, and I think this is a wonderful country and we should welcome immigrants because we know how much they contribute in every way to our beautiful democracy. I want it to stay a united, beautiful democracy with immigrants as a base.
The Chair: I also want to add something Sue didn't mention because she doesn't toot her own horn. She's also vice-chair of the justice committee -
Mrs. Barnes: Yes, I did say that. I did toot my own horn.
The Chair: - and chair of the Ontario caucus.
Mrs. Barnes: I did say those things. That's why I'm here today.
The Chair: I apologize.
Ms Clancy.
Ms Clancy: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to thank all the stakeholders for their presentations this afternoon. I just wanted to get some clarification. Ms Kerr, did I hear you say every penny on service, none on administration?
Ms Kerr: No. [Inaudible - Editor]
Ms Clancy: Okay. I wanted to make that clear. Yesterday we had a discussion in Edmonton about administration versus service, and one of the things I discussed with one of the stakeholders there was that it's frequently difficult in the dreaded process of program review to justify programs to the bean counters if there appears to be a very large administrative cost, as all of you are well aware; then you're forever justifying.
On the other hand, the labourer is worthy of his hire and with a very great nod to the number of volunteers who are involved in this sector, we have to have the paid professionals as well. It could not be done without those who coordinate. I just wanted to make that clear.
I throw this out for discussion as well. Anna brought up the idea of the United Way or perhaps a similar group. I'm wondering - and this is just a thought, everybody - whether, because of the concerns about local authorities that have come up here and in other cities on this trip, we should have a national advisory board. I put that out.
You're shaking your head, but you just weren't, you see. There are people who thought this was a good idea in other cities. Maybe we could have something based on the idea of the Council of Social Development, which used to be Patrick Johnston's organization, and things like that. I wonder whether that could be part and parcel. I just throw that out.
I believe it might have been Ms Filippi who said she had a discussion with one public servant. I'm sure I would have felt like throwing something large and heavy if someone said that to me about ownership. Beaten down, our heads bloody, but unbowed, we remind you we really are trying to do this for the best of everybody, and so are the civil servants. As someone with a particular connection to citizenship and immigration, one public servant can sometimes ruin it for everybody else because he or she is having a bad day, but there are a lot of very dedicated people in there too. I know that. I just put that in.
Finally - and this is not meant in any way as an apologia about the young woman who brought up the question of the landing fee - I have two things that need to be noted. The first is that when the Minister of Finance in the budget speech speaks it, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the way it works, it then becomes the fact. So with regard to the pros and cons of the landing fee, it is the fact. It's not one of the things that's up for discussion.
That having been said, I will also say that the department and the minister are very aware of financial burdens, particularly on refugees. They're aware, as you mentioned, of other financial demands, such as the administrative fee and so on. They're aware of the necessity of balancing municipal, provincial, and federal needs with the needs of refugees and immigrants, and that we have not either abandoned our policy initiatives in this area, nor have we stopped looking for solutions to try to ensure that people are not unduly pressed.
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We still don't have the final shakedown on statistics, although it looks as if the ``gloom sayers'', to a degree, are not being borne out in the statistics, but it's too early to tell yet.
The other thing is that we have not, by any means, left the financial exigencies by the board. We know this is a problem and we're still looking at creative means for this. I wonder if you might have any suggestions, keeping in mind that the choice we were faced with was settlement or no settlement. The minister opted for settlement. I'm glad he did, and I hope you are too.
The Chair: I'd like to proceed now by reading you some of the points of consensus that came up in discussions in Vancouver and Edmonton, and this morning. I'd like to use them as starting points for discussion, but it's open to anyone who wants to bring in any new elements. You're not restricted by what I'm going to say; it's quite the opposite. I thought it might be a good way to begin.
The consultations surrounding settlement renewal are essential. We heard that across the board. The government should ensure that the process is thorough and does not proceed unnecessarily fast in order to meet an arbitrary deadline. Concern was expressed that the community should be ready to accept the responsibilities that the federal government will be passing along to them under settlement renewal.
The federal government should assume a leadership role in determining, with the settlement-delivery community and its clients the overarching principles and national standards that govern the immigrant-settlement system. Such principles and standards should make provision for some degree of local flexibility and needs. A local settlement community 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 their outcome.
It is essential that the particular needs of children and women be taken into account when determining immigrant settlement services. Local levels of government, municipalities, and schools boards should be at the table whenever settlement decisions are made. Federal funds destined for settlement programs should be earmarked for this purpose.
Employment and language training are essential components of successful integration. We need better communication from region to region across this land about successful innovations or creative ways of doing settlement delivery.
We should reconsider the length of time during which settlement services - this is, most importantly, language training - are available to immigrants. Three years is often not considered sufficient, particularly for women. Funding criteria should take into account the readiness of the client, regardless of the length of residency in the country.
Integration is a two-way street. The time needed to integrate depends, in part, on the willingness of the community to accept the newcomer. There should be a public information program about immigration to combat racism and any anti-immigrant backlash.
Here are some things from Edmonton. I may repeat myself, perhaps, but this was done late at night.
There was the importance of ensuring that adequate information about settlement renewal is made available to all affected. As for the involvement of the grassroots, I did repeat that.
There's the need to avoid duplication in reporting requirements. Settlement renewal should simplify and rationalize settlement delivery, not complicate it. The question that may be drawn from that is: are we talking about service duplication or administrative duplication, or both?
There is widespread dissatisfaction with the government's information management system, the SMIS. Groups claim that it is inflexible and costly, in terms of both administrative time and dollars.
In terms of accountability, the focus of accountability criteria should be qualitative, not merely quantitative. Accountability procedures should not increase the administrative burden of the service-delivery agencies, and reporting requirements should be designed so as to avoid duplication. I repeated that.
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As I said, these are just some points to begin our discussion. I will take a speakers list. I will limit discussion, again, to two minutes. We will begin with Ms Filippi.
Ms Filippi: Thank you, Ms Clancy, for addressing that issue. I think I would like to say that, in spite of the fact that he was a very senior government official, we had a very good working relationship.
The problem is that his hands are just as tied as ours in dealing with the position of the federal government in relation to non-profit organizations delivering settlement services. The rigidity is not with some of the people we actually deal on the agency side, but, in fact, it has been coming down from some mountain, I think. Sometimes I think it's a little bit too high; it's not low enough.
The other side of it is the administration, which is very important. I am hearing about partnerships - I know Ms Balugas has alluded to that - and I'm almost partnered to death. I almost believe that I'm going to have to be providing services for my administration office out in the park because nobody wants to pay us for our administration costs.
Not one funder is paying 100% of my rent or my telephone. There's the fact that they think maybe a receptionist might be a luxury. I need an accountant or bookkeeper on staff to be able to be accountable, because we have spot audits and people come in and monitor us. We're not afraid of that, but we need the support mechanisms in our agencies to be able to be accountable and provide what it is you are looking for.
I take a great objection to the fact that everybody says we have to do more for less. We've been doing more for less for years now. I think you can't get any more blood from the stone because there just isn't any left.
I'm very concerned that this process is going to cause some to think that you can automatically now eliminate some of these administrative costs. You're not going to get the accountability you're looking for, and I think that's the real danger in all of this.
I'm very concerned that if this is not taken into account when redesigning the settlement service process, you're going to set up agencies to fail. I think that's going to be great for the public eye, because they'll say all this money was put in, and it failed. The support mechanisms we need were not provided.
Ms Tait: We consider a settlement to be very high priority. We deal with it every day. For us, language training, for instance, in the LINC is not just the mechanical acquisition of nouns and verbs; it is a gateway for economic and total social-cultural integration.
We have been dealing with the outcome of having a very heavy immigrant population in Metro Toronto. I'll speak for both the public and the separate boards, if I may.
We deal with total families. We take people through from cradle to grave. Our education is geared for pre-elementary right up to adult education. We have to be very flexible and deal with trends.
We have to deal with, for instance, providing trauma support for Bosnians. We have to deal with the influx of Somalis. We have to switch and look at the demographic trends and deal with the Spanish-speaking people from various South American areas, or other areas, who are coming in. To us, it's very important.
Take, for instance, continuing education. We have four LINC centres as well as LMLT, labour management and language training. That's only a part of our ESL portfolio. It may be one-quarter of the job we are doing.
We have outreach workers. Our board has policies geared towards settlement issues. For us, this is the top priority. It's very important.
I'll just mention, for instance, child minding. We were talking about the time it takes for immigrant women to be integrated. Child minding, for us, is absolutely essential. We prepare children for the Canadian system; we also help the parents.
