LANG Committee Report

B. Immigration

1. Immigration: An important issue for OLMC

The many references to immigration in this report are an indication of how important immigration is for OLMC. In 2010, the Committee released a report titled Recruitment, Intake and Integration: What Does the Future Hold for Immigration to Official Language Minority Communities? which gives an account of the work the federal government had done since 2003 and contains many recommendations aimed at improving the recruitment and integration of English- and French-speaking immigrants in OLMC.

When he appeared before the Committee, the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada underscored the importance of immigration to the future of Francophone communities:

The latest data from the 2011 Census show that immigration is an evermore important factor in Canada's demographic growth. It's playing an increasing role in the preservation of our official language communities. If linguistic duality is to remain an important aspect of Canadian society, then French-speaking immigrants who settle here will have to decide to stay. To achieve this goal, it's essential that their integration into these communities be properly planned. The Roadmap provides an unrivalled tool for doing that.[56]

The Roadmap identified immigration as a priority for improving access to services for communities and includes two main initiatives relating to the recruitment and integration of Francophone immigrants in Francophone minority communities.

2. 2008-2013 Roadmap Investments: Initiatives and success stories

2.1 Recruitment and integration of immigrants (Citizenship and Immigration Canada)

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) received $20 million over 5 years for initiatives to recruit and integrate immigrants into Francophone minority communities. The Department’s approach aimed to increase the number of Francophone immigrants settling in these communities and to provide settlement services in order to help them integrate into Canadian society.

Specifically, Roadmap funding enables CIC to pursue initiatives included in its regular programs, namely promotional and recruitment activities aimed at French-speaking potential immigrants. These include organizing Francophone immigration networks, settlement and integration services for French-speaking immigrants, coordination and cooperation activities with key stakeholders, and research activities pertaining to OLMC.

CIC has been quite successful under the Roadmap. During their appearance before the Committee, departmental officials pointed out that the Roadmap funded the Destination Canada job fair for French-speaking immigrants and helped organize 13 Francophone immigration networks. The Committee recently learned that substantial budget cuts might be made to the Destination Canada program, potentially affecting the ability of OLMC to recruit from abroad. The Committee urges CIC to assess the impact of this decision on OLMC.

Community partners also pointed to CIC’s successes. The Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta (ACFA) said that in Alberta, a province where 69% of its Francophone population was born elsewhere, CIC’s Roadmap funding and programming have yielded very positive results:

In Alberta, the initiatives funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada through the Roadmap have made it possible to support a Francophone immigration development network linking community players in order to meet the needs of Francophone immigrants in the community; projects to promote tolerance and combat discrimination experienced by Francophones who have immigrated to Alberta; cultural awareness activities organized by Francophone welcome centres in Alberta in order to bring communities closer together; and the creation of tools to facilitate the integration of French-speaking immigrants, such as the Web site http://www.destinationalberta.ca and the directory of services for Francophone newcomers to Alberta. These are thus investments that directly affect the French-speaking citizens of Alberta.[57]

The Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique (FFCB) acknowledged CIC’s interdepartmental coordination work on Francophone immigration to the province:

In the community development sector, the immigration area addressed by the Roadmap coincides with an area targeted in the community’s ODP [Overall Development Plan]. We want to meet the newcomer recruitment need identified in cooperation with the province, as well as newcomers’ social, economic and community integration needs. There are a lot of newcomers because 35% of our Francophone population was born outside Canada.

The support of Citizenship and Immigration Canada enables joint action involving the province, the community and educational institutions, in particular the Conseil scolaire francophone, the Bureau des affaires francophones et francophiles at Simon Fraser University, the BAFF, the Collège Éducacentre and employers, thanks to the Société de développement économique de la Colombie-Britannique for immigrant recruitment and integration.[58]

The Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise (ACF) also acknowledged the substantial work accomplished on immigration through Roadmap funding:

For seven years now …, the ACF has been responsible for the intake and settlement of Francophone immigrants to Saskatchewan. However, it was not until 2008 that our community received funding, through Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and investments under the Roadmap, to support that effort. Today, the ACF is proud to say that it is the point of entry for Francophone immigration to Saskatchewan.[59]

2.2 Support to Francophone Immigration in New Brunswick (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency)

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is responsible for the Roadmap’s second Francophone immigration initiative. ACOA received $10 million to promote the settlement and retention of Francophone immigrants in New Brunswick. Specifically, this initiative resulted in 400 immigrants settling in various regions of the province.[60] The initiative is run in partnership with the Government of New Brunswick’s Population Growth Division.

