The New Frontier of Immigration Advocacy Finding a Fix for the National Newcomer Settlement Backlog. By Mwarigha M.S.

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1 The New Frontier of Immigration Advocacy Finding a Fix for the National Newcomer Settlement Backlog By Mwarigha M.S. Much of the current focus on immigration policy has been on one key dimension of the immigration backlog problem -- the inability of the immigration system to cope with the volume of applications from people who qualify under the current rules to come to Canada as immigrants. However, equal focus needs to be paid to another disturbing dimension of the nation s immigration policies -- the problem of an equally ballooning newcomer settlement backlog and the dire state of many immigrants who arrive with high hopes of imparting their skills and knowledge in exchange for a better quality of life. Because of a whole host of barriers, a high number of new immigrants are not fulfilling the desired settlement goals, and are instead stuck in the margins of Canada s otherwise prosperous social, economic and democratic systems. According to Richmond and Omidvar, 2003, recent research indicates persistent and growing difficulties in the labour market integration of recent immigrants. Rates of unemployment and underemployment are increasing for individual immigrants, as are rates of poverty for immigrant families. The result is that Canada s immigrants exhibit a higher incidence of poverty and greater dependence on social assistance than their predecessors. This is happening in spite of the fact that the rate of university graduates is higher among all categories of immigrants including family class and refugees as well as economic immigrants than it is for the Canadian-born. Resolving the range of issues contributing to the growing settlement backlog should be a major focus of advocacy, policy and planning for newcomer settlement. Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail (December 22 nd, 04), in an article entitled: Canada s scandal of squandered skills, describes the settlement backlog problem as a central paradox of Canadian immigration policies. Simpson points out that at the national level, Canada is importing more poverty through immigration than ever before. According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for immigrants in 2001 was much higher than in despite national unemployment being lower in 2001 than in The article notes that at the individual level, immigrants have never been more skilled, but have never taken so long to achieve Canadian average incomes, and the more educated the deeper the so-called transition penalty of switching countries. There are number of reasons for this apparent settlement backlog facing Canada s national immigration program. The first major reason is attributable to what Geronimo (2000) characterized as the absence of an integrated immigration selection and settlement policy and program framework. Many independent class immigrants are selected for entry to Canada on the basis of a skills assessment formula that is not recognized by many professional and trades associations in Canada. As a result many highly-skilled and highly-educated immigrants are excluded from practicing their professions or trades after arrival in Canada.

2 The lack of an integrated framework has resulted in major flaws with respect to the provision of generic or so-called mainstream social services such as health, higher education, housing and welfare to immigrants. In 1999, the Maytree Foundation organized a forum to discuss the management and coordination of settlement services in Ontario. Participants to the forum, identified a number of reasons why settlement services were not as effective as they needed to be, including, the lack of coherence in public policy related to immigration and immigrant economic integration, and a governance limbo or lack of clarity about the respective roles of the federal, provincial and municipal governments in Ontario s settlement service sector. In addition, participants expressed concern with the growing distance between policy makers and service delivery agencies in identifying and overcoming the settlement challenges faced by immigrants and refugees. Even in regional jurisdictions where the federal and provincial governments have a settlement agreement, immigrant service providers continue to voice concern about the lack of sufficient knowledge and sensitivity to immigrant needs by local provincial bureaucrats. The second major reason for the growing settlement backlog is because the current national settlement service system has a very narrow planning and funding focus on providing services to newcomers only in the first three years of arrival. Realistically, most immigrants experience a three stage settlement process - involving a first or initial phase, a medium and long term phase. For most new immigrants, the settlement journey typically begins with the immediate needs for assistance and reception services such as food, clothing, shelter and orientation about Canada or Toronto along with translation and interpreting and initial language instruction. These needs are met partly by emergency relief agencies, NGO service providers and newcomers families and communities. As noted, the overwhelming amount of federal government funding for settlement is spent in providing services at this initial stage of settlement. In the middle or intermediate and long term settlement stages newcomers require assistance with access to various Canadian systems and institutions in the economy, municipal services in order to develop or upgrade skills, and connection to the larger social and political arena in order to bridge cultural and lifestyle differences. The principal needs during these stages of settlement are usually centered around timely and equitable access to the labour market, housing, health services, legal assistance, and advanced or employment-specific language instruction. In the long term or final stage of settlement, immigrants and refugees strive to become equal participants in Canada s economic, cultural, social and political life. Numerous research reports have elaborated on a whole range of well documented barriers: - Lack of access to information about what to expect in the settlement process; - Lack of employment opportunities for newcomers; - Lack of recognition of professional credentials from abroad; - Lack of access to housing due to shortages of affordable housing as well as discriminatory practices in the rental market; and - Lack of access to generic health, recreation and social services.