We teach them, for instance, about nutrition. We have a case of a mother who was feeding her baby concentrated orange juice. So we bring in outreach workers. We bring in a nurse to help in that. We teach mothers how to use substitute foods to replace foods from their country.
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We have to be very flexible. For instance, when people have a chance of a job, we can't penalize them for leaving the program. We have to build flexibility into the program. We have to make a response very carefully and instantly to local needs.
I don't think I need to elaborate more on this point.
The Chair: Ms Clancy, on a point of order.
Ms Clancy: Ms Tait, I've noticed the term ``child minding''; and this morning as well. As someone for whom communication is her life.... Also, I'm very interested in both gender-neutral language and the co-option of words by various political movements. Is this replacing ``child care'' as ``child care'' came to replace ``day care''? Or is it because we're dealing with something that isn't child care but a lesser service?
Ms Filippi: Yes.
Ms Clancy: Is that what you say, Ms Tait?
Ms Tait: Yes.
Mr. Lennox: I suppose the ideal model might be something we used to talk about with the NLOC grants. There are certain rules and regulations that have to take place to set up a day nursery to fall under those guidelines.
Ms Clancy: Or what I would call a child care centre.
Mr. Lennox: Yes.
Child minding for us, I suppose -
Ms Clancy: You're keeping them from falling into the street for a short period.
Mr. Lennox: - is a more realistic thing for this program. It's less expensive.
The people are still all qualified with their ECCs. It provides an excellent service.
Ms Clancy: Short term.
Mr. Lennox: It's held in the building where the mothers are taking the language training -
Ms Clancy: Or fathers.
Mr. Lennox: - or fathers, in a couple of cases. We also have a summer program where we have the older children, from 7 to 12 years, so their parents can still come. It's a very essential service -
Ms Clancy: That's great.
Mr. Lennox: - and it is run at a very reasonable cost.
Ms Clancy: Wearing another hat, maybe I can talk to you after and get some more information. Thank you.
The Chair: Ms Wolchak, did you want to add anything?
Ms Wolchak: I would like to pick up on a couple of points. One of the things mentioned was the need for more research. One of the things I neglected to say was that we have provided the committee with two of the reports that we have developed. These are surveys of our LINK level 3 students. We've done them two years running. I think you'll find them interesting as some very hands-on kind of research.
The other question that was raised was whether three years is long enough. One of the things we know when we're dealing with learners of all ages is that one year, two years, or three years may be enough for conversational fluency and flexibility, but if we're looking at learners actually using a second language for further academic purposes, for activities that require some abstract kind of thinking, then we're probably talking, for many, about five or six years of instruction. We talk about our students entering our schools with a language other than English and French as needing five or six years of additional support.
For some of us around this table who learned English when we were a little older, we know that quite often in our early years, when we really had to think carefully about something, we reverted to our first language to think it through, or we used it orally. I think a lot of us have first-hand experience with that.
Our sense is that three years is not long enough.
The Chair: Ms Peries.
Ms Peries: I have a couple of comments.
OCASI has been in a long process of developing our brief and our positions and concerns about settlement renewal. As you know, we represent 140 community service-delivery organizations. In our consultation process the issues we have defined and the positions we have taken in our brief have been broadly shared by the province, with Metro, and with other bodies of concern. That has certainly been reiterated here, because we have seen some of those positions being discussed or brought forward today; and we are happy to see that.
I want to pick up on a point that a number of members of the committee had expressed. That is, none of the decisions made are final - if I may pick up on that point...and challenge the decision to transfer federal responsibility. I am wondering whether that is still up in the air. That decision was made without consultation, and OCASI and member organizations really challenged it.
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We've heard some responses to this concern from the civil service as well as from some politicians, that this was an item on the agenda in the ten-year consultation process. We beg to differ. Settlement renewal and devolution of settlement were not on the agenda and were not thoroughly consulted on because the issues are complex. We have not had the opportunity to do so.
If you look at our brief, we deal with a number of very complex issues in terms of settlement delivery. Even the definition of settlement seems to be unclear and not used in a comprehensive way. We want a consultation process that first takes into consideration the decision to devolve and a structured process in which we can give you comprehensive feedback. This process is good at the start, but the issues we have defined in our brief are complex and detailed. The different services that are in the envelope of settlement service delivery are very detailed. There are components that we need to take into consideration, and we want an opportunity to do that.
Within that envelope we want to discuss community-based service delivery, because in terms of settlement, again and again, it has proven to be the most cost-efficient way. If we are talking about overburdened administrative costs cutting into settlement funding, then we need to talk about the most cost-efficient way of delivering those services. We have consulted our membership. We have done research in this area. OCASI has been functioning for twenty years in this area and we have a level of expertise that can really inform that decision in terms of what is the most cost-efficient way to deliver this service.
Again, this is why we challenge the decision to devolve. If the intent of devolving settlement is to cut down on administrative costs, then I think the committee and the government are misinformed, because somebody has to bear the cost of administration. By putting in regional advisory bodies or regional decision-making structures, you are simply setting up another administrative structure. It cuts into settlement agencies' ability to be accountable and deliver services and have some administrative cost to do it well and effectively, as Fatima Filippi reiterated.
In response to the question about a national advisory body, we are in favour of that at OCASI, because I think it's very important to have some national standards laid out, at least minimum standards for what are settlement services, what are to be contained in an envelope, and what are the minimum kinds of services that are essential for settlement delivery. That is something we ourselves had recommended to the civil servants who are dealing with this issue, and we would like to pursue that further.
I know I'm taking up quite a bit of your time, but I have a final comment.
We also, as the United Way had stated, have some very serious concern about local advisory committees making funding decisions. Again, the conflict-of-interest issue is a critical one for us. Second, we feel that we need seriously to take into consideration the needs of immigrants and refugees as they enter the country and not necessarily what local advisory committee may be advising. There could be a difference of opinion, depending on the community we are dealing with. We've had experience, for example, with LINC advisory bodies or OTAB provincially where we've had a great deal of difficulty in dealing with local advisory bodies in terms of what is in the best interests of immigrants and refugees. We should take that into consideration.
Thank you.
The Chair: That was five minutes. We can come back if we have time.
Ms Clancy wanted to add something or clarify something.
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Ms Clancy: Thank you. I have a couple of things, very briefly.
First of all, with regard to settlement and devolution coming up in the national consult, it did. It may not have been where you were, but - I'll say this very briefly because I think most of you are aware of this - there were sixteen public meetings in cities across the country. The minister attended eight and I attended eight. Settlement and devolution came up at a number that I attended.
Aside from those, as you're probably aware, there were also hundreds of smaller meetings based on kits that were sent out by the department. On top of that, there were various offices and round table meetings. It came from all sorts of sources. While you can beg to differ based on your own experience with the consult, let me assure you it did come from other sources.
Second, I will say again and again, as the chair has said, nothing is written in stone. That's not to say that devolution won't happen, neither is it to say it will. One of the reasons we're here is to hear from you.
Also, devolution does not mean abdication. If we talk about national standards and we talk about funding, nobody knows better than I, as a Maritimer, how difficult it is to ensure strings attached to federal funding. These are the reasons we're here to listen to you, to show us how we can do this better. That's what we want to talk about and that's what we want to hear from you. A number of the things you've said have been very helpful.
I guess what I'm saying to you is that when you say the decision was made without a consult, the decision has not been made. An idea has been posited. Anyone who went through the budget period last year knows that our beloved finance minister - and I mean those words truly, even though you may not - floats trial balloons all the time to get responses from the Canadian public. This, in a sense, is a trial balloon. That's not to say it won't go up. I'm just saying we want to hear from you. This is a legitimate initiative on our behalf, on your behalf, on all our behalves to get the kind of feedback you're giving us.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Clancy.
We'll continue with the speaker's list. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith: Thanks.
I want to look at a key question around what settlement renewal is. We've been talking a lot about funding and about services, but I think there's something in the background that we need to address as well, something that I think is fundamental to approaching how anything can be renewed, particularly in this environment.
The whole issue of immigrant and refugee settlement was vastly different ten years ago from what it is now. To give you an example, about a week ago on CBC's magazine there was an update on a number of boat people who had come toward the end of the 1970s and where they are now in Canada.
What has happened from the mid-1980s to the 1990s in terms of the settlement of immigrants and refugees? The consensus was that the environment has changed, that it's become a more mean-spirited environment where it's almost as if every immigrant or refugee is to be penalized, is to be a subject of punishment for one reason or another. I think this is why our colleague at the table raises the issue of what the community tends to call a head tax but you call a landing fee. I think the point is fairly clear.
