HUMA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

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1525

The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.))

Mr. Don Head (Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada)

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1530

The Chair

Ms. Rosaline Frith (Director General, Integration, Department of Citizenship and Immigration)

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1535

¹

1540

The Chair

Mr. Graham Stewart (Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada)

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1545

¹

1550

The Chair

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac (Manager, Maytree Foundation)

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1555

º

1600

The Chair

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau (Coordinator, Family Literacy Program, “Joindre l'Est à l'Ouest”, Y Women of Montreal)

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1605

º

1610

º

1615

The Chair

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Don Head

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Don Head

Mr. Graham Stewart

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1620

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Graham Stewart

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Graham Stewart

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1625

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Graham Stewart

The Chair

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, Lib.)

Ms. Rosaline Frith

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1630

Ms. Diane St-Jacques

Ms. Rosaline Frith

Ms. Diane St-Jacques

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

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1635

Ms. Diane St-Jacques

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac

The Chair

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ)

Mr. Don Head

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

Mr. Don Head

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1640

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

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1645

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.)

Ms. Rosaline Frith

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Rosaline Frith

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1650

º

1655

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

The Chair

Ms. Rosaline Frith

The Chair

Ms. Rosaline Frith

The Chair

Ms. Rosaline Frith

The Chair

Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.)

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1700

Mr. Don Head

Mr. Raymond Simard

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1705

Ms. Rosaline Frith

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

»

1710

Mr. Raymond Simard

The Chair

Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton—Springdale, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Ms. Rosaline Frith

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Ms. Rosaline Frith

»

1715

The Chair

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

Ms. Zaïa Ferani (Project Leader, Literacy Center, Y Women of Montréal )

The Chair

Ms. Zaïa Ferani

»

1720

The Chair

Mr. Don Head

The Chair

Ms. Rosaline Frith

The Chair

Mr. Graham Stewart

»

1725

The Chair

Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac

The Chair

Ms. France-Line Carbonneau

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

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NUMBER 025

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.)): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 25th meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

    We are getting down to the final groups of deputations in our study on literacy. We're looking forward to the information you're going to bring us today.

    I'm going to ask each of the various groups to introduce yourself, and we'll carry on.

    I'm going to start with Correctional Service Canada, Mr. Head.

    Mr. Don Head (Senior Deputy Commissioner, Correctional Service Canada): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    My name is Don Head, I'm the senior deputy commissioner with Correctional Service Canada.

    I'll just give you a quick overview of Correctional Service Canada, and then speak briefly about what we are doing in relation to literacy and education programs with federal offenders.

    On any given day there are approximately 12,600 inmates in the institutions and about 8,500 offenders in the community. There are approximately 7,600 offender admissions into the system in a given year.

    The profile of the offender population is such that 96% are men and 4% are women. About 40% of those in the offender population are between the ages of 20 and 34. In terms of a breakout of race, about 85% of the population are non-aboriginal, and 15% are aboriginal. About 68% of the population at any given time are serving a first federal sentence.

    Correctional Service Canada is governed by the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and one of the obligations in the act is that the service will provide a range of programs designed to address the needs of offenders and contribute to their successful reintegration back into the community. One of the ways we do this is by providing educational and vocational training opportunities that have been researched and validated, in terms of assisting offenders reduce the risk they might pose when they return to the community.

    We adopted an approach in addressing various risk and need issues of offenders, and one of the areas we looked at was what we call the employment domain. We've identified three significant contributing factors that we need to examine when we're looking at the employment domain for offenders.

    One is in relation to an individual's life experiences: what they have done in their life in terms of previous employment, and some of the factors that have contributed to them not securing or maintaining employment. We have also looked at what skill development opportunities they have engaged in, or potentially could be engaged in, while they're within the federal correction system. Then we also look at their education level, more importantly their functioning educational level.

    On the actual education indicators for federal offenders, just over 75% do not have high school diplomas. More importantly, at any time just over 50% have less than grade 10, and about 25% have less than grade 8. Correctional Service Canada uses the grade 10 mark as a level of determination in our educational response.

    Some of the specific research that's been done on education upgrading for offenders was completed four or five years ago. One of the pieces of research did a sampling of just over 6,000 male offenders who participated in adult basic education, and compared it to all other released offenders between 1990 and 1993. There was a follow-up period of two years after their release.

    The research indicated that offenders who had completed ABE-2, which is around the grade 8 level, had a 7% reduction in readmissions into the correctional system; and those who had completed ABE-3, or around the equivalent of grade 10, had a 21% reduction in readmissions to the correctional system.

    We know from our research that when we put our time and energy into dealing with both the education and employment needs of offenders, we see a greater impact on whether an offender reoffends and comes back into the system. Taking both of those areas into account at any given time has proven to be effective.

    On some of the benefits we've seen from offenders participating in education and literacy programs, providing them the basic and sufficient reading and writing skills that allow them to function on a day-to-day basis and ultimately seek employment is one of the most significant benefits we've seen.

    I'd just like to give you some brief examples of some of the specific literacy programs that Correctional Service Canada has been involved in. In the Atlantic region, in one of our institutions, we have a program called “Turning a new Page”. It provides offenders an opportunity to address their literacy issues and at the same time make a contribution back to the community.

    As they progress through their literacy upgrading, they are involved in making recordings of children's books. These tapes and books are then distributed through Scholastic Books to community schools. The feedback we've received from the various schools that have been involved in this program and receive these packages has been very positive. This program has actually been featured on Canada AM and the ABC television station.

    We also have a program in our women's correctional facilities that's intended to help mothers and their children. It addresses the women's literacy issues, but also helps their children learn to read. This has proven to be a very valuable program.

    At any given time we have approximately 270 teachers engaged across the country in delivering education and literacy services. The majority of them are under contract with Correctional Service Canada. The classroom size ranges from 13 to 18 students. It depends on the literacy level of the group they're dealing with. So those numbers have proven to be effective for the adult basic education approach we've taken within our facilities.

    On some of the next steps that Correctional Services Canada is pursuing, we're looking at implementing a screening process for learning disabilities during the intake process. When a new offender comes into the system they go through an intake assessment process and various things are looked at, including education and literacy levels. But we have also identified, through the intake process, that we need to refine our assessment tools to look for learning disabilities.

    We see more and more examples of individuals coming into the system who present as fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effect. We need to take that into account before these offenders participate in other education programs or some of our traditional correctional programs, such as substance abuse and family violence abuse.

    We'll be looking at putting in place standardized assessment tools to identify learning disabilities. We're looking at ways of flagging learning disabled individuals within the system, so they get the kind of care and attention they need while they're within the correctional system. We also anticipate that this will assist us in our eventual referral for their participation in other correctional interventions while they're within the system.

    So we have significant experience in dealing with the literacy and education issues within the correctional system. I believe we've made some significant progress in addressing the literacy issues with both male and female offenders. We're continuing to look at ways of improving our response and hopefully contributing to the individual's successful reintegration when they go back into the community and seek employment.

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    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Head.

    I'm now going to ask for the representative from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

    Ms. Rosaline Frith (Director General, Integration, Department of Citizenship and Immigration): Good afternoon. My name is Rosaline Frith and I'm the director general of integration at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It's a pleasure to speak with you today about immigration and language skills.

    Citizenship and Immigration Canada has recognized that the ability to speak French or English is critical for economic, social, cultural, and political integration. Studies have shown us that even the mental health of newcomers is affected negatively by the inability to speak an official language at the levels required for effective integration.

    The federal government takes language training needs very seriously. It spends almost 80% of settlement funding of approximately $333 million annually on language-related programming for adult immigrants.

    Let me begin by examining quickly the recent trends in newcomer language ability. As you can see on chart I, between 1999 and 2001 the number of newcomers who declared that they had the ability to speak English, French, or were bilingual was only slightly higher than those who declared that they had no ability in either official language. For example, in 2001, of 250,346 newcomers to Canada, 114,775, or 46%, declared an ability to speak English; 4.5% could speak some French; and 5% were bilingual, compared with over 111,000 people, or 44%, who had no ability in either official language.

    I'd like to point out that the trends in language ability for the children of immigrants show an increasing number in need of second-language training. Chart II in your handout focuses on the five-year-old to nine-year-old group. Of a total of 19,640 children in this age group in 2001, over 13,000, or 68%, spoke neither English nor French. Most of these children live in major cities where some school systems are having difficulty meeting the demand for second-language training.

    Without effective English second-language or French second-language training, many of these children will be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their peers, because language ability is so important for all aspects of learning in school.

    Recent trends for immigrant educational levels on arrival to Canada show steady increases in education levels, as noted in chart III. For 2001, 47% of newcomers had bachelor's degrees or higher. This compared very favourably with the Canadian-born, where 34% had bachelor's degrees or higher.

    Newcomers with higher education levels can learn languages more easily and can improve their language abilities quickly. Current programming needs to be improved to match the needs of these newcomers. In fact, the recent budget announcement provided an additional $5 million per year to deal exactly with that issue of higher levels of language training.

    Service provider organizations that deliver our sponsored language training--provinces, advocacy organizations, and newcomers themselves--have told us that newcomers need higher levels of language training and profession-specific language training to enable more effective economic integration. The federal government annually funds approximately 50,000 newcomers outside of Quebec for basic language training, at a notional cost of about $2,800 per student.