3 While federal funding pays little attention to issues in the latter stages of immigrant settlement, service providers at the provincial and municipal jurisdiction continue to experience a funding crisis that prevents effective intervention to assist newcomers. According to Reitz (1995) many service agencies lack appropriate services in immigrants first languages, lack culturally-sensitive services, services in locations or scheduled times that are accessible, lack required services or charge high user fees for their services. Given the increasing number of immigrants that are coming to Canada with high educational qualifications, and with fewer professional practice discrepancies with Canada s labour force, there is an urgent need to shift emphasis to medium and longer term supports to labour force integration. The third major cause of the current settlement backlog is due to the compounded impact of settlement devolution by the federal government. Devolution has resulted in shifting responsibility of direct administration and funding of settlement services to the provincial level. In turn, this has changed the terrain of planning, service delivery and advocacy for settlement service providers. Cities -- the main destination of new immigrants -- have been left out of the planning and funding role because the existing Canadian constitutional arrangement does not permit the federal government and municipalities to deal directly with each other without agreement from the provincial government. This has created a crisis -- cities do not have a say in determining the most appropriate services to support long-term settlement of newcomers or to leverage their own funding in supporting integration at the key place the community neighbourhood level. Over the last several years, greater autonomy in settlement policy has already been given to Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia. However, devolution has not resolved the problem of continued discrepancy in the concentration of resources in higher tier governments - federal or provincial - and the increasing demand for services at the local level, especially in the bigger cities. In the case of Ontario which does not have an agreement with the federal government, the result, according to Owen (1999), has been confusion amongst service providers and civil servants alike, severely limiting any medium- or long- term program planning efforts. In all, the absence of an effective advocacy web for the settlement sector has meant that the federal bureaucracy continues to be the main deciders of both funding allocation amounts and service conditions. In the case of Toronto, for instance, decisions about the allocation and priorities for federal settlement funding - estimated to be over $50 million annually - continue to be made with no avenue for effective formal input by local stakeholders, including the city of Toronto. Furthermore, an increasing number of federal settlement dollars today are distributed through market oriented and competitive service contract mechanisms. The resulting effect of this new market contract approach is that many smaller community based settlement agencies have folded and the larger ones have had to change to cope with the new order. One of the most glaring and disturbing consequences of the current settlement backlog is the increasing emergence of concentrated pockets of impoverished immigrants, especially in major cities. Although immigrants continue to be important contributors to local social

4 and economic growth, this latest trend raises the very real possibility that we are witnessing an accelerating evolution towards a permanent immigrant underclass in major cities - Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Many new immigrants find themselves trapped in poor housing conditions from which they cannot escape because of limited economic resources and a lack of connectivity to Canadian employment and social networks. Researchers such as Goetz (2000) and Kazemipur and Halli (2000) have pointed out that living in areas of concentrated poverty has adverse impacts on a whole range of life experiences. In the case of new immigrants it leads to family conflicts, loss of selfesteem, and a sense of despair about future prospects in the new country of settlement. Young immigrants that grow up in such conditions develop a culture of alienation both from their parents, their cultural community of origin and the resident community. This continued ghettoization and marginalization of immigrants will undoubtedly undermine the public s perception of the value of immigration. This phenomenon is shared to a lesser but growing extent with other cities in the rest of Canada. In a recent study by Kazemipur and Halli (2000) the authors found that larger urban centres -- Montreal, Winnipeg, Quebec City, Toronto, Saskatoon, Regina and Vancouver -- had significant concentrations of visible minority immigrants in neighbourhoods with a poverty rate of 40 percent and higher. Clearly, then there are major flaws in the current settlement system. To address the current backlog in the settlement of newcomers requires a model of interventions that produces effective and sustainable community building. According to the Small Centre Strategy - a key advocacy tool produced by a working group of settlement agencies established at the First National Settlement Conference in it is key to create local conditions that are conducive to attracting and keeping immigrants. The strategy calls for provincial action to: end barriers to accessing professions and trades for immigrants offer a range of services that create hospitable communities, such as supports for finding short and medium term housing, provide second language capability in schools and special 'triage' services to assess the initial medical needs of newcomers, facilitate free admission to recreational, cultural and arts services, and local volunteer-based host programs to build relationships with the local population. The Small Centre Strategy points out that the Canadian settlement sector is skilled in these areas, and has experience and knowledge to offer the wider community as challenges are identified and strategies developed (9). This is only a starting point. The settlement sector needs to shift to advocating not only for first stage settlement service delivery, but for policies and program resources that support sustainable and long term settlement of immigrants at the local level. Without a doubt, the services called for by the Small Centre Strategy paper are very important in meeting the needs of newcomers, and in enabling satisfactory settlement in the initial phases.