The whole discussion now around settlement renewal is one that also makes some of us nervous. Is this a devolution or abdication whereby local bodies will suddenly become responsible for an ever-diminishing piece of pie?
I guess the question that comes to mind is what is the role of a federal government as a leader, first of all in challenging the public mood? One of your task forces that looked at the support to small businesses had a number of the banks. There was a whole series of articles over the weekend, for example, on the banks and why they're not releasing purse strings to start small businesses. We're all convinced that small businesses are going to drive the economy in the future, yet we're not seeing the major financial firms investing in them.
We've known that the media over the past while has had a very negative approach to immigrants and refugees. What challenge have we had, seeing from the federal government, to challenge the media in terms of calling them before a standing committee such as this or another to say wait a minute, let's look at what we're doing here? If we're talking about settlement renewal -
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An hon. member: Over the weekend.
Mr. Smith: No, not over the weekend; at all; at all. If we're talking about settlement renewal, it's not simply providing services, it's not simply planning for and meeting language needs and so on, it's planning to change our society to be more inclusive. The history of settlement has always been one such that we have certain economic needs, we fill those needs by bringing people in to do certain jobs or to play a certain role in our economy, and then after a while, when those needs no longer are as important as they were when we first brought them in, backlash sets in.
How are we challenging that? If we're really talking about settling and having people integrate within our society, we have to challenge what our society is. We have to challenge those views, which I think are prevailing at this time, that this is a drain on the public purse, etc., and that these individuals bring things such as crime and other social ills that we see in the media on a rather recurring basis.
About local responsibility, I think you'll find - and Fatima has said it well - there's no shortage of partners. What there is a shortage of is the infrastructure that will enable the partners to work effectively. That clearly has to come from the federal level. It can't come from the local level. We don't have the dollars at our disposal. We don't have the leadership at our disposal to make that happen.
I want to end on this point. We can proceed along talking about services and so on, but without a challenge to the prevailing attitudes within our society, much of what we're going to be doing is putting our fingers into dykes and trying to plug leaks; and I don't think that's going to get us very far in the long run.
Mrs. Barnes: I want to comment on the challenge. This is not something that's unique to this topic. Every topic, when you want to put forward a platform...has to be dealt with perception and reality and the divergence between the two. Just about every other interview in my constituency office starts with some preface that begins with something to the effect of ``I'm not racist, but...'' or ``I'm not sexist, but....'' The reality is I'm challenging those individuals day after day - everybody coming in to me. Whether I'm at a speaking engagement or a cocktail party or an opening, the challenges are there and the rebuttal has to be immediate and it has to be loud and clear.
When you offer information, when I get those letters as an individual MP, I send them back out to the constituent, saying here are the statistics about use of social services by immigrants vis-à-vis native-born Canadians. That challenge has to be all the time. Do you think I can get those messages out time and time again to the media?
I can tell you why I'm saying this is a constant. Let me tell you about a young offenders.... I had to face in that committee the perception that there's a youth crime wave. There's no youth crime wave. We had to say there was a sentencing bill, not a sexual orientation bill. Those perceptions and misperceptions are the reality for any legislature and anybody dealing with the public, where it's much easier to download the baggage onto a scapegoat.
What the people around this table and the people who have to make the laws have to do is challenge on an individual instance consistently. I haven't met very many media people who want to retract their words when I tell them these things. I have a hard time getting that. The dissidents get lots of press. There have been more articles in my paper about people wanting to whip young offenders than there have been about me wanting to talk about rehabilitation.
I'm just saying those challenges are there in every field. Anybody who's progressive and anybody who deals only in facts has a harder time than those who just push all those little trigger buttons, as we can see from our last provincial election here in this province.
The Chair: A little political commentary there.
Mrs. Barnes: I figure equal time, Madam Chair.
Ms Clancy: Were you suggesting calling the media before a committee?
Mrs. Barnes: No.
Ms Clancy: Mr. Smith, did you say that?
Mr. Smith: Not a bad point.
Ms Clancy: I don't know about you, but I have a vision of what would happen if we subpoenaed Christie Blatchford or Anne Dawson. Let me say I have been on national television. I'm a fixture on a variety of talk shows in Metro Toronto. I can't get on the radio in Halifax, but I could probably run in certain areas of Toronto, where I am constantly, constantly talking about the positive aspect of immigration. I think those of you who know my minister well know he sends out that message as well. It is not necessarily what the media wants to hear.
What Sue says is absolutely true. I've been in this job for a little more than a year and a half, and not a week has gone by, including when I've been on vacation and done it over the telephone, that I haven't been involved in this. Not a week has gone by when the minister hasn't been involved. I would say that since Eleni became chair, she gets interviewed on a very regular basis.
Again, it's the positive aspect. Dealing with the backlash we deal with in the House of Commons is a daily response. But believe me, in 25 years in politics...trying to manipulate the media is a pointless exercise. If we call the media before a parliamentary committee, I'm terrified of what the response would be, in that we would be directed that we were trying to muzzle or manipulate or do something to the free press. I just think there are certain things as politicians we have to be very careful about.
The Chair: Thank you.
We were joined by Bonnie. Would you care to introduce yourself, please.
Ms Brown (Oakville - Milton): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm Bonnie Brown, member of Parliament for Oakville - Milton.
The Chair: Thanks for coming.
I'll take one more speaker and then we'll break for what I call a biological break.
Mr. Gordon.
Mr. Gordon: The break will come very quickly, Madam Chair.
When Mr. Assadourian addressed his questions to us about education, I had forgotten that it has been three years since I retired from the Toronto board of education as the associate director of education responsible for the development of programs and services for immigrant children. I remember well the number of years when we trekked down to Ottawa carrying our presentations and our briefs under our arms. There's probably a filing cabinet in one of your offices filled with the presentations made by the Toronto board of education and the Metro Toronto board of education.
I'm delighted that my former colleagues from the Metro Toronto school board were here to answer the questions Mr. Assadourian had to ask. I can only confirm what they have said and thank them for carrying on the work that Metro and Toronto have been doing over the years. It's obviously in very good hands.
.1505
As far as the priority is concerned, settlement services have to be a number one priority for boards of education. As far as the effectiveness of the federal government in delivering on that is concerned, that's another matter.
The Chair: Ms Kerr, did you want to speak on this point?
Ms Kerr: No.
The Chair: We will take a five-minute break.
.1506
PAUSE
.1521
The Chair: I'll begin with Ms Filippi, please.
Ms Filippi: Thank you. I just wanted to comment again on the whole issue that whenever we talk about settlement services we always seem to forget the client aspect of them. We talk about agencies and we focus a lot on the agencies and we're sucking up all of the dollars that exist for services.
I'd just like to highlight some of the difficulties that we have in trying to bring in a human aspect. Mr. Smith related to the whole issue of racism. When we're filling out grant applications, we always have to refer to our clients as lacking something, deficient in something, or unable to function, as though immigrants or refugees are in fact deficient and cannot seemingly function in this community. They functioned well back at home, because they had access and they had the language, and I think those are key elements. I think that fundamental perspective is already being brought down, so you have that impact being seen in the community. Look at these people, they can't even integrate and they can't function without these support mechanisms. No one can function without information, regardless of your language ability, your education, and whatever degrees you have. I think those are really fundamental issues when we're talking about these buzz words that we have to use all of the time, in describing our clients. That already creates...the barrier is there. I'm still trying to grapple with ``first-generation Canadians'', ``second-generation Canadians'', FCs, ARs, DCs, and you go down the list, and what we're really talking about are people who live in a community who need to integrate and that's what we lose sight of all of the time, and I think those are the elements that help to perpetuate racism and discrimination and that keep marginalizing our communities. I felt rather relieved the other day when I found out that we still have a ministry of citizenship on a provincial level, but I think that still goes to identify the issue of marginalization of the groups that are coming into Canada and not an attitude of full integration.
We need to have the leadership from the federal government. We deal with the three levels and the federal government for accessing funding dollars for settlement services in our community and I can't tell you the kind of bureaucracy....I have filing cabinets and banker's boxes of data, of reports, and application forms and, every year, it's the same old thing. I'm sure the poor project officer who reads it is saying, ``the same old thing''. We don't seem to get away from the language that keeps perpetuating the whole issue of racism and discrimination.
Ms Kerr: I wanted to respond to a couple of the comments brought up by committee members. It will be bits and pieces here.
I agree that accountability, administration, and any kind of information collection and management costs money and it costs money at every level at which it's done, and that's something that we have to keep thinking about and planning for.