    We fund the language instruction for newcomers to Canada program in all parts of Canada except British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec, which design and administer similar programs themselves. All adult permanent residents are eligible for language training. Government departments, individuals, not-for-profit organizations, school boards, businesses, and community colleges deliver the language training.

    The federal program is delivered within the parameters of the Canadian language benchmarks framework. The framework identifies the four language competencies of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, along a non-linear continuum of 12 benchmarks.

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    We have a parallel framework called les Standards linguistiques canadiens that exists for French second-language education for newcomers. Both frameworks have provisions to deal with newcomers who are not literate in their mother tongues and are unfamiliar with the Roman alphabet.

    Some advocacy organizations in provinces have promulgated the notion that newcomer adults whose mother tongues are linguistically distant from English or French, such as Chinese or Russian, will require longer training to acquire an official language. Preliminary results from research co-funded by our department suggest this is not the case. The predominant factor in language acquisition appears to be the educational level of the newcomer. The more educated from any language group acquire English or French faster than the less educated.

    Flowing from the February federal budget, CIC now has additional funding to develop and administer labour market-related language training projects, in partnership with stakeholders, over the next five years and into the future. Training will focus on the special programs developed to respond to the needs of immigrants destined for specific occupations.

    The new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was implemented in June 2002. Under its selection grid, an applicant may receive a maximum of 16 points for high proficiency in the first official language and up to 8 points for high proficiency in the second official language. English and French have equal status as either the first or second official language.

    It is possible that this high weighting of official language ability in the selection process--up to 24 points out of 100--will have the effect in the future of decreasing the demand for CIC-sponsored language training at lower levels in Canada. The move to the provision of higher levels of training appears to be well timed; however, it is too soon to assess the possible impact.

    Before I conclude, I would like to give you just a quick bit of information on some of the things that are specifically designed by the department--some examples of how we deal with persons with disabilities. I think that is important. It's on page 6 of the presentation.

    Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, humanitarian-class persons are selected abroad based on their need for protection from Canada, notwithstanding their disabilities. They are then destined for cities across Canada where settlement services are available to respond to their special needs.

    For example, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the province has a contract with the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities to deliver language training to adult deaf immigrants. The program integrates American sign language with English as a second language. Similar initiatives exist in other provinces for persons with hearing, visual, and mobility impairments.

    Accommodations are also made in the process of granting citizenship. In one particular instance, an elderly candidate for citizenship in a remote Nunavut community received the oath of Canadian citizenship from a local RCMP officer, while a citizenship judge presided over the ceremony by phone from Iqaluit.

    In another case in Winnipeg, a very ill elderly person was hospitalized, but his last wish was to die as a Canadian. The citizenship judge went to the hospital room to perform a private ceremony for him.

    We do make special efforts to ensure successful integration of newcomers into the Canadian family. Language is one of those very important efforts.

    I'll be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

    Thank you.

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    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Now, from the John Howard Society, we have Mr. Stewart.

    Mr. Graham Stewart (Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada): Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon.

    I'm particularly pleased to be here today to be able to address you on some of the issues and interests we have with respect to literacy and justice. For those who aren't familiar with the society, it's a national charity that has for many years been involved primarily in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders into the community.

    I have distributed my speaking notes that contain what I would have liked to have said if I'd had a little more time. I'll speak very briefly to the introductory remarks and then give an overview of the recommendations.

    I'd like to begin by taking a quote from the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, the Chief Justiceof the Supreme Court of Canada, who said:

...we should do what we can to make the law clear and accessible to average Canadians. The law is perhaps the most important example of how words affect people's lives. There is truth in the proposition that if we cannot understand our rights, we have no rights.

    I'll tell you of another case I am familiar with where a young person appeared in court, and on the very first day of his trial the judge pointed to him and asked, “Are you the accused?” He said, “No, sir, I'm the guy that stole the truck.” I think it's pretty clear that in a case like, if someone doesn't understand their rights and doesn't have the literacy skills, they don't have the rights. In that particular case, it was pretty hard to imagine a fair trial.

    There are two areas I'd like to talk about. One is the judicial process--courts and administrative bodies--and the other is corrections. I separate the two because the analysis each requires is somewhat different. When it comes to courts, we're talking about the right to a fair trial, therefore the analysis is a rights-based analysis. In corrections, we're talking about the need to develop a person's literacy skills in order to re-enter the community, therefore an educational analysis is perhaps more appropriate.

    The fact is that courts are environments that operate at a very high level of literacy. The language, the concepts, even common words have special meanings in this particular environment. For a person to function well and understand what is taking place, it requires a high level of literacy. At the same time, the majority of people who appear in court--not just as the accused but also at witnesses and victims--are frequently operating at a very low level of literacy. In that kind of circumstance, it puts an enormous burden on the courts to ensure that the proceedings are fair and that the person has a fair trial.

    In the corrections situation, we see within the offender population that virtually every form of social or economic cultural deprivation that one sees in society is over-represented in the prison environment. While it would be wrong to say that illiteracy is a cause of crime, the fact is that much higher levels of illiteracy exist in correctional institutions than what we see in the general population.

    What all offenders have in common is that they lack social bonds. The correlation between criminal activity and those who do not have bonds with family, community, and society as a whole in a variety of institutions is very high. Most of what's done in corrections to promote reintegration are those things that encourage social bonds.

    Clearly, a person who has very poor literacy skills has a number of disadvantages. Maintaining family ties is very difficult without them, and participating in programs is a problem. The other thing is that any weakness or vulnerability is generally a problem if you're in a prison. You tend to want to hide that, so there's a lot of denial. One of the ways you deny your level of literacy is to show indifference or hostility. That, in turn, can lead to higher assessment of your risk and lower accessibility to programs and services. You're less likely to receive parole, for instance, and you're less likely to receive reintegration services afterward. So it's part of a cycle.

    It's quite appropriate that within corrections, considerable emphasis is put on literacy training. Mr. Head mentioned the 21% drop in recidivism, and that's very significant. It's also worth mentioning that even a 1% drop in recidivism more than pays the cost of the literacy programs that take place within those environments.

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    With that in mind, I'm going to skip right over to our recommendations.

    With respect to courts, it's our thought that courts should be operating on the presumption of very low literacy rather than on the presumption of high literacy, as they do today. Most courts assume that people understand, unless there are reasons that come to them forcefully. We know from our experience with judges that many of them are often suspicious that there's a problem with literacy, but aren't sure how to find out or what to do about it.

    Material, resources, and information should be designed to enable those with low literacy skills to understand as much as possible. Resources should be available to the courts to assist with low literacy, through interpreters and assessments that judges could rely on as a check to ensure that people understand.

    People are commonly given probation orders and told to appear on a certain date and at a certain time. They will nod and say they understand when they don't. Sometimes they don't know what day it is and what the next day will be. They can't read and they can't tell the time. So violations are important. It's important to remember that failure to comply is the most common criminal offence committed by young people. That brings them back into court and ultimately increases their penalties.

    It's important that there be training for all professionals associated with the judicial process, not just the judges. We've found that the judges are very receptive. We've been involved in a number of training initiatives with judges, but the problems are more than can be addressed by judges alone.

    Again, everything done within corrections, in terms of rules and procedures, should be in plain language as much as possible so they're understandable by those in the system.

    We believe that every person, on entering a prison, should be assessed for their literacy skills, and attempts should be made to connect them with potential training programs. Federal institutions have people for more than two years and do a pretty good job of this, on the whole. But the vast majority of prisoners in Canada do not go to federal institutions; they go to provincial institutions where the median sentence is 40 days. Obviously, 40 days is not enough time to train people in literacy, but it is enough time to do an assessment and do a referral to the community. Generally speaking, our experience has been that provincial institutions do not do that with short-termers.

    All prisons, in our view, should have basic literacy training and incentives for inmates to participate. Real efforts have to be made within institutions to de-stigmatize low literacy abilities. It's not uncommon in the institutions, and the degree to which that's a barrier is important to address.

    The schools should give more than basic literacy; they should go further than that. It's very important for people to see the connection between literacy and education, so we would encourage the development of educational programs that go right through to high school, in the case of provincial institutions, and even beyond that in federal institutions.

    Staff in institutions should be trained to recognize and assist those with low literacy skills, particularly when so many of those we see go to considerable lengths to hide their lack of ability. Special systems should also be involved, particularly in disciplinary hearings, parole hearings, or other important decision-making forums, where those with low literacy skills and understanding may be at a significant disadvantage.

    On a more general basis, we recommend the development of an integrated, broad-based national strategy to address problems of literacy in Canadian society, as I'm sure you're concerned with at this committee. More particularly, we recommend the Department of Justice take a lead role in making laws and regulations simple and clear, ensuring that understandable explanations of the law are available to Canadians. They have done a fair bit of this, but it's still an incredibly complicated process.

    We would like to expand the role of the public legal information and education programs, and others who help to promote accessible and understandable justice across Canada. The department should work with Communications Canada and the National Literacy Secretariat to become a centre of excellence in communicating information on law and legal assistance to all.