ACOA officials confirmed that there is ongoing dialogue with CIC through the national and regional committees. This cooperation helps align priorities and maximize resources. While CIC is focussing on southern New Brunswick, ACOA is active mostly in the northern part of the province:

I will briefly add that there are two aspects to the coordination between ACOA and CIC. The first relates to promotion and recruitment. CIC is in charge of efforts relating to promotion and to recruiting Francophone immigrants. When there are events like Destination Canada, we certainly invite our partners to participate. We collaborate on strategy.

As Mr. Sylvester said, when it comes to settlement services, including reception services, language training and community development in the host communities, CIC works closely with New Brunswick and ACOA on a tripartite regional committee. That is how we have been able to develop the services offered in the northern part of the province.[61]

ACOA was criticized for how long it was taking to implement the initiative for supporting Francophone immigration to New Brunswick. The Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada raised the issue in his 2009-2010 annual report.[62] During their appearance before the Committee, ACOA officials explained the main reasons for this delay: funding availability and the initiative’s innovative nature:

We are aware that Francophone immigration is a priority for Francophone communities in New Brunswick. Several factors have contributed to this delay. The first was the initial delay in allocating funds. As you know, the funds actually became available in May 2009. That delayed things considerably for New Brunswick and for us. The second factor we have to keep in mind is that we are talking about what are new initiatives for a whole group of communities in New Brunswick. So it took time to set up the advisory committees and resource centres, and to attract people to those centres.[63]

Steps were already taken by ACOA and the Government of New Brunswick to accelerate implementation of the initiative. The Committee is pleased that the Treasury Board Secretariat has pushed back the expiration of the initiative to March 2014 to allow for its full implementation.

3. Evidence and recommendations

3.1 Settlement services

Generally, Francophone minority communities told the Committee that support for settlement services should be increased. These services include intake, support and language training. Current resources limit their ability to provide services equal in quality to those provided in English, thereby hampering the OLMC’s ability to reach their immigrant recruitment and integration targets.

The Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise (ACF) spoke about the Fransaskois community’s efforts in terms of Francophone immigration despite a period of financial insecurity:

Saskatchewan has a higher immigration rate. Immigrants are mainly non-Francophones and non-Anglophones — allophones, in other words — mainly from Francophone Africa and are not rights holders. All the programming that concerns them, in areas such as improved education, learning English or French-language development, is done out of the budgets of the Francophone school division, which has no money granted for that purpose. For example, the network’s immigration coordinator alone probably costs $100,000 and the grants from the province do not reflect that work, which has to be done to ensure the education and academic success of those people.[64]

In our province, we are very much involved with immigration. For example, we have just signed a collaboration agreement with Mauritius, which also includes the UN’s International Organization for Migration. We have professional recruiters involved in this matter. The first recruits already have their bags packed. For the moment, we’re talking about some 100 skilled workers who will be arriving in the coming months. Then there will probably be about 100 workers, or even more, in every subsequent year.

We’re doing very targeted recruitment. We aren’t just recruiting workers; we are also recruiting their families. So if we hire a man from Mauritius as a level 4 mechanic, we also ensure that his wife — if he is married, of course — also has a job opportunity. We are working directly and in cooperation with employers back home. They may be logistics companies, trucking companies, companies in the mining industry or the oil industry.

The ACF is now recognized as a port of entry to Saskatchewan as a whole for Francophone immigration. There is still a minor problem: although we have to cover the entire province, which is quite big, we are still funded on a project basis. It is therefore very difficult to determine what we could do next year, even though we are very sure about what we should do and about the measures that should be taken to do it.[65]

The Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador pointed out a major problem with recruitment and settlement services funding, particularly with respect to temporary residents:

There is currently something very paradoxical about the Roadmap. Citizenship and Immigration Canada provides our organization with funding for a settlement program. That program does not enable us to help temporary residents. That’s paradoxical because people are in greatest need when they get off an airplane. It’s not when they have obtained permanent resident status after one year — if they have done that quickly — that they are in greatest need of our services, but when they get off the airplane.