As to the comment that was made by one of the members about 25% of some agency's time or 25% of staff time spent filling out forms, that is a huge problem in this country. An example of the ways we can deal with that is as with the agreement that Metro and the United Way have in Toronto where, every year, when we rewrite our forms, we make sure that they are similar and sometimes identical so that agencies don't waste time filling out forms differently. I think that has to be done with every level of government. It's one of the reasons that combining administration is helpful to agencies: it minimizes the kind of information production they have to do.
Also, accountability is expensive. You can't measure everything at once. You have to really define what the objectives are and then come up with probes that are as cheap as possible. We keep talking about the fact that a rough measurement of the right things is a whole lot better then an accurate measurement of the wrong things. I think governments are often drawn to accuracy even at the cost of relevance. We have to keep talking about that. Related to that is national standards around what we're trying to get at and what is important to us or what is a must because those are the things that disappear at the local level. At the local level it is often driven by whims. That is true at every level, but you don't want to increase the whimsicality in this system.
I wanted to respond to the suggestion that the United Way or organizations like the United Way might be used to transfer or administer these funds. I think that is dangerous. Accountability we talk about as being accountable to your bosses, as opposed to responsiveness, which is being responsive to the users and other stakeholders.
.1525
United Ways vary enormously in their sophistication. A lot of them are still closed shops with the corporate elite. You want to be very careful about giving away power to any organization that you're not absolutely sure has the mechanisms for accountability.
In Toronto we're doing a decent job, but we are accountable to our donors when it comes down to it. We are responsive and we try to be responsible to the people who end up getting the services, and I think not enough time is spent talking about the people who use the services, as opposed to the agencies. You're right on there. But our accountability is to donors and government's accountability is to the public. We have to be really clear about that. So I'd be nervous about that.
However, I do think advisory bodies are essential at each level. A national advisory body from the voluntary sector feeding into policy is a really good idea. It could be the Canadian Council on Social Development. But you have to keep remembering that agencies are made up of paid people who can mediate for their clients, but they're not the clients.
My final comment relates to OCASI's point about the limitation of local decisions on settlement. Some of the most effective service delivery models involve preparation of immigrants in their home countries. There's no way that could be dealt with at a local level in Pembroke or Brantford or somewhere. That has to fit in.
That's it. Thanks.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mary was making a comment that perhaps she should share about the government being the people.
Ms Clancy: When I speak of the accountability of government, I'm not talking about the accountability to individual members or even to cabinet, but about our accountability. While I sympathize with your saying that roughly accurate is better than actually wrong, and I don't disagree with it, the point is ``roughly'' doesn't work when you have the Reform Party breathing down your neck, which doesn't want us to do anything like this at all.
Members of government have to be able to account to the people who put them there, including all of you, for the money they spend. That's why we sometimes get a little retentive on that sort of thing.
Ms Arundel: I want to make two comments.
First, I don't know about other people around the room, but I honestly feel as though I'm between two worlds or two environments. The messages we're getting are very mixed.
I'm not at all questioning your roles in this, but I don't get the sense from other conversations, correspondence, and material I've had that things are as open as you're suggesting here today - that we're not simply talking about the implementation of the policies or the directions rather than what they would be. I do want to raise that because it's critical.
The process has happened or is beginning to happen in British Columbia. There have been discussions about processes in Ontario. I understand there may also have been discussions about processes in the Maritimes. I am not sure that whether and how this happens is as open as you're suggesting.
In the comments we make, we are responding in some cases to the kinds of things we would like to see happen that aren't presently on the table versus criticizing things that are on the table. It is a bit of a mixed message. I'm somewhat frustrated about it and did want to say that.
I have a copy of the letter the minister sent to the standing committee, and with respect, my reading of it is different from the interpretation you have given today. It did seem as though he wanted you to consult on certain things as part of the implementation rather than on the broad policy directions in general being open. That's my first comment.
My second one is a different kind of comment. I come from the municipality of Metro, but speaking on behalf of the geographic area, I think we're quite different from other areas. I'm sure everyone around the table is tired of hearing it, but I do think it bears repeating in this context one last time.
.1530
I don't think we can apply approaches from other areas to Metro Toronto. We need a solution here, whichever direction we go in, that recognizes there is an enormous public investment in the infrastructure that exists now.
We're not designing a new system. We are working with existing agencies, coalitions, service providers and institutions, and we have to design something that fits the existing infrastructure. To ignore that is to ignore the millions and millions of public dollars that have historically gone into setting those up. We can change our infrastructure, but I don't think we can ignore it in designing a system, if there is a system, for settlement renewal in Metro Toronto.
I look at some of the changes that have happened in our service system over the years regarding long-term care and some of the other directions, and I do get worried that something can be imposed on us that is going to devalue the public investment we have all made, in addition to the private and volunteer investments we have put into the system.
I'd argue very strongly that we do need a Metro solution that respects and reinforces the national standards, which, as I said before, we're quite in support of, but we do need to have something that reflects where we are and who we have around the table.
The Chair: Thank you very much for bringing to our attention that there is some confusion. You mentioned the letter the minister wrote to the committee. Were you referring to that letter?
Ms Arundel: I have seen some correspondence, which included a summary letter of the minister asking the committee to undertake these consultations.
The Chair: Okay. Ms Clancy, who is the parliamentary secretary, would like to speak on some of the confusion you're talking about.
Ms Clancy: I have the minister's letter in my hand, and I think this may be the sentence you're concerned about:
- In fact, it would be the aim of this Department to lessen its role in the administration and
delivery of federal settlement programs while providing the funds to local structures which will
establish local funding priorities.
If there is confusion, I don't know what more I can say. I don't think it's a mixed message. Perhaps it is. I can also say - and perhaps I said this in another session and I didn't say it in this session - that kind of decision in the long run is not merely a ministerial decision. It's a cabinet decision. None of this has yet gotten to that level. Policies can change at any step in the process, even after there has been cabinet approval.
Really I don't know what I can say to reassure you that we do want to hear what you have to say - the good, the bad and the ugly, if you will - and we'll deal with it in the best way we can. We cannot, as a committee, make a promise that we're going to go in a particular way, but we are here to listen. In a sense, I think my reiteration of that is wasting our time.
Ms Arundel: I am not in any way questioning your validity, your role in this or your commitment to it. The previous discussions we've had at different levels and also the move in British Columbia to begin this process I think does throw into question....
I think we have an ability to shape what happens. The comments made earlier that it is open and there is an opportunity to have input relate more to the implementation than to whether it actually happens or not. My comment was more along that line.
Ms Clancy: I think we must agree to disagree. I don't know what I can say further. I can tell you my role is to be here as the minister's eyes and ears, and I'm putting that forward to you.
I've said before that we can make no promises as to where it will go. I have said ad nauseam that we are truly interested in hearing how you feel about all aspects of settlement delivery, funding, national standards and so on.
I do think we're wasting time in worrying about whether or not there's a sincere effort of the federal government. Why don't you tell us what you think? If it goes wrong, you can always throw the bricks at us later.
Mr. Smith: Remember that invitation.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Ms Clancy: Indeed. I assure you, Mr. Smith, the bricks have been thrown at me quite frequently and I've survived.
Mr. Smith: I just want to raise a couple of questions. As we go along I think we need to think of Metro as a particular scenario that is quite different from any other place in Canada. I'm sure you're aware of the reasons.
The question that comes to my mind is, what are we really trying to achieve here? Around the table there was a whole discussion as to what settlement is, what integration is, why the terms are used interchangeably and who means what by these things.
If I look at my own experience, my family immigrated to North America in the 1950s, and I still think I'm integrating, as a result of certain barriers of racism and culture, etc. I'm not sure where one phase drops off and the other begins. I don't think we've had an adequate discussion around that, so we're not able to answer the question, what are we really trying to achieve?
Fatima puts forward the notion of the client - the immigrant or the refugee - being the really important person here, but we've yet to really consider what makes that individual truly a Canadian. At what point does their status as an immigrant, as a person of colour, or as someone who does not speak English no longer present a barrier to their effective and equal participation in all aspects of life - economic, cultural, social, educational and so on?
.1535
I don't think we've really asked those questions. A lot of what we are talking about seems to be things like administrative mechanisms to look at how funding can be provided in ways that cover administrative costs, which is really important. I don't think we've yet talked about what services are required in order to effectively integrate individuals who come from different cultural or racial backgrounds.
Being an African Canadian, I'm always amazed when I hear people who have recently arrived from Africa talk about their first experience of overt racism - of being seen as someone who is different in colour, which has been my life. That's very different, and I don't think we've had opportunities to discuss that thoroughly.