    In that respect, I should note that the National Literacy Secretariat has been a tremendous help to us in our work to promote literacy. As you'll note in the appendix to this paper, we've been fairly extensively involved in this field for some years.

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    The Department of Justice, together with the committee of deputy heads of agencies and appropriate representatives of the Privy Council and the National Literacy Secretariat, should develop a plan to ensure that administrative bodies within the federal government are sensitive to the issue of literacy; that their regulations, policies, and communications are clear and simple; and that members of tribunals are made aware of and respond appropriately to the challenges of literacy.

    Finally, we recommend that the Department of Justice work with other partners in the justice system and in the community to identify and change those procedural barriers that have made accessibility to the justice system a barrier to Canadians with weak literacy skills. The department should develop pilot projects that demonstrate how these barriers could be overcome. These demonstrations should be with both the criminal courts and administrative tribunals.

    What we have in mind there is developing some specialty courts that would be literacy sensitive, would presume low levels of literacy, and would try to adjust their practices in a way that would demonstrate how the courts might proceed in a better way, while recognizing this particular need.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stewart.

    I'll now call on the representative from the Maytree Foundation.

    Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac (Manager, Maytree Foundation): Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members.

    My name is Elizabeth McIsaac and I'm with the Maytree Foundation, which is a private foundation based in Toronto. One of the key objectives of our refugee and immigrant program is improving access to suitable employment for newcomers by promoting fair recognition of their skills, education, and experience. As a private foundation, Maytree is committed to finding practical solutions to its objectives.

    My comments today will focus on the particular issue of language skills for immigrants and the solutions that the foundation has been putting forward. These solutions are part of a broader set of policy recommendations to facilitate more effective labour market integration of immigrants.

    I'd like to begin by making some contextual comments around immigration. I think Rosaline gave you a pretty good idea of who's coming into Canada. But there are a couple of points I still want to make, just because I think they're important in terms of context.

    The number of immigrants coming to Canada has gone up. In the 1990s, we had 1.8 million people arrive. That was up from 1.2 million in the previous decade. The impetus for this increase in immigration levels has been the demographic imperatives of an aging population and falling fertility rates. As a result, we have labour market needs. It's been well cited now that by 2011, 100% of the net labour market entrants in Canada will be immigrants. This is significant.

    Immigration as a national program then is largely an investment in the human capital needs of the economy. This is not to say that immigration policy does not also address an array of humanitarian commitments and other national values. It does, but at its core the skilled immigrant program, in particular, is about human capital investment.

    As a percentage of the total population, immigrants are also significant. In 2001, 18.4% of the total population was not born in Canada. That was second highest after Australia. Immigrants arriving in the last 10 years comprised 6.2%. In some of the centres, the engines of our economy like Toronto, 47% is foreign born. That's huge. It's significant in terms of ensuring that those people are effectively integrated into the economy.

    I think it's also useful in this context to describe briefly who's coming to Canada. Immigrants are coming from the new-source countries of China, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Iran. Source country is important, as Rosaline pointed out, because English and French are not official languages for many of these countries. This has implications for second language literacy.

    Immigrants are better educated. Over 40% who arrived in Canada had a university education, and over 60% had some form of post-secondary education. Again, level of education has important implications for second language literacy, particularly for program design.

    While immigrants arriving in the 1990s represented almost 70% of the total growth of the labour force, their participation in the labour market did not compare with previous cohorts of immigrants, nor did their level of earnings. Historically, immigrants have caught up to their Canadian-born counterparts within 10 years of arrival. That has not been the case for the immigrants arriving in the 1990s, with immigrant men earning less than 80¢ to every dollar earned by Canadian-born men. That was after having lived in Canada for 10 years. These figures are taken from the most recent stats provided by the 2001 census data. This data also tells us there's an over-representation of university educated immigrants in lower-skilled jobs. So things aren't working properly.

    The economic challenges of the 1990s are not sufficient to explain the differences in labour market participation and earnings, in light of the skills and education of recent immigrants. Furthermore, indications of underemployment suggest the well-known barriers to effective labour market access for immigrants. These are: non-recognition of qualifications; ineffective assessment practices; lack of information; the Canadian experience criteria; lack of customized bridging programs; and the focus of this discussion today, appropriate labour market language skills.

    The Maytree Foundation has focused its attention on this problem, and over the last two years we have developed solutions within a systems-based approach because we see this problem as part of a complex set of systems.

    I brought some slides, but regrettably--and I apologize for this--they were not also available in French, so I'll just indicate that we have developed a very sophisticated schema. The middle part here is a set of the types of programs and services we think are necessary to more effectively integrate newcomers into the labour market.

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    The first level of services is about advice, information, assessment, and those types of tools that need to be provided. But the second level is about integrated bridging programs--the types of programs that would fill gaps newcomers may have in being able to effectively use their skills in the labour market.

    We recognize that for many skilled immigrants who are arriving there are gaps in their skills, knowledge, or experience that prevent them from participating effectively in the labour market. These gaps may be academic, language skills, technical skills, or knowledge of the Canadian workplace. To address these gaps, we think it is most effective to focus on filling the identified gaps, not asking people to retrain from scratch or go back to first-year university. We see these aspects as highly interrelated, so the solution we're putting forward is to integrate training. I'll give you an example of what we see as a good practice in the community.

    There's a pilot bridging program that's being provided at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Pharmacy. The program is designed to fill the specific gaps that foreign-trained pharmacists may have when they arrive in Canada, and prepare them for licensing. The program has elements of academic preparation for the exam, occupation-specific language training provided over the course of a year, and information on the legal and cultural context of pharmacy in Canada. It was developed and designed with the relevant partners at the table: the university, the provincial ministry of training, colleges and universities, the licensing body, community-based agencies, and very importantly, the employers. Shoppers Drug Mart was one of the first at the table for that.

    So far it's working extremely well. People are completing the program, qualifying for licensing, and working immediately upon completion of the program. The main challenge, however, is sustainability. This is not an inexpensive program. There is a need for investment in start-up funds to develop more of these kinds of integrated programs. There is a need to build sustainability for these programs through fees, but at the same time, if you're going to charge fees, we are proposing that we ensure there's adequate support provided to individuals for access to student loans for these types of programs. Bridging programs typically don't qualify under the Canada Student Loans Act, and newcomers to Canada don't qualify for the Canada Student Loans Act in the first year in the country.

    Turning to the specific issue of labour market language training, we're recommending a reorientation and expansion of the LINC program that Rosaline mentioned--language instruction for newcomers to Canada. This is a program of Citizenship and Immigration. Currently, the program provides to level 3, which does not fully equip an individual with the language or literacy skills needed for the labour market; nor does it equip a parent to advocate effectively and articulately within the school system on behalf of their child. These are essential elements of economic and social inclusion. We are therefore recommending higher benchmarks within LINC, labour market orientation within the program, and the development of occupation-specific benchmarks in training. All of this may require new funding mechanisms.

    There needs to be a seamless capacity between HRDC and CIC for joint planning and funding, so there's some coordination. There needs to be leadership in convening stakeholders and the development of strategic national initiatives. There need to be new relationships between departments and levels of government--increased horizontal and vertical coordination.

    We're currently seeing an experiment in this in the Toronto area. The Toronto City Summit Alliance has recently put forward some recommendations around immigration and establishing an immigrant economic integration board. As part of that, they're trying to increase coordination vertically and horizontally by having someone from HRDC, someone from CIC, someone from the corresponding provincial ministries, and very importantly, someone from the municipalities. We believe successful solutions will happen with local coordination and a local lens.

    As part of this, and specific to Human Resources Development, there needs to be a meaningful discussion of eligibility for EI programming, so previous labour market attachment does not become a barrier to future labour market attachment, where no one benefits. So the vast majority of some of the labour market training programs have that as a qualifier.

    The recent experience of immigrants in the Canadian labour market generally points to shortcomings in their effective access to employment. If both Canada and immigrants are to benefit from immigration, then we believe it is imperative to find solutions to integrating them into the labour market.

    Thank you.

º  (1600)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Elizabeth.

    Our final presentation will come from Y Women of Montreal.

    Welcome.

[Translation]

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau (Coordinator, Family Literacy Program, “Joindre l'Est à l'Ouest”, Y Women of Montreal): My name is France-Line Carbonneau from the Women's Y of Montreal. I coordinate the Family Literacy Program, Joining East and West.

    The Women’s Y has developed two literacy programs in the past 10 years: “Words for Women” and “Joining East and West”.

    Words for Women dispenses tutoring and currently adds a collective dimension to its activities. Seventy-five percent of learners that visit the center are immigrant women, illiterate in their native language. Two thirds of these women start working at becoming literate.

    The objective of these learning women is to integrate themselves in society and become active participants. They are helped in the process by other women, volunteer tutors that commit to a minimum of one year. Furthermore, they may join small activity groups to develop skills like public speaking, problem solving, analytical reasoning, creativity and writing.

    The program Joining East and West is a family literacy program aimed at reducing the cyclical effects of illiteracy. The program’s goal is to recognize and strengthen the parent’s competencies, to demystify the world of writing and to encourage and stimulate interest in reading within families that are new to literacy.