Right off the bat, we are unable to provide that service when they most need it, but, in addition, that same federal department gives us funding to recruit outside the country. We talked about Destination Canada. For years now, this has been a job fair in Europe that operates very well and that is of enormous assistance to us in recruiting Francophones for our communities who come with a job. We receive funding to recruit them, we recruit them, and once they have set foot on Canadian soil, we can no longer do anything for them; we are allowed to do that. We have to wait until they have a permanent visa, one year, a year and a half or two years later, before we can help them again, but they no longer need us at that point. If it’s someone who is living with a family, we risk losing them. That person may turn to Anglophone institutions or schools because it’s easier to do so. That’s someone who will not as readily become a part of our communities.

The Roadmap has a role to play in helping us help Francophone newcomers from the moment they get off the plane.[66]

3.2 Immigrant women’s services

The Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne said that Francophone women immigrants also needed to be considered in the development and funding of settlement services:

In immigration, our member associations are very familiar with the isolation Francophone immigrant women experience when they arrive in predominantly English-speaking communities. Some of the associations provide specialized services to newcomers, be they individuals or families. Among other things, our members give them training, and they help them buy food, manage their mail, fill out forms, make long-distance calls, and so forth.[67]

Immigrant women particularly need to access employment services:

In economic development, eight member associations work with Francophone women from all ethnic communities to help them with their employability. They provide them with information and networking opportunities that will help them find their place in the job market. Our member associations have also been offering workshops, such as home-based child care management, to increase women’s financial, political and economic literacy.[68]

The Committee believes that immigration remains a priority area to ensure the longevity and vitality of Francophone minority communities. The 2006-2011 Strategic Plan to Foster Immigration to Francophone Minority Communities has expired. Consequently, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 9

That Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Citizenship and Immigration Canada — Francophone Minority Communities Steering Committee inform the Standing Committee on Official Languages of their progress toward developing a future strategic plan to promote immigration within Francophone minority communities.

3.3 Immigration challenges facing Quebec’s Anglophone communities

The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) told the Committee that Quebec’s Anglophone communities did not benefit from immigrant recruitment and settlement initiatives to the same extent as did Francophone communities.[69] In its presentation to the Committee, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) pointed to the fact that the 1991 Canada-Québec Accord Relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens placed limits on its involvement in Anglophone immigration to Quebec:

… There is indeed a distinction to be made between the approach we take for Quebec and the one we take for the other provinces and territories. That is all a result of the Canada-Quebec Accord, which gives the province exclusive authority over the selection of immigrants and over settlement services, except in respect of refugees. So there is a large piece that falls to the province under that accord. We have to honour the commitments made in that accord.[70]

At this time, CIC funds research into the ability of Quebec’s Anglophone communities to recruit newcomers, including a statistical profile of immigrants settling in these communities.

… We have a good relationship with the Quebec Community Groups Network. I had an opportunity to meet with one of their representatives a few weeks ago to discuss options and the latitude we have for working with them. In money terms, it comes to $63,000 per year. Up to now, the focus has been on research projects. We help them to thoroughly analyze the Anglophone minority communities in Quebec, so as to know a little more about their composition and to identify measures they might use to attract immigrants or people. The investment relates mainly to research projects.[71]

The QCGN appreciates CIC’s funding for research. That said, it would like to see a program to help renew the communities through immigration, particularly in regions outside Montréal:

While the English-speaking community has received a few thousand dollars from Citizenship and Immigration Canada for research, they remain reluctant to consider designing an ongoing initiative that will respond to the needs of renewal in our regions
in Quebec.[72]

.According to the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada: “[…] It would be important for English-speaking community organizations to obtain the resources they need to continue working on integrating newcomers and helping them realize their full potential in Quebec.”[73]

 The Committee affirms that CIC must take positive measures under Part VII of the Official Languages Act while also respecting the jurisdiction and powers of the provinces, in accordance with subsection 41(2) of the Act. Both these obligations are fully compatible. CIC believes that the Canada-Quebec accord on immigration and the Official Languages Act complement each other: “I think the two laws [sic] are complementary. The two laws can be administered together. We work under the accord and the Official Languages Act.”[74]

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