Metro is a different context because of the sheer numbers. We all know immigration is an urban phenomenon. People arrive mostly in urban centres. Metro is the receiving point for approximately 30% of all the immigrants to Canada. In that sense there is a number of models, but it's also the testing ground of how things will work themselves out in the future.
It's good to see so many people around the table today, but there are thousands of others, and I think it's quite important that your ears hear what they have to say as well. A variety of experts are not here today. You have a small handful.
People know about this. For example, I've mentioned that at Metro we have what's called a community reference group on ethno-racial and aboriginal access to our services. They heard about this and called us to ask us to speak on their behalf since they were not invited. We can't do that, but we can certainly let you know there are individuals who are interested in speaking to you directly.
The issue is quite complex here, because of the number of communities that reside in Metro; because of the patterns of immigration; because of the many barriers these individuals face in terms of accessing all aspects of our social, political and economic life; and because of the many models people have worked on, developed and so on.
I think there has to be some discussion. What is settlement? What is integration? What are the services necessary to achieve those things? Why is Metro - if it is, and I believe it is - different from any other locale across the country? What consideration does a Metro approach, whether it's for the Metropolitan Toronto area or the broader area of the GTA, need for successful integration?
We are the weather vane of what will happen across the country, because of the numbers. If issues around racism and access to services are not dealt with well here, quite likely the models elsewhere will fail as well. So I think there needs to be some extra attention paid to the Metro approach to things - to the Metro equation, as it were.
Also, to come back to my first two questions - and a lot of times I like to approach things with questions - is there clarity about what we're trying to achieve? In the way we've talked about settlement and integration, I don't think we've been clear about what outcomes are or about when one is settled and when one is integrated.
I certainly don't believe the funding, supports and administrative structures are in place to achieve positive outcomes.
The Chair: I have just a few points on what you've said.
First of all, no one was specifically invited or left out. The message went on the cable for anyone who wanted to come before the committee to please come. We did not exclude anybody, and if anybody says we said they couldn't come, I'd like to know about it, as chair.
Second, we'll accept any brief from anybody. I said that at the beginning and I'll say it again. We have until the end of September or early October to deposit a draft report to the House of Commons.
The full committee will sit when the House reconvenes in September, so if anybody still wants to come and present their point of view, they will be welcomed too. That's the general rule of the House of Commons and of the standing committees of the House of Commons. No one is excluded.
As far as the terms of reference go, I don't think we're here today to discuss racism. Yes, integration is part of the whole thing, but if we're going to talk about giving that administrative responsibility from the federal government to the local area, it's the local body that will have to set its own priorities. What does it want to spend the funds on? If it's language training, fine. If it happens to be racism, fine. If it happens to be on communications policy, that's fine too. It's not up to us any longer to decide - and we haven't been deciding that. We have been allocating and administering the funds. Now we're saying...[Technical Difficulty - Editor].
.1540
Mrs. Terrana: You have to remember that the majority of immigrants now come from Hong Kong, from China -
Mr. Smith: We are aware of it.
Mrs. Terrana: I am from the Vancouver area, where there are 28% Chinese immigrants, etc., and they have 5% of everything else. So I want to reiterate what the chairman said...[Inaudible - Editor].
I also want to tell you that as an MP I get letters on this subject, especially because it's involved with immigration from...[Inaudible - Editor].
We have councils. I just had a council on immigration. I hear everything that can be bad, good, or indifferent. They let us know. We surely are a good ear for the government.
We keep hearing that we should do things differently, that every area is different and is unique. You have just told me that Metro Toronto is unique. I tell you that Vancouver is unique, and so is Montreal, etc. We know that especially the big cities get most of the immigrants.
So we want to do things differently and we are looking at this.
We also hear the provinces telling us that they want more autonomy. Quebec has been doing its own immigration for a long time. It has been successful. Have we ever looked at their model in the area of immigration only?
If that is bad, then we should do something different again and then try to improve. This is a big country, so there is a need, because of its history and for other reasons, for us to look at this possibility.
That's why we are here to ask you where.
It is a bit unfair of you to say that this is already all done and we did not open the process to everybody. That is not true. Otherwise, you would not be here.
I am here to listen to you. I came from Vancouver to listen to you, and I want to hear something positive that can improve the situation we have now.
Ms Clancy: In Vancouver we heard from the mayor that, while a lot of people first arrive in Toronto, there is a secondary migration to the west.
I see that Mr. Lennox is nodding.
Second, with regard to the question of racism, which of course is incredibly serious, it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, limited to new Canadians.
I represent the city with the largest indigenous - if we can use that term, since we are all immigrants - black, Afro-Canadian, population in the country of long term, because that immigration began with the maroons in 1750. It is not merely a problem of recent arrivals in this country. So this is not something that we can merely attach to immigration. It's endemic in our society and has to be looked at in every corner.
I know that the gentleman who spoke before doesn't believe, or seems skeptical of,Mrs. Terrana's figure of 30%, but, in the words of Casey Stengel, you can look it up.
The Chair: I have six people on the speakers' list and I don't want to continue on this issue. Half a minute, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith: I'm just conveying to you the phone calls of a number of community organizations that feel they have not been invited, and I will convey them to you directly since you said so.
The Chair: Please.
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Mr. Smith: Second, I think the issue of national standards has to be in place, and dealing with racism is part of that. The rise of racism is directly linked to the dilemmas around immigrant settlement. I'm aware of how long there have been black people in this country; I'm aware of how long aboriginal people have been settled on this continent. Racism is not a new phenomenon. However, we have seen an unprecedented rise that is linked to what I think is clearly the immigrant backlash. If you want to watch it in that way, we do have the numbers on the comparisons between Vancouver and Toronto.
The Chair: I don't think we're questioning that at all.
Mr. Nunez had asked for the floor earlier. Mr. Nunez.
[Translation]
Mr. Nunez: I share a number of your concerns. As a member of the Official Opposition, I think I can say it has already been decided that this responsibility should be transferred to local groups. How to do this remains to be determined. Do you want to assume new responsibilities? What do you prefer? What areas should we be concentrating on and what should be done? I think that is the issue before you today.
The government's consultation method sometimes leaves a great deal to be desired. In some cases there is no consultation at all regarding new programs. I once asked the minister who suggested the $975 immigration tax. He couldn't tell me whether someone had suggested it, because there had never been any consultation. No one suggested that tax. Nevertheless, it is in place.
You've raised some very relevant issues, in my view. I would like to thank you for being vigilant and I would encourage you to step up your efforts in this regard.
There is an opposition in the House of Commons. Unfortunately, we are limited, but opposition outside of Parliament is also very important. In some areas, you play this essential role in a democracy.
I said earlier that I thought the government's decisions were part of an overall budget-cutting policy, particularly as regards social programs and unemployment insurance. Now it is talking about cutbacks in another area: immigration. The process is already underway, even before the consultation process has begun.
I made a trip to Latin America. In Chile, there were six immigration officials at the time. There is now one left. In Costa Rica, the immigration office has been closed down. I also went to Morocco, where the immigration office has been closed. People must now apply through Paris. In other words, there are cutbacks in every country from which we don't want too many immigrants. Immigration offices will be located in countries from which we want to encourage immigration, particularly in Europe and the United States. But Americans don't want to come to Canada. In fact, Canadians are emigrating to the U.S.
I think your concerns are quite justified. You must follow the situation very closely, because some day you will probably encounter some surprises. If you were formerly entitled to $100,000, some day you will probably be told that next year you will be getting only half of this amount, because the government wants to cutback, to privatize the system and implement its neo-liberal, neo-conservative philosophy.
Canada is setting up so many obstacles at the moment in some areas of immigration, that I don't know where it intends to find new immigrants. Because the fact is that Canada is competing with Australia and the United States. There's no immigration tax in the U.S. It will become easier to immigrate to the United States than to Canada. In future, it will be much more difficult to find good immigrants abroad.
There were some other points I wanted to raise. For example, someone said that integration efforts began even before the immigrants arrived in the country. The issue regarding information about Canada abroad is a major one in some parts of the world. Either there is no information, or it leaves a great deal to be desired, particularly with respect to Quebec, which is Quebec, which is the situation with which I am the most familiar.
.1550
Today, language courses are inaccessible to many new immigrants. However in the future, with the cuts, the situation will be even worse. Women who are not in the labour market will be increasingly left out. I fail to see why refugees are not entitled to ESL courses. Sometimes they have to wait one, two or three years before they get refugee status. What is being done in the meantime? The time could be put to good use if we were to provide language training.
There are many problems. I don't want to get off topic, because the Chair could call me to order.