    With this program, the Women’s Y attempts to support families trying to share the joy of learning and the discovery of writing with their pre-school kids.

    The activities we propose to families are based on everyday life. These activities try to recognize individuals’ strengths and leverage their resources. We want to promote the necessary conditions to foster the development of positive bonds to writing in a mutually enabling parent-child relationship.

    We offer relationship facilitation in small parent-child groups, in partnership with schools and community groups as well as home support services. Sets of 10 workshops are conducted with the entire family, including the smallest children and their brothers and sisters.

    I will tell you about our partners. We would have liked a little more time to discuss the needs we see in the field with you. We still managed to consult one of our partners having 30 years of experience in the field of literacy in high-risk neighborhoods of the city. The first need we are presenting was highlighted in our discussion with this person.

    It concerns support measures for the people learning. If we want to help out immigrant women with the process of literacy, we have to conceive support measures adapted to specific situations. Here are a few of these situations.

    Some of these women are responsible for three to five children and they have revenues substantially under the poverty line. If these women are considering becoming literate they have to find support such as free daycare. Financial support measures would help these people persevere in learning and stimulate their enthusiasm for going back to school. Generally, illiterate people have developed an apprehension of school. We need to create new models for learning that combine working skills and continuing education; models such as work placements that may require partnering with learning centers that dispense basic training. Some examples of companies in Montreal doing this include Cuisine atout and Formétal.

    Here is our second recommendation. We have come about some very interesting and promising projects in the past 18 months and we wish to share this experience with you.

    The Boîte à lettres in Longueuil uses life experiences as a method which combines individual and collective approaches. Famille en tête delivers schooling in natural setting in the Pointe-St-Charles neighborhood. The Alpha group adopts a collective approach. The Groupe d’alphabétisation of Montmagny-Nord uses pedagogical tools and methods from the cognition school. The group DÉBAT had built a tool for learning to learn in partnership with the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

    In what follows we will refer to all these centres as community groups to which the Women’s Y is affiliated. All these groups had developed what we call alternative programs. We plead that it is important to promote this diversity.

    There is a need for different models. We notice that there are many ways to promote literacy but they are all inspired by the work of the educator Paolo Freire. The community groups have developed an approach that distances itself from the traditional schooling model practiced by the various boards of education. We must continue to support these community groups in their efforts.

º  (1605)  

    We believe that the strength of these community groups’ model lies in the fact that they have not reproduced the traditional literacy ways that the learners have been exposed to in the past. Even though the majority of the projects enacted by these groups are based on the principles of Paolo Freire’s pedagogy, they all retain distinct features. Why? Because all these projects are conceived to address specific needs. One of our recommendations is to confirm this finding. We think that immigrants benefit from similar programs.

    1. Immigrant women with low literacy skills that come to the Y’s literacy center need to follow an individual learning process with the support of a tutor. As a tutor, she will have a double role of an ambassador of the world of writing and of a mentor to the student to raise her confidence level in her success potential.

    2. The learners also need to embark on a collective literacy journey to realize that they are not alone in their predicament; to create themselves a network of knowledge; to enable them to speak up and share their experience and thoughts; to allow them to benefit from a place where they may practice their oral and writing skills.

    3. To conduct its mission, like all other community groups, the Y’s center for literacy has a recurrent need for means to listen, to analyze and to respond to the needs of immigrant women with low levels of literacy skills in general. The reason for continued support is as follows: we believe that models developed by community groups, even if they respond perfectly to a given situation, remain in constant evolution. They need to change and adjust continuously.

    4. We also argue that a successful model in a given literacy center should not be applied across the board. We think it would be a mistake to try to recreate a successful project. Still, we realize it is essential to keep in touch with other community groups to be knowledgeable of other initiatives. These initiatives may become sources of inspiration for our program and models we can adapt.

    5. The center for literacy needs to keep an important autonomy in order to listen and identify requirements for putting in place programs and tools that meet objectives and goals of the women learning.

    6. This is the context in which the needs of the immigrants are assessed. We want to share with you a recent experience of the literacy project team.

    We have been conducting visits since the fall, with a family in a high risk neighborhood. I remind you that the objective is to support the families in their learning process to discover writing. The presence of the parent is thus critical since we believe that sharing special moments and having fun with the writing activities will give the family the desire to repeat similar activities in the future.

    Lately we realized that the mother was not participating. What was happening? The person in charge of the tutors went to the home to discuss it with the mother. First, this mother of four is overwhelmed by her work, and then she goes back home to clean the house, cook for the family and perform the collection of household chores. She would like to take French lessons in the evening, but where would she find such time and energy to do it?

    Consequently, we decided to modify slightly the workshops we offer this family. We will add a time slot where the kids and the support person will help the mom with a household chore that she would be doing at that time. A vast vocabulary surfaces from a single chore. Cooking leads to naming the ingredients, the actions performed, the elements and the utensils used. It also includes notions of quantities, heat as well as hygiene. We are even ready to go do the groceries with her.

    With this initiative, the parent is valued as the primary educator, recognized for her skills and supported in her goal of seeing her kids succeed at school by learning the language of its host country.

    In conclusion, the recommendation we are making is that the community groups need work conditions that enable them to use tools and programs with latitude to modify and adapt the means to reach the goals given specific situations.

    The last need we wish to discuss is linked to the schools. We believe that the learning difficulties experienced by the children are in part associated with the perception of the families that writing is difficult, frustrating and unattainable. We think the gap between schools and families should be bridged.

    Here is what we have experienced with some families, schools and community groups of four high risk neighborhoods in Montreal these past three years. We have a common objective of reaching families with writing difficulties to promote the enjoyment of reading. As our means to reach our goal, we offer to the schools activities to be done during or after school time. We invite parents of four and five year olds to join us two hours a week, for a period of five weeks. The activities target daily events and propose to transform the bath time, the wash and other household activities into privileged moments between parents and children by suggesting tools, “how-to’s” that the parent can use again once the workshops are finished.

º  (1610)  

     Among the positive outcomes of the project, one of our tutors has noted a greater interest of the parent with respect to the kids’ schooling, from the questions and increased participation to school meetings by this parent.

    Tutors have observed an increased motivation for school from children getting home support.

    For some parents, this was the opportunity to visit the school for the first time since registration day. They appreciated seeing their kids interact among their peers.

    My favorite outcome is the one where the little boy is asking his mother to read him bedtime stories.

    There is another activity related to school that we conducted recently in an effort to bridge gaps for parents to be more at ease with writing and school. We created a workshop for homework support for the parents, a presentation and hands-on tools to explore various learning methods, to understand children’s strengths, to teach learning games in an effort to acquire concepts taught in school. The parents were ecstatic to discover and identify the various learning types, visual based, auditory based, mathematical-deductive and kinesthetic.

    We feel it is necessary to continue to bridge the gaps to alleviate parent’s fear of school. Society needs to create ways to build the parents’ confidence, for themselves as much as for their kids, and whether they are immigrants or not. We are working at it.

    Thank you.

º  (1615)  

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, I'm going to turn it over to questions. I'm going to ask that we keep this to 10-minute rounds. Perhaps in the interest of getting appropriate answers to our questions, we might direct our questions to specific persons, as opposed to having everyone respond.

    Mr. Solberg, we'll begin with you.

    Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses.

    I appreciated the presentations. You're all sort of addressing different issues, to some degree. Because time is limited, I'm going to direct my questions to a particular issue, which is justice and corrections. I appreciate the presentations of both Mr. Head and Mr. Stewart on this.

    I want to start by saying I instinctually believe that literacy training is important in prisons. It just makes sense to me. But I also want to just suggest that, of course, correlation isn't always causation. I think Mr. Stewart made that point too.

    I have one perhaps trivial point, I don't know, with respect to people who engage in literacy training being less likely to re-offend. I just urge you to consider that possibly another explanation might be that people who are tired of sitting in prison are the ones who've already changed their minds about getting their acts together, and therefore pursue literacy training. That's probably not the case, but I simply offer it as an observation.

    I have a couple of questions. First of all, while I have you both here together, I should ask Mr. Head something. Mr. Stewart has laid out a number of recommendations for corrections in his paper. What stops you from adopting them? Maybe you have adopted them. Maybe in some cases they are just for provincial prisons. For instance, he says that correctional programs and rules should be prepared in plain language---things like that. Is there anything stopping you from doing that? Are you addressing that?

    Mr. Stewart, please jump in too.

    Mr. Don Head: I guess to address your question, this is one of the things we look at--that materials we provide to offenders are easily understood. I think over the last several years we've begun to realize that sometimes the language we use in our documents and communiqués to offenders is not as plain and simple as it could be. With simple things, such as orientation manuals that we provide to offenders, we've learned over time that we have to make sure the individual understands them. It's not just a matter of giving the individual the written materials, but also taking the time and energy to make sure they understand them. Sometimes it requires actually reading them to them.

    In terms of just being aware of what's happening in a correctional process--similar to what Mr. Stewart said about what happens in court--we're very cognizant of the literacy functioning level of offenders. Parole officers at times have to read individuals the various reports being prepared about them so they understand.