5 However, the current focus on initial settlement services is not an effective way of meeting the medium- and long-term goals and objectives of immigrants -- to access regulated professions and trades and connect to a vast array of social and economic opportunities in Canadian systems. Focusing only on first stage services is problematic because it tends to be rooted in providing for the service deficit of immigrants, and, in effect, is premised on traditional paternalistic approaches to service delivery. This approach is clearly limited, and a change of policy and program direction is necessary to ensure continued public support of immigration to Canada. In order for the current settlement service sector to be fully effective as an agent of sustainable settlement, it has to move towards providing services and supports beyond the initial phases of the immigrant settlement cycle. The focus of settlement sector advocacy needs to shift to viewing immigrants as active contributors and assets in community building. Hence, the future of settlement services is in providing supports that enable the effective and meaningful participation of immigrants in community building, and in mobilizing multi-stakeholder partnerships for inclusive settlement strategies. Advocacy activities at the provincial and national levels need to gear their focus towards mobilizing local, and national leaders to take on medium and long term challenges of settlement, such as leading the fight against barriers to professions and trades and other economic opportunities in general. Settlement advocates need to make better connections to national and local institutions that enable learning and effective cultural links with host communities. The future of settlement advocacy is clearly pointed in the direction of greater connection outside the traditional settlement service sector to the national social, political and economic systems at the local level. Advocacy at the national level should be geared towards pushing the federal government to take greater responsibility to resource medium and long term settlement initiatives at provincial and local levels. As Jeffrey Simpson points out, Ottawa must be challenged for bringing in immigrants and then dumping them in cities and on school boards. Ottawa must be challenged to develop an urban focus or communities agenda that is based on the reality of the changing face, texture and social cohesion of the major cities of Canada. Jeffrey Simpson further notes in his article that immigrants are quite literally tomorrow's Canada. Slightly more than 700,000 of them arrived in Canada in Seventy-eight per cent of Ontario's population growth from 1991 to 2001 came from immigration. Across Canada, 18 per cent of the total population consists of immigrants. In all, settlement advocates should focus on informing the evolution of the federal government s narrow perspective on settlement and the negative impact of current policies on the escalating national settlement backlog. Settlement advocates should adopt a multi-stakeholder approach based on partnering with local community networks, school boards and national bodies like the Canadian Labour and Business Centre -- all key players in the settlement process -- to address the deepening transition penalty to immigrants, and its negative impact on Canada s internationally renowned immigration policies.

6 REFERENCES: Geronimo, JoJo, 2000, A Search for Models: From Collaboration to Co-optation. Partnership Experiences in Settlement and Human Services for Newcomers. Toronto: The GTA Consortium on the Coordination of Settlement Services < Goetz E.G., 2000, Poverty Deconcentration & Housing Demolition in Journal of Urban Affairs: Volume 22#2, Kazemipur and Halli, Shiva S., 2000, Neighbourhood Poverty in Canadian cities in Canadian Journal of Sociology: Volume 25,# Owen, Timothy, 1999, The View from Toronto: Settlement Services in the Late 1990 s. Toronto: CERIS Virtual Library < Reitz, Jeffrey G., 1995, A Review of the Literature on Aspects of Ethno-Racial Access, Utilization and Delivery of Social Services. Toronto: CERIS Virtual Library < Richmond Ted and Omidvar Ratna, 2003, Immigrant Settlement and Social Inclusion in Canada, Laidlaw Foundation, Toronto Simpson Jeffrey, Canada s scandal of squandered skills, Globe and Mail, December 22 nd, 04, Toronto. Strengthening Newcomer Communities: A Dialogue for Change, Session Proceeding, 2001, Maytree Forum, Toronto. Strengthening our Settlement Vision: The Small Centre Strategy (The Regional Dispersion & Retention of Immigrants, Settlement Directorate, Government & Voluntary Sector Initiative Project, 2003, Calgary

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