I could make many comments about the problems of family reunification, and so on, but I will not for the time being.
The Chair: I don't think you are off topic. I give you five minutes, with no reservations whatsoever.
Ms Balugas.
[English]
Ms Balugas: Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to bring to the table the discussion that Mrs. Terrana brought up previously about smaller urban areas not getting fair funding. That is quite true.
We as a small community - as I said, we have 18,000 people in the community, with a large base of ethnic origin - are always, and I mean always, overlooked when it comes time for funding. The best line I have heard is ``Oh, well, York region can help you, or your clients can access York region''. That is not the case.
Small communities have as much right as larger communities to have clients access services in those small communities. It is true that Metropolitan Toronto does receive the influx of new arrivals to the community. They must; they are an entry point. But what happens to those people once they decide that Metropolitan Toronto is not for them? They travel north and they continue to travel north past Markham, Richmond Hill, Aurora, and Newmarket, and then they come into Bradford - West Gwillimbury.
We have time and time again had to explain to the powers that be that yes, there are in fact new arrivals to the smaller areas like Bradford - West Gwillimbury and we have to provide services to those people. Now I have lived in Bradford - West Gwillimbury for many, many years. My parents came to Canada in the early 1960s and I know for a fact that new immigrants have as much of a problem integrating into that community as the long-term ones do, because no social services were ever available for that community and for many more communities.
I think if the federal government is going to be looking at giving more authority to the provincial government or to other bodies, they have to implement something, some guideline, where the smaller communities are not forgotten. I understand Metropolitan Toronto and I understand the problems Metropolitan Toronto has, but I also understand the problems the smaller areas have.
As Fatima said about partnership and being partnered to death, I am partnered to death. I have no choice but to be partnered to death because my funders tell me that in order for us to get funding, we have to be partnered. We do what we can with what we are given, but the fairness has to be there.
When funding is provided, I think it's important that the funders look at all aspects of why we are requesting funding. If transportation is an issue, I feel the funders should look at that and perhaps there should be a reason for why the smaller areas should be funded. If language is a barrier and if the funders can see that ESL instruction was never provided in that area or in that community, then perhaps ESL is a priority.
.1555
So basically I am saying that as much as the larger areas are always screaming and yelling ``Look at us'', we have so many new people in our community, the smaller communities are also saying it. We feel it is not a privilege to be funded and receive moneys for resettlement services, but if the need is there it should be fair for all and not for some.
The Chair: I just wanted to inform everyone that the committee will be studying regionalization, which is the point you've brought up. In fact, it has been studied in Quebec and there is a report by the Council for Cultural Communities and Immigration, where I was the vice-chair before I got elected, exactly on the whole aspect of making sure that immigration doesn't end up being only in the large urban centres but all over the province of Quebec. It is on the agenda of the committee.
I think Anna wanted to add something to what you said.
Mrs. Terrana: I'm really interested in this issue because one of the first things that hit me after I was elected was the lack of fair distribution of funding for immigrants. I have been pursuing it to some extent and I think this is where the difference is between provinces like British Columbia and Ontario.
In British Columbia, very few go north where it's cold; they stick around the bigger communities like Vancouver. The problem that was encountered - and the stakeholders in Vancouver were asked what could be done in British Columbia - was how to determine how many immigrants you have in this area and how many people have come as migrants.
Their suggestion - and again I'm bringing it up today because I think it's a good suggestion, although I don't know if it's possible - is to go by the number of people who use medical services in that particular area. In this case, you need the participation and the cooperation of the provincial government. That's probably the only way you can determine how many people you really have, because there is secondary migration. Immigrants are probably easy to detect but then maybe these people would move to another area.
So that's why I'm interested in this issue. Thank you.
The Chair: Do you want to reply?
Ms Balugas: As far as your suggestion about people using medical services, in our area, which is geographically a very funny area, our residents should be accessing services in Simcoe County but migration is a lot simpler.
We have two hospitals, York County Hospital and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie. It is a lot easier for our residents to migrate north or south to Newmarket to access York County hospital, which is in York region. Those dollars stay in York region; they do not filter up to Simcoe County. This is where we have our problem. We sit on many committees in the area, and time and time again that is the problem. Because we are in one region we can access another region so easily for some things and not for others.
So the idea of the medical services would not work for our population because they don't access our own services in Simcoe County; rather, they use the services in York region.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Lennox.
Mr. Lennox: I think for many of us - and I'm speaking as a former history teacher, I guess - it's easy for us to understand that the federal government has to continue with an enduring role because I think we do believe that certain things have to be equitable and fair across the country. I think many people accept as a given that we expect that in the future this role of the government will continue.
What is exciting to some people is that we now hear there will be room for more flexibility and for more local or regional decision-making. It's confusing to some of us as well as to what the definition of a region is. I can't remember how many times we studied the maritime region, and in the maritime region was a town, or a city called Halifax. It's now a city, and I've been there many times.
Ms Clancy: It's been a city for about 200 years.
.1600
Mr. Lennox: I think that's a definition that needs to be clear in the minds of the committee.
Some people see Metro Toronto as a region, maybe, or a local area. The flexibility is important.
In Metro Toronto, for example, all newcomers receive language training, to my knowledge. Only visitors to Canada do not get it, but even some of them receive language training, at least with the local school boards.
We appreciate the ability people have to recognize that women and children have special needs in Metro Toronto. Maybe those needs are now all across Canada, as well. I'm not aware of that.
No matter how the funding distribution is decided, I think you must remember the flexibility of the local - whatever that word means - community to decide.... I can see then that one of the functions of the federal government would be to ensure that there is equity and fairness in funding across not only the country, but across Canada. It would then be our responsibility in Ontario, and in Metro Toronto, for example, to ensure that there's equitable distribution as well.
In many of our minds, we welcome the fact that the federal government may be pulling out of the money issue, but I think our country needs the federal government to provide an enduring role in matters such as this. We would welcome the flexibility then of being able to meet local needs.
I think that's our bigger task. Sometimes we want to argue about the nuts and the bolts, but I think we need to take an overview first and then worry about the implementation later on.
Ms Lena: I would just like to take the discussion back to the issue of accessibility of the forms in terms of giving some advice. It is not enough to put the announcement on a cable service and then send it out in your information package.
The language in here is not appropriate. If you really want testimony to come from people who are immigrants and refugees, who are the so-called clients of these kinds of services, then it's not accessible. It takes a lot of experience in working in social services or working with agencies to be able to decipher what exactly the terms of reference mean and what exactly this commission is asking for. It's slightly misleading to say that it's an accessible process.
This is the second thing I wanted to suggest. A number of things are unclear around what we're actually here for. One thing has been brought up already. It concerns the meaning of integration or settlement. The second thing is that I think the whole discussion of appropriate settlement services is very much linked to your actual immigration policy on a federal level. That's because the immigration policy is what is determining what kinds of immigrants or refugees are coming into the country and from where. If you're talking about immigration offices in certain countries having been closed and also the landing fees, which do determine from where people can come, then who can access this immigration process?
That's going to determine what your settlement services should be like. I think that should be made explicit when we're talking about this. It's not on the table; I wanted to put that on the table.
The Chair: Thank you. There was never any discussion about excluding or including individuals. Putting in NGOs was basically what we were looking at. But if any individual, whether he's a member of Parliament or a client, wanted to bring forth his opinion to the committee, it's not closed. I don't know how many times I have to stress that.
I did say at the beginning that I've spent 15 years in this field; I'm not new to this field. Anna has spent I don't know how many years. As for Mr. Nunez, we may not agree on a lot of things, but we do agree on some things. Maria Minna has worked with you all for how many years? I don't know how I can be more precise about this.
Ms Clancy: Let me just add this in the chair's defence. This may be incorrect on my part, but, effectively, given the timeframe, we wanted to hear from the NGOs. I think, in general, we've had a fairly good cross-section.
Again, I don't think any of you received an express invitation. You somehow found out about it through the means of communication we have. The chair has apologized for the short notice. Those are some of the facts of life around the schedules of members of Parliament, with other duties and things that we all have to do. But as for the fact that the language is inaccessible to some people, it may well be that, given what we have, it would not have been very accessible for them to come here to testify if their language skills were not that good. That's part of the problem: we can only provide translation in the two official languages. Those are facts of life that we have to deal with. At another time there may be more opportunity to hear from the people you service, but at the moment we needed to hear from you.
Ms Arundel: I'll be brief. I just wanted to respond to some of your earlier comments. There was possibly a misinterpretation of what I think I was saying as well as what Charles was saying.