    We also know there are segments within the offender population where reading it and having them acknowledge that they understand it is not necessarily enough, and there is more work we have to do. There are some individuals, as we're finding out with those who present with FAS/FAE, who indicate they understand but really don't understand what's occurring.

    Mr. Monte Solberg: Mr. Stewart mentioned training staff to identify people who have low literacy skills but won't admit it. Do you do that?

    Mr. Don Head: Yes, sir. That's one of the things we're looking at in our next phase of the intake assessment process. We talked about designing the tools that better assess the literacy levels of individuals, but there's also the training that goes with that for the staff at the offender intake assessment units, so they can pick up on cues to identify individuals. Then we can determine right from the beginning that more attention needs to be paid to them, as they spend time in the facilities.

    Mr. Graham Stewart: The matter of making things simpler and clearer for prison inmates is not something that's done once; it's done continuously. Correctional Service Canada has taken a number of important steps over the years to make documents clear and more simple, but it's a huge task that needs to be addressed continuously.

    At the same time, the federal correctional system, which has people for more than two years and is generally better resourced than provincial systems, does a much better job for the majority of prisoners. When you get into the territorial, provincial, and local jails you find that many of the materials aren't in written form at all, let alone in plain language. Many of the staff are not oriented toward this.

    People come and go so quickly that the whole nature of trying to make things understandable and presenting them properly is not a high priority. So it varies dramatically across Canada, depending on what facility you are looking at and what period of time you're looking at.

º  (1620)  

    Mr. Monte Solberg: I just want to follow up on that. What kind of response do you get from the provincial governments? Are there some provinces that are a little more enlightened on these things than others? I guess the question for this committee is: what can the federal government do in areas of provincial jurisdiction to help that along?

    Mr. Graham Stewart: The federal government, in its broad-based across-the-board strategies around literacy and making government more understandable to the public, sets a standard that provinces will inevitably feel compelled to follow. I realize it's not just a question of legislation.

    When you see significant correlations between literacy training and recidivism--and I acknowledge that it's often hard in this business to distinguish between cause and correlation--we have very good reason to feel that if a person has an orientation towards reintegration, literacy is an important aspect of that. While it may not be a sufficient factor, it's certainly a necessary factor for reintegration, as are a number of initiatives. Most of these problems are not solved by one particular area.

    But in that sense, the initiatives around articulating due process in courts would encourage courts to have some resources to be more sensitive to the low levels of literacy; to establish standards within their own federal corrections that make it clear; and then to research those to the extent they can. It's an important example to set, and something I hope this committee will able to support.

    Mr. Monte Solberg: Just switching gears here to the justice system, it sounds like Correctional Service has moved some direction toward where you want to go, but I expect maybe Justice hasn't moved as far. You've mentioned there are problems with big caseloads and finding the resources. But do you get any sense that some serious progress is being made?

    I take your point it's really almost an issue of fundamental justice that people have some understanding of what's going on. I think we're all confused to some degree by terms the legal profession uses. Some of the language is very archaic. It's a special discipline, so you have to be familiar with how it works.

    But setting that aside for a second, obviously it can be very confusing for somebody with low literacy skills, and it is an issue of fundamental justice. Since that is the case, how fast is this progressing? Is it progressing at all? Has it stalled? Should we have someone from the Department of Justice here to address this?

    Mr. Graham Stewart: You probably should, but we've been very pleased and very active with both the bar and the judiciary in Canada on concerns around literacy. That's been very well received.

    We produced two information booklets, one with the bar. We produced it but it was written by lawyers. The other one was written by judges and has been used extensively in training amongst the judiciary. I think the point I was making is that the judges have been very concerned about this. They know it's very hard to have a fair trial for someone who doesn't understand what's taking place. At the same time, they feel they're also conducting a trial. They have a plethora of other social issues that also present themselves that they need to be sensitive to.

    So their training is very broad and engages many social issues and concerns. But when it comes right down to it, if the judge isn't sure someone's literacy skills are up to snuff, how does he assess that? To what extent is he intruding? These are questions they have and are concerned about.

    I think many feel they need some help with that. If there were people attached to courts, they could ensure that people understood, particularly something as simple as their probation order. Do they really understand? The person will always say, “Yes, I understand, sir.” just to get out of court. But it doesn't mean he understands.

    My sense is that there's not significant resistance from either. The bar has a permanent committee on literacy that's been working for years trying to promote plain language law, in particular. It's the same with the judiciary. But there's just a limit to what any particular judge can do, using the time that's available to him in the complex situations.

    Our sense is that if the Department of Justice were to make this a higher priority and tried to make the material better.... Research has been done that shows it's not just those with low literacy skills, but those with very high literacy skills, including lawyers and judges, who really benefit from plain language law. So efforts to do that have certainly become an important priority with the Department of Justice, and need to be continued.

º  (1625)  

    Mr. Monte Solberg: If it's any consolation, we still don't have a plain language Employment Insurance Act. We've been pushing for that, but we can't get the government to do it.

    Mr. Graham Stewart: It's hard to rewrite all the legislation, but certainly supplementary material that helps explain key pieces of legislation is important.

    The Chair: Madame St-Jacques.

[Translation]

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, Lib.): Thank you Ms. Chairman. I would like to thank our witnesses for their excellent presentations.

    Ms. Frith, you mentioned in your presentation that the current programs should be improved to respond to the need of newcomers. I would like to know, according to you – the question may be addressed to all the presenters—, what we should prioritize as a government? There is much to be done but maybe we can prioritize certain things.

    For instance, Ms. Carbonneau you talked about flexibility. The projects you are doing are very interesting but since the needs are so vast and diverse, how can we ensure we keep a certain flexibility to deliver the projects the way they should be delivered and that we obtain the appropriate results?

    The question is open to everyone.

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: The question is quite broad, isn’t it?

    I must say the Department has been working with the provinces, territories and agencies for some years to improve the programs, to make sure we reach all the people who require the help, all the adult immigrants, men and women, which have a need for language training.

    We must have daycare provided on the premises since newcomers in the country are uneasy leaving their kids in places other than where the classes are dispensed. Therefore, it is critical to link the daycare needs with the language training.

    Class schedules must be flexible, covering daytime, night time, weekends and all. We already do it that way. It can always be improved, that’s for sure, but we already do it that way.

    Furthermore, we can’t ignore basic needs. We need language training for people that may be illiterate or have very low language skills. We can’t focus only on highly qualified people who possess strong education and who perform at a high level. If we truly want to integrate immigrants in Canada, we must ensure that we do what it takes to reach everyone.

º  (1630)  

[English]

    That is difficult because today we're spending approximately 80% of our settlement funds on language training. We are, for the most part, able to reach what we call LINC level 4 across Canada. I would like to reach LINC level 8, to really meet the labour market needs of those people who are entering the labour force.

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: LINC 4 and 8...?

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: It's very confusing. There are different ways of measuring the language training. In the federal government we have worked with the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks, in both English and French, to create a set of benchmarks. Those are established.

    Using those benchmarks, we also have a language training program specifically for newcomers to Canada. LINC is the language instruction for newcomers to Canada program, CLIC en français.

[Translation]

    We have both. It’s based on benchmarks. These are the same benchmarks we use for people outside Canada that need points to enter the country through the selection process.

    Therefore, it is managed jointly, but it’s very complex. As I explained there are four elements: listening, reading, hearing… Anyhow, it is complicated.

[English]

    Through the innovation strategy, the government has acknowledged there is a clear need for higher levels of language training to address the labour market-related needs. That's more important today than it was ten years ago because we've changed, in terms of the kind of work we do in Canada. It's very much a knowledge-based economy, and in a knowledge-based economy the most important thing is to be able to communicate well.

    So if someone who is extremely well educated in computer sciences comes to Canada, goes to work for a large technology firm, and loses their job, that person often cannot be re-hired into a different industry. Although they may be an engineer and have a high level of education, they do not have the language skills that will allow them to properly manage people and communicate well outside of a very narrow piece they've acquired to do their job in the information technology area. So we have to find ways to bridge that.

    I think by working with Industry Canada, the Department of Human Resources Development, and Canadian Heritage to sensitize employers; by working with organizations such as the Maytree Foundation and listening to the kind of research they have been doing and their ground-roots approach, we can do better with the moneys we have and the additional resources we have received.

    As I said, we've just received $5 million more per year specifically to seed projects with organizations, employers, community groups, community colleges, and universities, to specifically do higher levels of language training linked to the workforce.

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Are there any other comments?

[Translation]

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: I want to add something. When I talked about flexibility, I named several groups I know; it is only my second year in literacy at the Y. I talked about Boîte à lettres, Alpha Laval and the group DÉBAT. All these groups have received grants from the National Literacy Secretariat, and I wan to tell you to keep it that way.

    At the Women’s Y, we do a project and midway through it we have to change things so we document it in the report and things are OK. I feel we have this latitude and I would like to tell you that it is important to keep it as such. I feel we have had such latitude for the past year and a half and it is important. Thus my message is to continue in that direction.

º  (1635)  

    Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Certain flexibility with…

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: Flexibility between what we present in terms of projects and what is actually done in the field since there can be gaps between what you want to do and… There are outcomes, but not necessarily the outcomes that where planned initially.

