Citizenship and Immigration

Opening remarks

Hello. Thank you. Madam Chair and members of the committee, my name is Anne Woolger, and I'm the founder of Matthew House Toronto, a group of homes that welcome, shelter and assist newly arrived refugee claimants. We have also served as a catalyst for the opening of more than half a dozen other refugee claimant shelters across Canada, some by the same name, including Matthew House Ottawa. I've personally been working with refugee claimants since 1988—a long time—and have helped with the hands-on settlement of more than 4,000 refugee claimants. I've served on various local and national refugee advocacy committees, including the Canadian Council for Refugees. In my nearly 40 years in the sector, I have witnessed a lot. My long service has given me a deep, first-hand understanding of the issues and, more importantly, the people involved in the shelter and support of refugee claimants. I recognize that, for some, the conversation around investing in refugee claimants is fraught with negativity, particularly in light of today's housing challenges. Let me be clear: Refugee claimants are not the problem creating our housing shortage; a lack of vision is the problem. Today, I want to…

Opening remarks

Are you talking about the cancellation of the temporary foreign worker program?

Opening remarks

Thank you for the invitation to appear today. My name is Stéfanie Morris. I'm an immigration and refugee lawyer with Community Legal Services of Ottawa, which is a legal clinic aimed at addressing access to justice issues for low-income residents. I appear today in my individual capacity to discuss major issues faced by refugees waiting to be reunited with their families. In the fall of 2017, I was part of a research team that conducted interviews with refugees resettled by the Canadian government and by sponsor groups in the aftermath of the Syrian refugee crisis. One of our key findings was that resettled refugees identified separation from family members, including extended family members, as a primary driver of poor physical and mental health, financial instability and stalled social integration. Conversely, reunification is a powerful tool to foster refugee self-sufficiency. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act states that one of its primary objectives is this: to support the self-sufficiency and the social and economic well-being of refugees by facilitating reunification with their family members in Canada Unfortunately, Canada's current immigration system…

Opening remarks

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for having me. My name is Anna Triandafyllidou. I hold the Canada excellence research chair in migration and integration at Toronto Metropolitan University, and I myself am an immigrant to Canada. I want to speak today less about our selection system in Canada and more about our talent utilization system. Canada is the most educated country in the world, thanks to immigration. We are the country with the highest percentage of people who have college or university, or higher education, in the OECD, so I take it that it's probably the highest in the world. However, we know that immigrants are overqualified by 35%. They do a job that requires fewer qualifications than they have, compared with about 18% of Canadian-born people. It's double the rate. Time and again, when we look at studies by colleagues and economists who crunch the numbers—I'm a sociologist, so I don't crunch the numbers that much—we see that the economic and social outcomes of new permanent residents improve through the years. The express entry system is proving to be working. We know that, right now, immigrant men meet their Canadian-born peers four years…

Opening remarks

Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Renze Nauta, and I am representing Cardus, a public policy think tank where I run a research program on work and economics. Cardus recently completed a research study on the integration of refugees into Canadian society. Canada, as you know, has two main streams for refugee resettlement. The first is the privately sponsored refugee program, in which refugees are integrated mainly by Canadian civil society. In this stream, Canadian families, churches and diaspora communities are responsible for raising funds and providing the necessary assistance to newcomers to help them integrate. The second involves government-assisted refugees, who are integrated with the help of settlement agencies funded by the Government of Canada. Cardus’s study focused on the large body of research showing that privately sponsored refugees tend to have better economic outcomes than government-assisted refugees. For example, a Statistics Canada survey of Syrian refugees to Canada from 2016 found that more than half of those sponsored by civil society had found employment within one year of their arrival. This is compared to under 10% of those assisted by…