We're all here to represent our issues. I think we're doing the best job we can, which isn't to compete with others, but to explain our issues.
Personally, professionally, and representing Metro government, I would support the need of any region or local municipality for services.
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What we want in our province and in the greater Toronto area are strong communities that have access to services. The fact that we are advocating for our community doesn't mean that we, in any way, feel that we should get access to resources at your expense or at any other community's expense. I wanted to say that.
I think it's critical for there to be more even service distribution. I think we're lucky in living in Metro Toronto, because they have put in millions of dollars of their tax money. Other regions have not done that. They haven't developed the service base. You've had to rely, then, on provincial and federal money.
There are reasons for some of the disparities. Certainly, they can't all be explained that way. That's no excuse for perpetuating it in the future.
Part of the whole notion of national standards and part of the discussion here about what we want the federal government to do is to talk about equity, responsiveness, and access to services. We'll hope that what does come out will reflect that and won't make us feel that we are competing against each other. We hope we can represent our regions and do it within a context of everybody needing access to those services.
Ms Filippi: I'd like to reinforce that theme. I remember that, in 1989, Etobicoke was seen as Michael Wilson's riding and therefore not in need of settlements or dollars. I remember fighting those very same battles. It sounds sort of hauntingly familiar.
What I often see coming at us is that we're all lobbying for something. What's in it for me? What can I get out of this process? I see this happen all the time.
You don't have federal departments speaking to each other. Consider Canadian Heritage, Human Resources, and Citizenship and Immigration. I'll be damned if I get some of the project officers to sit together at a table to discuss how they are going to coordinate programs and services.
This is not new to everybody, I'm sure. What's newer to us is to just put aside ``what's in it for me?'' and try to address the issue of coordination. But we don't see some of the leadership. We don't have the ground rules. We don't have the guidelines. We see a lot of partnerships happening, but there aren't any of those ground rules and guidelines to help us along. We've always been insulated.
I'm amazed at the number of institutions we have in North America to deal with issues. It's surprising. There are committees and institutions. ``Let's build this building; I think it will solve all our problems.'' We forget that we're all part of a community.
I'm sure that our agency has been inaccessible to other groups. I know the feeling around this table here is that we haven't been able to access this or that. I think I share the sentiments of all groups that we've had this feeling.
Say we had a little bit more leadership. We have to have the federal role, and we keep emphasizing that. We need those guidelines. We need to be part of those decision-making guidelines.
I get scared when I hear that a decision has already been made, and these local bodies are now going to be assuming these responsibilities. I think we have to put aside the politics in these committees. I often get tired of that. I just want to be able to address the issues, and sometimes it doesn't happen.
If we seem frustrated, I'm sorry. I'm sure you get frustrated just as much as we do, sometimes, at the process.
Ms Brown: My first comment is on the frustration thing. So often you are called to comment at a touring standing committee after the second reading of a bill to give your very strong opinions for or against it.
This is a newer kind of process. This is a process whereby, with sort of a single letter, the minister is saying to you folks that you're out there in the field and you know more about it than he does. He asks what you can tell him about the major issues facing you or perhaps some new directions in which to go in, in order to accommodate your work and service to your immigrants.
It's so broad that it does bring out some frustration. People know they only have a few minutes to talk. What should they talk about?
It's new to us in the House. I want to say that we share it, because, the new Prime Minister,Mr. Chrétien, has actually held certain debates that essentially say to us: what do you think about peacekeeping? What do you think about this and that? They are great, huge issues, and you just agonize over what you are going to say in ten minutes on these very big issues.
It is a new process, in a sense, for you, as it was for us in the House when we had these invitations to address broader issues. We really do want to hear what you have to say.
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It's interesting that since I arrived only one person has mentioned the GTA, and I've heard, other than that, ``Metro'' or ``small town''. If in fact the minister is going to move forward with something called a ``regional board'' or a ``local board'', it might be a good idea for some of you to come together and talk about what kind of region you would like defined for your services.
This is the first meeting I've been to in the city of Toronto in a year where anybody has even talked about Metro. Everything is the GTA. To be thinking about boroughs and parts of Metro as opposed to the many regions that come together in the GTA in my view is a little out of date.
I would like to throw this idea open to you. If you could design a body that had the right to define priorities and do something around the allocation of funds in immigrant settlement services, how big would that area be? What would the representation be like? We are looking for those kinds of suggestions.
One thing was said that I thought was the kind of broad policy brush-stroke we are looking for. That's when Ms Filippi talked about how the form asked you essentially to point out what's wrong with your immigrants; what they need based upon what they are missing.
That leads me back to something else. Some of you have probably worked, I'm sure the school board people have - It seems in this country in social services of every kind we've inherited that medical model that tries to identify pathology in a person or in a family and fix it. That is a very expensive way to go about handling people. As you know, hospitalization and surgery are a heck of a lot more expensive than, say, cleaning up the water supply, or inoculation.
So the other idea I would like to throw out to you to get around this - we can do what we can at our end; maybe have the forms emphasize strengths of immigrant groups, strengths of families, things that may have worked in the last ten years in settlement programs in this area. What are our strong suits? Let's build programs around success instead of failure.
Ms Filippi: We're challenging institutions. We should be challenging the status quo. It can't remain the same forever. I see that as fundamentally our role, because things have to change, things have to evolve.
The problem has been that we are largely perceived as - oh, no, here they come again; those social activists waving those banners. It's not perceived as though we have a right to have a voice that's changing the system, changing under the institutions. I think we have to get away from that mentality. You are very true in saying that.
Ms Brown: This is exactly what we want you to address. We don't necessarily want to hear about just what's wrong with the forms you have to fill out now. How would you design a form? What we're saying is this is a big policy opening. It probably means meetings at night when you're not being paid to come up with that sort of thing.
Education went through that. I was a teacher fifteen years ago. All of a sudden we were allowed to develop our own curriculum at our local level. We did it at night, when we weren't paid, because we wanted to take advantage of that policy opening and jump into it to tailor our programs for our own kids growing up in our municipality.
There's the whole idea of the health and wellness and strength model. That might spill back to the first speaker I heard when I came in, about the media coverage. Why wouldn't the media talk about negative things when we are always talking about what's wrong with people in order to get them services, when we are always talking about the rights of these people, as opposed to the gifts they bring to the community and the strengths they bring, both within the internal city and town but also in Canada as a trading nation. We have to begin not to fight for rights but to celebrate the strengths we see in this client group. As we begin to do that in a very obvious way, the media will pick it up. It's called ``flipping the coin''.
Those are just the feelings I have about the statements I've heard so far.
The Chair: Thank you, Bonnie. We appreciate it.
Ms Balugas.
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Ms Balugas: I'd like to make the comment that Ms Arundel made regarding the local agencies knowing that they can do only so much in their area or in their region. We all know that. That is a rule of thumb for us. If your agency is in a certain region, then you can help only those clients in that region.
However, the people who are looking at the applications and the people who are approving the funds are the ones who have to be educated as to how much service that area provides to how many people in that area. As Ms Arundel said, if your area provides so much service for those residents in that area, then if it's Metropolitan Toronto, that's a large area.
Again, our area, with York region, is a large one. But when we are told that our clients can access York region services, that is not what the agencies in York region want us to do, because they are not getting that funding. They're not getting that money. Basically, they are being asked to service clients from outside their region for the same amount of money.
We're saying that, if the federal government is saying it's looking at regions and it wants to treat everyone fairly - and we as the service providers also understand that and agree with it - then the people who are looking at the funding applications and the people who are giving out the funding also have to realize that this is a totally different application from that of someone who may be close to that border but is in two different regions.
So we understand the boundaries, but the people looking at the applications also have to understand them.
Mr. Abai: I think one of the reasons we are here is to talk about settlement renewal. From what I have heard since I came in 1983, until very recently immigration used to be more or less the foundation of the Liberal Party. But now I know that situations are changing. I know there certainly are restrictions, and I also know that we are talking about settlement renewal. However, what I see is that barriers are being put in place. On one side we are talking about settlement renewal, but on the other side we see barriers.
One of the main important things in settlement is family reunification. We hear rumours - it was in the media as well - that there is a plan to put bonds. If a particular immigrant or refugee is willing to settle successfully in Canada, then one of the requirements, needs, of that person is to be reunited with his or her family.
The other is the problems that certain communities are facing as to landing, the issue of an ID. There are 30,000 Somalis in Toronto, if we take that as an example. They have been accepted as convention refugees, but they are not landed. That also hinders the settlement process.
So we have to look at all the issues.