[English]

    Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: I would add only--and it's more a question of approach--when you asked about what the priorities should be, part of what we have been recommending and developing is a model whereby the priorities are set and identified locally from a multi-stakeholder approach.

    I referred briefly to the Toronto City Summit Alliance initiative around launching a Greater Toronto Area immigrant and employment council. That envisions bringing together all of the stakeholders--immigrant associations, professional associations, occupational regulatory bodies, the different levels of government, and the regional municipalities--so there can be coherence and coordination at a local level, and things like priorities can be established that are local in nature. It's very difficult because the priorities are not the same and the regional differences are so vast across Canada.

    I would also just take this opportunity to mention we've done a thorough background document that's available. It was published by the Caledon Institute on this issue and is called Fulfilling the Promise: Integrating Immigrant Skills into the Canadian Economy. More recently, before we began to flesh out the model of what a local organization would look like that had federal participation, the Caledon Institute published a document called Nation Building Through Cities: A New Deal for Immigrant Settlement in Canada. So that's also available.

    The Chair: Mr. Gagnon.

[Translation]

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ): Thank you.

    I have two quick questions. The first one is directed to Mr. Head. Are all establishments and penitentiaries currently offering education programs?

[English]

    Mr. Don Head: Yes, there is. We have educational institutions in all our correctional facilities, and at any given time about 30% to 35% of the offender population is involved in some form of education program.

[Translation]

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: OK.

    You have raised the issue of the decrease in the reoffending rate for people who are enrolled in these programs. But there is a problem with inmates who are there for a short time only and therefore may not benefit from the program; at the very least, it seems difficult to reach them in order to enroll them in the system. Would it be possible, for instance when they get out…? I am not familiar with penitentiary conditions or laws that would apply in this case, but would it be possible that a short term detainee enter a follow up process until the end of the probation period to ensure we further diminish the reoffending rate?

[English]

    Mr. Don Head: Mr. Stewart's comments earlier on the short-terms were specifically about offenders going through the territorial and provincial systems. I had experience working in both the Yukon territorial system and the Saskatchewan provincial system, before coming back to Correctional Services Canada.

    One of the challenges the provinces and territories face--the very issue Mr. Stewart talked about--is that the sentences are short and there is just enough time to do an assessment of an individual, but not enough time to get them involved in a program. However, the provinces and territories try to identify an appropriate education or literacy program approach for the individual. Then they try to make arrangements, through community colleges that might be in the area, so that individual, once they do leave, can be hooked up with those kinds of institutions to continue what may be able to be started within a provincial or territorial facility.

    Some of the provinces and territories have seen the research that relates to offenders participating in education and employment-type programs. They realize it's not the only factor that contributes to a reduction in readmission, but they see the benefit to that and have started to work with provincial education organizations to find programs that get the individuals motivated to start, and then follow up when they go back out into the community.

    Some provincial judges have started to become innovative in using probation orders, in some cases, as a way of suggesting that individuals carry on with that. They identify it as a type of program activity, but you don't see that very often. Usually the probation orders or the community-type orders are more along the traditional lines of substance abuse, family violence, or anger management programs. But you do start to see some of the judiciary looking at education as a very specific program response to dealing with an individual who comes in front of them.

º  (1640)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: Thank you. I have a question for Ms. Carbonneau. We know that in Quebec there is often problems when it comes to community groups. I had the chance, some years back, to gather funds for the Fonds Jeunesse Québec which dealt with various programs for people aged 15 to 35. We split up the funds, which were quite considerable, among many projects but we’d often come to realize that some programs were set up in such a way that they targeted many groups.

    In the examples you have given us earlier, like the Boîte aux lettres, is the survival of each organisation ensured? Do the federal programs which currently exist ensure their survival? Will they continue to adequately finance these programs so as to continue fighting in the right direction?

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: I cannot speak for all organizations because I have not been asked to represent them. I named these organizations because I feel they do important work and I feel that the outcomes are interesting as well. I will give you an example.

    Last year I attended the Forum Alpha 2002 and I saw some the youths from the Boîte aux lettres. I fell in love with them and the program because you could really feel the reconstruction. These are young people who have lived through some very dramatic moments and are frustrated with school, their personal lives, etc… But one could nevertheless feel the reconstruction of their self-esteem and their self-confidence. I’d say that they have been able to regain confidence in themselves through their writing skills.

    That is why I named these organizations earlier. I believe that these organizations are here to stay. The Woman’s Y for example has been around since about 1875. So I am fairly certain we will be here for some years yet. I am fairly certain. And others, like the Group Débat are there…

    I believe one of the key things is to keep in contact with these groups, to see what one is doing, all the while recognizing and respecting them.

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: My question was aiming more at federal groups which exist to give you a hand. Are they presently adequate in order for you to continue to do your work? Like I’ve said I don’t actually know the proportions of all this, but I am just asking so that you may inform the committee… You have stated what is currently being done, but is it enough, and are you assured that in the future you will continue to be able to perform your duties adequately?

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: I like your question because in a way one never knows whether we will still exist in September. It varies from one year to the next. That isn’t the Y but the program. I was not there then but they have told us that the program was financed for one year. However, in light of the report and what has been done, the federal government has approved a second year. Last year we were told that we would be good for a third year as well. I called our agent and told him that I am with this program since my first year with it and that I would like to stay on it a second year. But, we don’t know. That is clear: one can never tell from one year to the next whether it will work out.

    We do realize that we are responding to a need. We also work, as I have mentioned earlier, with schools, community groups and the Local Community Service Centre (CLSC). So we are trying to form a partnership. I am participating in the round tables, etc… I believe that it is a solid program. Will we exist? It depends. I spent a part of this year trying to figure out how I could ensure the presence of this project in the four realms in which we operate.

    Does this answer your question?

º  (1645)  

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: Yes, thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gagnon.

    Monsieur Bellemare.

[Translation]

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.): Thank you Ms. Chairman.

    Ms. Firth, with approximately 250,000 immigrants per year, how do you go about evaluating the basic education of immigrants, since this is our project?

    Secondly, we want immigrants to become a productive part of this society. When we say “productive” we mean for the most part, but not always, people who work and participate in society. If they don’t work, they can also participate on a volunteer basis or in some other way. How do you identify these? How do you gain access to them? How do you convince them to follow basic education classes. And once you have them in class, who does this type of work? Are these programs given to boards of education or are they given to non-governmental organizations?

    I will stop there.

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: Every person who comes to Canada fills-in a form. In other words, whether they are a selected immigrant, someone from the “family” category, or a refugee, they fill-in a form and state their level of education. In this way, I have data representing the level of education of each person entering Canada.

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: These people fill-in a form? What happens if they cannot read nor write, how do they go about filling-in the form?

    Should a distinction be made between immigrants and refugees? I believe that the problem of illiteracy exists mostly amongst refugees.

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: Yes, a distinction must be made between the different categories. If some persons are unable to fill-in the form by themselves, then another person will do so for them as I need this information for each person. Therefore, we obtain the information we need from the very beginning. Whether we are dealing with a refugee, an immigrant pursuant to the “family” category or a selected immigrant, we obtain the information.

    I thus know the person’s level of education and whether they speak English or French, or whether they are bilingual. I do not necessarily hold information on every other language a person can speak. Often, immigrants arriving in Canada can speak five or six languages.

    An average of 44% of them speak neither English nor French. This does not mean that this person is illiterate but rather that they simply speak neither English nor French.

    We know that about 61% hold a post-secondary education, whether that be college or university. That is very high. If we are speaking of 61% of adults, I know that we are not just referring to selected immigrants, but also to people in the category “family” or refugee as well. In other words, there is a good number of these people who are very well educated.

    A large portion of those that speak neither English nor French are children. In fact, the data on children states that 68% speak neither English nor French.

    We have a lot of information. I record the basic information at first, and after a certain amount of years, we take a look at the information available on their revenue and we correlate their revenue to their basic training so as to determine whether these people have attained a level of revenue which is equivalent to that of a person born in Canada with similar education. We take statistics which compare the two.

    This is where we see that for the last ten years, since the 1990s, well-educated people are unable to succeed in the same fashion as people born in Canada with a similar education. There is thus a difference, and one of the key factors is the knowledge of languages. We know this.

    In regards to participation, I must say that most adult immigrants do work. We know that in the average the number of immigrants which depend on employment insurance or social insurance is not any higher than that of Canadians born in Canada.

    After some years, the gap between the two levels of revenue narrows. This is not to say that the change occurs in the first years; it is always harder at first. We know that the level of poverty is currently higher among immigrants than it has been in the past. This has been the case for the last ten years only. If I look at the national average, it is not that bad, but that is not to say that there isn’t a group which suffers from poverty. There is one.

    With regard to access, I have to say that immigrants and refugees do not need to be encouraged all that much when in comes to learning. These people are accustomed to continuing their education and their linguistic training.

º  (1650)  

    We have programs. Outside of Canada, we have an orientation program which informs a certain number of people – not much, but it does reach about 9,000 people – on what to expect upon their arrival in Canada. We tell them which courses are available and that it is extremely important they learn French or English.

    We hand out an information kit to every person arriving in Canada. We give them a first kit when they receive their visa, and a welcoming kit at the port of entry when they arrive in Canada.

[English]

    A “welcome to Canada” kit.

[Translation]

    It provides them with contacts throughout the country and their community so that they may look for help in language training, as well as more general information so that they may better orient themselves within their own community. It provides information on how to take the bus, how to register children in school, and many other things. In other words, there is a whole system of information which helps immigrants to better integrate themselves in society.

    Who gives the courses? It can be a small non-profit organization, a college, or school systems. For example, we have a contract with the Peel school board in Toronto for I’m not sure how many millions of dollars. It is a lot of money because they are one of our extraordinary providers. It can also be a college or a university. We deal with the people who are most apt in helping us within each community. Usually, we do some consultation work at the community level and form committees which include experts who can speak to all the different people and subsequently find the appropriate providers. This is how we work.

    Things are done differently in each province. As you know, in Quebec, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Canada-Quebec Accord. A sum of money is granted directly to the government of Quebec, which is completely responsible for the administration of the program. It works differently in Manitoba and British Columbia, where we also have dealings. We work very closely with these people, but they are responsible for the program and for drafting the contracts for the providers.

º  (1655)  

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: If I understand correctly…

[English]

    The Chair: I've been practising tough love.

    I have a question that arises from yours.

    Ms. Frith, you mentioned that applicants were asked whether they could speak English or French. How do you determine the proficiency?

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: I think we've come a long way in that. Until the new act came into effect in June 2002, it was through an officer's evaluation and self-identification by the person, which one can judge to be very poor. They all thought they spoke very well.

    Today we have a system in place based on the Canadian language benchmarks, using our standards. We have ways to do independent testing of those people who are coming in under the selected class, so those who are being selected are skilled immigrants. The principal applicants, which make up approximately 26% of the total number of immigrants who come to Canada, are actually writing tests to objectively evaluate the level they're at. I can't give you very much information. That only started happening after June 2002. It's a brand new system for us.

    Those in the family class and refugees are pretty much self-tested. They're not required to take the test to come to Canada. They don't get points.

    The Chair: On the information package you disseminate, we've heard about the language we're using in court systems. Is it at a level that...?

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: We've been very conscious of that. We've worked with the Literacy Secretariat and various departments. We've worked, most importantly I think, with the communities that greet and work with immigrants every day, to make absolutely sure the language levels and literacy levels are low enough that the package is in simple plain English and French that people will understand. I think that's an area in which we've been very successful in working with our partners.

    We just redid our booklet for becoming a citizen, “A Look at Canada”, “Regard sur le Canada”. It has been redone to ensure that the language level, charts, pictures, and everything are clear enough so people really understand how to vote, and about governance in Canada, etc.

    The Chair: But that's really the second stage. That's well beyond the first entrance to the country.

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: It is, but three years after someone arrives in Canada they can apply for citizenship. You still have older people who do not speak either English or French very well at that point, but they are very proud and definitely wish to take their citizenship tests like everyone else. They need to have materials that are readable for them.

    The Chair: Would it be possible for you to provide copies of both of those packages for the members of the committee?

    Mr. Bellemare. I didn't take that off your time; I took it off my own.

    Mr. Simard.

    Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    A lot of my questions have been answered, but I'd like to address a series of questions to Mr. Head. They may pick up on Mr. Solberg's question.

    First, does Corrections Canada offer the courses on their own, or is it in conjunction with the provincial departments of education? How long have you been providing these programs? How can the federal government increase the number of people who will attend these literacy programs?

    You said ABE-8 had a 7% reduction and ABE-10 had a 21% reduction, so if the tendency holds, ABE-12 would have a 63% reduction. These should be our targets--I'm just kidding.

    In layman's terms, maybe you can explain to us what ABE-10 means. Is it a certain number of weeks? Is it reaching a certain level of education?

»  (1700)  

    Mr. Don Head: I'll address each of your questions.

    The literacy and education programs are offered by a combination of our own staff of teachers who are certified under the provincial regulations, and contract teachers. We contract with organizations that supply teachers as well. It's all funded within the CSC budget.

    The education courses have been offered in correctional facilities for many years. There have been refinements over the last 10 years, with the greater focus on literacy training. Previously there was a focus on the grade 10 to grade 12 kind of education. But we learned a while ago that although individuals coming into the system may proclaim they already have grade 10, when we do apply some of the standard educational testing tools we find they may have reached that space within the public school system, but in terms of the actual standard that's applied for qualification at that level, they haven't met it. So there's been a significant revamping of the adult basic education program over the years.

    I'll come back to your third question in a second. What's in the slides is not quite correct. We actually have four levels of ABE: ABE-1 is grades 1 to 5; ABE-2 is grades 6 to 8; ABE-3 is grades 9 to 10; and what we refer to as ABE-4 is from grade 11 to high school diploma.

    In terms of what the federal government could do, we're constantly looking at opportunities to increase the ability to expand the number of educational literacy programs that are offered. As I mentioned earlier, we're looking at opportunities to refine some of the assessment tools we use specifically to assess learning disabilities. This is a very significant issue. As a federal government agency, we're limited in our capacity to move down that road very far. We're dependent upon provincial education departments to learn from their experiences. We're looking at the experiences of the Literacy Secretariat to try to find these tools, and whatever research that's been going on nationally and internationally.

    After we have those kinds of assessment tools in place, we're also very keen to look at the types of refined or modified programs that address individuals with identified learning disabilities. One of the areas we've identified as being problematic at this time is our response to individuals who present with fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects. This is something, as you're well aware, other agencies are struggling with as well.

    So this is a significant area for us. Anything that can be done by the provincial governments and the federal government working together to combat that one area would go a long way, in terms of us doing work with individuals who come into our system.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: I heard somewhere--I'm not sure of the exact number--that within the next six or eight years 100% of our workforce will come through immigration. I see here that immigrants are generally better educated than Canadians, with 47% having bachelor's degrees or better. Should we be comforted by that? What's the correlation between that and them being able to find a job?

»  (1705)  

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: I would be comforted by the fact that they have high levels of education. Yes, it's true that between 2011 and 2016, 100% of our labour force growth will be due to immigration. We're already at over 70%. So it will have a big impact in a very short period of time.

    We know that over 70% of jobs require post-secondary degrees before you even turn around. You have to be well educated to work in Canada. It's very difficult to get work without a proper education. So yes, that's comforting.

    What is not comforting is the fact that employers need to be even better sensitized to immigrants, diversity, and issues about different cultures. They need to be more open to people with education from different countries. They need to start to recognize foreign work experience.

    So there are clearly many challenges that our department, along with Industry Canada, Human Resources Development Canada, and Canadian Heritage, has to face in sensitizing employers and working with provinces, regulatory agencies, and licensing bodies to try to ensure better recognition of foreign credentials. We have to reach out even more than we already do to the communities, whether it's the cities or the specific community groups, to get them to help us to spread the word, because they are the closest to the employers and the people.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Ms. McIsaac, you said something very interesting: that immigrants are no longer catching up to their Canadian peers as quickly. In the past they used to catch up within 10 years, as I understand it.

    You also spoke about integrated training programs that don't just include literacy. How much of this is attributable to literacy? They used to catch up in 10 years. Now it's not happening anymore. Is it 10 %; is it 90%?

    Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: I can't give you a figure. I think a number of different factors are involved. Language competency and having the level of occupation-specific language that's needed by the market is an important factor. That's why it's a necessary part of any integrated bridging program that gets developed at this point going forward.

    Certainly from some of the analysis that's come out around what happened in the 1990s, the recession in the early part of the 1990s obviously hit everyone. Canadian unemployment rates went up; participation rates went down; and earnings went down. When Canadians bounced back in the late 1990s, the immigrant population did not. So we need to look at what else was going on there.

    Just as important as labour market language training are things like qualifications recognition, which Rosaline mentioned. The Conference Board of Canada has done a study on that, and cited that something like $43 billion a year is lost annually to ineffective qualifications recognition. That's a very important piece as well. So there are other parts that come under that.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: It's hard to measure.

    I'm going to sneak in another question while she's not looking.

[Translation]

    Ms. Carbonneau, you said earlier that although a certain literacy program may work in some situations, it may not be applicable across the board. I found that interesting. I was wondering whether you offered a number of programs which have been developed beforehand or whether you tailor each program. Do you run an analysis of your clients and then modify the program in mid-stream?

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: We work with a program that has been developed at the Women’s Y, but we do modify it according to what happens. Two weeks ago, a daycare phoned us because they noticed the language development was not progressing as quickly as usual. This is correlated to what we have been seeing in schools. In a neighborhood, for example, there are three schools where 50% of children require speech therapy. There is something there.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: How old are these children?

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: I wouldn’t be able to tell you. They spoke of school in general, but the centre for children works with children who are younger than 4 years old.

    We know that problems are coming, which makes me think of the types of services we could offer. We are holding a conference call next week so that I may explain to her exactly what our program can offer. She would like us to train the teachers to transmit these tools so that they may in turn be used at home, with the parents, or in community groups or school. We would need to first show the teachers so that they may then show the parents.

»  (1710)  

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Thank you very much. Thank you Ms. Chairman.

[English]

    The Chair: Just because I wasn't looking at you doesn't mean I didn't see. I'm a mother. I can see. I can hear too.