Another issue is health care. Certain groups are restricted from accessing health care. I know that all of you are aware that Immigration has taken some responsibility.
It's being rationed, and the settlement service itself is being eroded on the other hand. At the same time, we are also being asked to discuss settlement renewal.
These barriers have to be looked into as well. There has to be some sort of revision to accommodate if not all then some of the needs of the refugees or immigrants whom we are trying to help in the integration or settlement process.
Ms Peries: I have to say I am very confused about this consultation. For me, the fundamental question, which seems to be in conflict even within the committee, is, is this a done deal? One of the major tasks for this committee subsequent to this consultation is really to clarify that for us so we shall know exactly what we're responding to. If it is not a done deal, our response will be quite different. If the question is whether it should be devolved, then obviously we have been preparing to respond to something completely different.
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But if that question is still on the table for this committee, let me reiterate that we have grave concerns about the devolution of settlement services, because we have concerns about the separation of immigration policy and immigration programs, immigration policy and implementation of immigration policies. If this is more of a question about the program review and it's a cost-efficiency question, then our response is perhaps going to be the federal government, as suggested by Metro and United Way, needs to look at standardization of administration, consolidation of administration, more cost-effective means of administration. If that is the question, then our response will be different.
So I would really beg the committee to clarify this issue for us. Then we can respond more effectively. As I said earlier, the questions arising out of the whole issue of settlement renewal are many: for example, the enduring role of the federal government, the whole issue of what is contained in the envelope of settlement service delivery, who delivers them; if there are advisory bodies or regional decision-making structures, how will they be constituted, who will sit on them, what will be the role of these bodies? All those issues are things we have consulted on among our membership at OCASI, and we do have some positions on them.
But to have meaningful responses to these issues, we have to know what the question is. What's becoming more and more clear to me is that we really need a very structured consultation process, with key expertise around the table, with some clear time lines that are reasonable and that give us enough time to respond to these critical issues.
The Chair: On a point of order, Ms Clancy.
Ms Clancy: Ms Peries, I have to say I'm disappointed, but I will respond to you for what must be the seventh time this afternoon.
First, I'm sure you understand this clearly: Mr. Nunez and I will disagree. Mr. Nunez is a member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition - you should excuse the expression - and as such he does not hold the same policy views on a number of things, really very basic things, although there are certain simpatico areas in the area of immigration we might share.
I answered your question before. I think the chair did. I think Mrs. Brown did. Effectively, we are saying to you if you could tell us what your preferred model of settlement, delivery, funding, and national standards is, we would like to hear it. We have also told you the time line is that we will be filing a report on or about the first day of October, after the House comes back. I don't know what else I can say to make it clear.
Mr. Nunez disagrees. He says it's a done deal. I say it isn't. Short of the heavens opening and God putting his finger down and saying ``she's right and he's wrong'' or vice versa, I don't what else I can tell you.
I've said the same thing to Ms Arundel - a famous Norfolk County name. I'm really trying to be both lucid and non-judgmental here, but in my family, in which we argue with each other a lot, there comes a point when one member of the family will turn to me and ask, which word didn't you understand?
You can choose to disbelieve me. That's fine. You can choose to say the minister is not legitimate or not being honest. You can say all of those things. That's fair ball and that's your right. But I sit here before you today saying that's the question, that's the time line, that's what we want to hear from you. Beyond that, I don't know what I can do. I'd open a vein in the middle of the street, but it probably wouldn't help.
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Ms Peries: I understand your frustration. Please bear with me when we reiterate ours. We have been told again and again by the civil service that this is a done deal. So there's a fundamental contradiction.
The Chair: I'm going to stop you right there. The civil servant is right here.
Please get up, because I really want to get to the bottom of this. I should have done that earlier. I think it has come up a number of times. Do you want to read the document, Elizabeth?
Ms Elizabeth Gryte (Manager, Settlement Programs, Settlement Directorate, Ontario Region, Citizenship and Immigration Canada): Maybe I can read the document, because it's an awkward position to be in.
The Chair: I'll say.
Ms Gryte: The document being handed out says:
- At the root of this change is the decision that Citizenship and Immigration Canada...will
withdraw from the direct administration and delivery of federal settlement programs over the
next two to three years.
I'm going to let Ms Peries finish.
Ms Peries: Thank you, Ms Gryte, because you have made me feel better that we haven't been doing six months of preparation work towards settlement renewal and responses to this issue in vain.
That having been said, if the issue or the decision of the government in power is to revisit that decision, then we do have a different response, which may not necessarily be contained in this brief.
The Chair: The point is how it is going to be done. I think we've said that from the beginning. I don't know if that message hasn't got across, but that was the purpose of the consultation.
Mr. Nunez.
Mr. Nunez: Excuse my poor English, but in my opinion, unofficially the decision has already been made by the federal government; ``unofficially'' because it has to be made officially by the government.
I have here the minister's letter, dated June 6. It says in fact:
- ...it would be the aim of this Department to lessen its role in the administration and delivery of
federal settlement programs while providing the funds to local structures which will establish
local funding priorities.
- Any services such as research or information that the federal government should continue to
provide must still be identified.
The Chair: Mr. Nunez, I think a majority of the people have a copy of the letter, if I understand very well. I don't think it's a small group. It's not a secret document, first of all. It's a public document. Anybody can have copies of any document tabled in the committee.
Mr. Lennox.
Mr. Lennox: I will comment very briefly on the discussion we had about the good points of our immigrants and the qualities they bring to our country.
The members of the committee have received from us the research document on our students. It shows what a wonderful group of people they are. It also emphasizes very strongly the education level. In the previous year, 28% of the people in this study who came to Canada were college graduates. It means when we are working late at night we have to design programs to meet the needs of those people. It's really a treat to sit at a graduation and listen to someone who was a doctor in Lebanon and who has been in Canada since December speaking so well. We have to emphasize those kinds of accomplishments far more than we're doing.
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So I hope the members of the committee will take time to glance through our document.
Ms Wolchak: I think Mr. Lennox has expressed our viewpoint. We have never viewed on any a priori, negative basis the need for newcomers to learn the language of instruction of our schools. We really have responded in terms of any language learning being a strength.
One of the things we do know is that in the kinds of programs we provide, the stronger the language competence of the learners is in their first language, the more quickly and easily do they acquire a second.
When we think of needs, we don't necessarily think of them as in any way weaknesses, but, rather, as ways in which we can strengthen the involvement of our newcomers in our country.
Ms Filippi: Thank you very much for those last comments.
The frustration we feel on this side, Ms Clancy, is that experience has taught us otherwise. I'm hoping that this committee might show us a different set of experiences, because we had the whole consultation on the social security but things changed and they are being reformed without us being at the table. I share your frustrations, but from this side of the table too we've seen things change quickly, and it hasn't always been a very positive experience.
Ms Clancy: That's a very fair comment, but again I say to you.... You talk about the reform of social security. I heard a young woman, Ms Lena, talk about the fact. I think we misunderstand each other at a great many junctures.
Ms Peries keeps asking if it is a done deal. I'm telling her it's not a done deal. We want to hear what models you want. I said earlier that devolution and abdication are not the same, and I leave that with you.
May I also say that this is, as you all know, a very large and diverse country. There comes a point where the buck stops. There comes a point where consultation can no longer be done, but the bullet must be bitten. If the bullet that gets bitten wants to bite us back, then you will have the opportunity come next election day.
At any rate, the point I want to leave you with is that we came here. I think there is frustration, because we could have spent more time in listening to suggested models. I hope that you will send that to us and let us see what models you have regionally or whatever. I'm from the city of Halifax and I don't understand about GTA and all these things up here in the big city of Toronto, but you do. Tell us, and then we'll deal with that.
We did not spend your tax dollars and our precious time going to the major cities in this country for window-dressing. We are genuinely interested in what you want to say and what you have to say. We are genuinely interested in your experience.
I know I speak for my colleagues on the government side, and in this very limited capacity I can speak for Mr. Nunez too, in that we are genuinely concerned with the delivery of services of this nature to the relevant communities.
The Chair: I'd like to thank everyone for their input today and for their written briefs. We appreciate it.
I will repeat myself: you are welcome and encouraged to present any recommendations you have to the committee. As far as clarification and anything else go, I, your members of Parliament, and the clerk are available if you want to discuss further. If there are other witnesses that you think we should see, the full committee will be sitting when the House reconvenes in September.
As Ms Clancy said, our report will probably be tabled in the first week of October. I really am counting on your input. You are the experts. We're not the experts.
I appreciate your coming here today. Thank you very much. I hope to see you on another issue at another time.
This meeting stands adjourned.