    Mr. Malhi.

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton—Springdale, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Which group has more literacy: the new immigrants, the women immigrants, or the disabled?

    The Chair: Mr. Malhi, where are you directing the question?

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi: To all of them. Do you have any percentages available on that?

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: You want to know who needs literacy training more. I would make a general statement that if you were to look at our total intake of immigrants and refugees, women would have a slightly higher need for language training than men. That's simply because in many countries men are advantaged and they don't have the gender equality we have in Canada. So women arrive in Canada and have more needs. But it's not a large number. Women aren't excessively more in need than men.

    We have found in our language training programs that we have almost 50-50 men and women. By putting in place programs to support the women, they're out there taking the training as much as the men. Many women who come to Canada today are out working in the labour force almost as fast as their spouses. Women also tend to take lower-paid work to support the family and be less reticent about taking work below their education levels. They are in the labour market quickly and need the language training to support themselves, so they tend to follow up with language training.

    In terms of disabled people, I really can't say. We have a large number of refugees who have experienced trauma, and they are in need of trauma assistance and language assistance. They're very much in need of our help and are a priority. But I can't give you numbers or percentages.

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi: What do you mean by priority to improve the literacy program between these groups?

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: Our first priority is to make sure all immigrants and refugees who require basic language training, starting with no language up to LINC level three, receive it.

    We are also working in communities where we have a large number of well-educated immigrants who need higher levels of language training. Then they may become the priority in those communities. So each community is dealt with individually.

    We make it a priority to provide the language training to the most recent arrivals over people who have been here for several years. We do not provide, under our settlement programs, any language training to Canadian citizens. If they have been here as immigrants for over three years, have applied for citizenship, have become citizens, and are still having difficulty with language, they cannot access the settlement language training programs.

    So our priorities are: recent immigrants; basic levels first; and as much as possible, in partnerships, higher levels of language for those skilled people who need it. We also try to combine, where we can, the higher levels of language training with bridging programs associated with the workplace so it's a single window to go from learning the language to getting some experience, and employers are more apt to hire them.

»  (1715)  

    The Chair: Madame Carbonneau wants to respond.

[Translation]

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: I would like to let my colleague respond; Ferani, Zaïa is responsible for the literacy center.

    Ms. Zaïa Ferani (Project Leader, Literacy Center, Y Women of Montréal ):

    Hello.

[English]

    The Chair: Before you respond, could spell your name and give your title so we have it for the record, please?

    Ms. Zaïa Ferani: I will.

[Translation]

    I am Ferani, Zaïa. I am in charge of the program Parole de femmes, which is the literacy program for women only. We work extensively with women immigrants.

    A while ago, you talked about access, evaluation, integration, the market place, refugees, selected immigrants, etc. There is an important difference between selected immigrants and refugees that are accepted because they are refugees. We do not consider their education level. We accept them and that’s it. We need to. OK?

    As for selected immigrants—and I am referring to Quebec since I am a francophone living in Quebec—Quebec mainly selects francophone for the province. There is a certificate of selection granted to immigrants who arrive in Quebec with a background. I am saying a background because they have at least 12 years of education. These people therefore, are already literate at least in French. For the other part, since it is a global language, any educated person has at least a basic understanding of the English. Even if they do not speak fluently, they have had some exposure to it.

    That being said, there are many women we work with that are illiterate. There are women illiterate in their native language. I have many cases; I can tell you that I work with at least 75% of immigrant women. The critical thing for them is to find work. If they speak a bit of French, then the Quebec government offers 2000 hours of training via the MRCI I think. It is francization; the only language to achieve social integration and function adequately within the society, but it remains too little. For the women with a minimum base it may be adequate but for others it isn’t. Therefore the ones we deal with are at an advanced level one or maybe a level two.

    For them French is acquired knowledge; they want to work. There remains the hurdle of English. If they can’t speak English then they can’t work. They want to learn English first and then hit the job market. Being in Quebec, they feel that their French will improve gradually.

    Therefore we still have to deal with these issues. My recommendation would be to create a tool adapted to individual backgrounds, since all newcomers to Canada have specific backgrounds whether they are doctors, pharmacists; they have some sort of background. I think that a program should target literacy skills to insert the people into the economic and social life and make them productive society members.

    In the long run, since we have received many new immigrants these past few years… Canada has opened its borders. It’s to populate the country. I have to share with you that I am an immigrant, but I am a Canadian. I was faced with these problems. I am a doctor, I have studied medicine, but I have never worked in my domain. Why? Because it would have required starting from zero again, but my priorities were my kids at that time. From my vantage point, I was educated enough. I could change my direction and let my kids find theirs. That was my priority and that is why I completed certification in literacy. I figured I had a role to play in promoting French and helping with the integration of immigrants in our society.

    I think it is a critical challenge. I believe we need to stick together to channel our energies towards the Canadian society. It is very important to promote both languages because it is Canada and we need both of them.

    You have talked about money and support. Between you and me, I did not receive any. The National Literacy Secretariat helps us when we develop programs. We developed a program that we tried to promote at the national level. My colleague did it last year to try to extend it. It’s a program we adapted given the needs of women, to help them on the job market but it is very difficult to get money. It is not very easy. Truly, you have to experience it. We are a non profit organization and we are continuously soliciting to keep programs running. The Alpha-Famille program is very important for us. We want to keep it going, but how?

[English]

»  (1720)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Just before the end of the meeting I'm going to give each of our presenters about a minute. If you have anything you want to add to your presentation, this is the time to do it. I'm going to go in the same order.

    Mr. Head, you're first. I'm sorry you didn't have a lot of time to prepare.

    Mr. Don Head: Madam Chair, I just want to thank you again for the opportunity to be able to present to you and the committee.

    The only parting message I will leave is that based on the work we've done in federal corrections and the research, we know the more time, energy, and effort we put into addressing the literacy and education issues of offenders, the safer we'll make our communities when these individuals return back home.

    Thank you very much for the opportunity.

    The Chair: Ms. Frith.

    Ms. Rosaline Frith: I would just like to add that over the next few years we're going to be focusing on our accountability framework and our language training programs. That will give us far more information on the level a person arrives with, how long it takes them to acquire a higher level, and whether that makes a difference in their ability to earn higher revenue. We will be doing that work and will be able to look at some of the programs again in a few years and do a better job. I think that's absolutely essential.

    We also need to look at the true questions about those people who are illiterate and whether they are receiving enough help to get to a level that can help them function properly in Canadian society. We'll have to collect that information and do more work in that area. That is underway; it will just take time to be better informed.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Stewart.

    Mr. Graham Stewart: When we look at prisoners in federal institutions across Canada, 65% have serious literacy difficulties. In other institutions, particularly where there's a high concentration of aboriginal prisoners, the rate can go as high as 80%. But of those, 5% will be willing to disclose that they have literacy problems, and 2% will be prepared to take the programs.

    So in addition to the obvious problems of functioning in Canadian society without literacy skills, we've constructed our society in such a way that there's enormous shame attached to not having literacy skills, even though there's a tremendous number of people who fall into that particular category.

    It seems to me that through the overall sensitization of government in its relationship to the public, and the assumption that people are functioning at a lower level of literacy rather than a higher level of literacy, those people who have that kind of difficulty may begin to overcome the stigma, which I think is a pre-condition to actually doing very much about the literacy problem itself. I just wanted to add that context.

»  (1725)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. McIsaac.

    Ms. Elizabeth McIsaac: I would just reiterate a couple of the earlier points I made, particularly with respect to the immigration and immigrant issue.

    Our research has shown a real need for coordination across jurisdictions. CIC needs partnerships with HRDC, Heritage, the provinces, and the other stakeholders. A number of stakeholders need to be engaged more meaningfully, number one being employers, as Rosaline mentioned. They need to be included in the actual issue and not just educated about it. They have to be brought to the table and made part of it. It's their investment also.

    On new relationships and brokering new partnerships, that has the opportunity and potential for new funding, reliable funding, predictable funding for community-based organizations that don't have that predictability year to year. That can build their capacity to deliver better services.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Carbonneau.

[Translation]

    Ms. France-Line Carbonneau: I will speak about the program Parole de femme that Zaïa was referring to. I think it plays an important role. Women feel welcomed. They see the centre as a family. What I find important also, is that the fact of having only women makes them feel secure because some of them have lived through painful experiences: harassment, etc. So the fact that it is restricted to women seems to respond to a need.

    The other thing I want to discuss is related to the program I manage. Whether we go to the homes or work out of community centres – half the time with immigrant families – we fulfil a specific need. We don’t have scientific studies but I believe that the families feel that they are supported and welcomed, and that they get help with learning the host languages, the new culture, as well as getting help with the school system. Therefore, I think we should look into that.

[English]

    The Chair: I want to thank all of you for your presentations, and particularly thank those who provided additional information. It will all be considered, as we prepare our report.

    We are approaching the end. I think we have two more days of committee with hearings, and after that we'll begin to labour on our report. I know that each and every one of you will be extremely interested in reading our report. We would be pleased to hear any comments you might want to share with us after you've seen it.

    Thank you.

    The meeting is adjourned.