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NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY
THE HONOURABLE MONTE SOLBERG
MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION

at a meeting of the Public Policy Forum

Metro Toronto Convention Centre
Toronto, Ontario
March 20, 2006

Check against delivery

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Thank you for that very kind introduction, and for the invitation to share some thoughts with you here today. I want to thank and congratulate the Public Policy Forum (PPF) for organizing this event, which has brought so many of us together to talk about how we can improve the immigration program and most of all to learn from each others’ ideas.

The Public Policy Forum has played a key role in helping us identify and tackle many of the issues immigrants face in adapting to their new lives in Canada. It has also played a valuable role in highlighting the need for cooperation and the need for action from all of us here today — from every level of government, from every stakeholder, business, service provider organization and the academic community. So it’s a pleasure for me to be here and to have the chance to speak to such an important gathering so early in my tenure as Minister.

My colleague, the Honourable Diane Finley, spoke to you earlier about the importance of making sure newcomers can fully participate in Canada’s labour market. Now, I would like to speak with you as well about some of my priorities as Minister and about some of the ways I think all of us can work together to improve Canada’s immigration and refugee program over the coming months.

Let me begin by sharing what I have seen so far at Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and some of the ways we welcome people to Canada in general. I am new to this portfolio. But I have spent the last few weeks learning about the department, meeting the people who work here, people who have been very welcoming and helpful to me. For that I thank them.

For instance they tell me that the Department processes more than two-million applications every year, and remember that each one of those applications represents the aspirations of a person and their family. Having to make decisions about those applications is a huge responsibility. Let me here and now publicly thank the nearly 5,000 CIC employees both in Canada and abroad for their professionalism in tackling what must be one of the toughest jobs in the entire public service.

As well, I’ve been deeply touched and have learned a great deal from the many stories I have heard of the efforts newcomers have made to build new lives for themselves here in Canada. Some of these stories are unique. Others share much in common with those of my family and perhaps the families of some of you here this afternoon.

My ancestors moved to Canada from Norway via the U.S. slightly more than 100 years ago and settled in what is now north central Alberta. They came for the free land, and they were allowed to set up their schools and churches. However they were also expected to be good citizens. They were expected to help build the country. A few years ago I wandered into the foyer of Augustana University in Camrose, Alberta near where my family settled. On the wall was a ledger that listed the donors to the original college, founded in 1910. There on the ledger were the names of my great grandfather Nils and my great uncle Matt. They certainly weren’t wealthy, but they understood what it means to be a citizen, and as you can probably tell I’m pretty proud of my immigrant ancestors.

Like many families, mine had to adjust to a new language, new cultures, and new ways of doing things. But also like many families at the time, mine prospered thanks in part to a strong local network of friends, family, churches and schools. All told those millions of individual contributions have helped to forge a great nation. Today we can learn a great deal from those experiences, both past and present.

We know, for example that it’s as important as ever to make sure that friends, family, and schools are in place, and mosques, temples and synagogues along with churches must be established for newcomers to practise their faith. All of that is important in helping newcomers feel a little less isolated, and a little more at home in what often must seem to them to be a very strange new land.

But in order to feel truly accepted in their cities and neighbourhoods we have learned that newcomers must step even further out of the familiar and become more fluent in English or French. We have also found that to feel truly accepted in the workforce newcomers will need to learn the customs and practices of the Canadian workplace. Finally, we know that to feel truly accepted as citizens newcomers will need to learn, and embrace the values that make Canada one of the most admired nations on earth.

That’s why Prime Minister Harper and the Government of Canada are committed to strengthening our support for settlement services and to working with the provinces, territories and municipalities on settlement support policies for immigrants. We know that we need to ensure each journey is a success if this country is to flourish and prosper in the years ahead. We also know that we need to make sure everyone can fully participate in the nation building exercise that our ancestors started if Canada is to achieve its true potential.

And we need to ensure all of us work together in a spirit of common purpose and cooperation to achieve the best results for all Canadians. So, where do things stand today?

As I mentioned, CIC does some things very well. But I think it’s safe to say that there are many areas where more work is needed. Today the immigration program is under stress. Newcomers wait too long to come here. Applications in many cases are not processed fast enough. Many newcomers have trouble finding work that allows them to fully use their skills and experience. Their unemployment and underemployment represent more than just a drag on Canada’s productivity. It is a human tragedy and basic decency dictates that it not be allowed to continue.

Canadians pride themselves on their fairness, but how profoundly unfair that a highly educated professional from another part of the world should be driving a cab because his or her credentials aren’t properly recognized. It’s not fair that a foreign-trained doctor should spend years charting a course through a maze of rules and regulations before he or she can find suitable work, despite the growing shortage of doctors and nurses in Canada. None of it is fair, and as opinion leaders in this country I think we have an obligation, a duty, to knock down the barriers that prevent skilled newcomers from having their credentials recognized.

The goal is to help immigrants succeed when they get here. It’s also to work in partnership to ensure the ways we welcome newcomers reflect our core beliefs in democracy, freedom, equality of opportunity, and respect. It’s to ensure the welcome we offer is responsive to our already large and growing skills shortage while still ensuring that we are able to help reunite families more quickly. It’s to ensure that Canada continues to reach out and provide a safe harbour to refugees who flee war, persecution and torture, while also removing bogus refugee claimants faster. In short, the goal is to deliver the results Canadians need and expect. Where do we begin?

The Government of Canada will act quickly in three areas. The first deals with credential recognition. We are working collaboratively with Human Resources and Social Development Canada to set up a new agency that will address the recognition of foreign credentials. One of the goals of the new agency, as Minister Finley noted, is to cut through the red tape that marks the present system. Here especially we will need to stand shoulder to shoulder with our partners to help unlock the potential of newcomers who have chosen Canada.

My second priority addresses the big expense that many newcomers face on arrival in Canada. We need to send the right message by cutting the Right of Permanent Residence fee in half. The goal is to make it easier and more attractive for newcomers to come to Canada. Our efforts should be focused on welcoming newcomers and helping them fit in, not taxing them to death. They’ll get enough of that later.

My third priority deals with citizenship. Our Government has committed to supporting Canadian parents who adopt foreign-born children by extending citizenship to these children provided the adoption is legal and in the best interests of the child. This would help put them on an equal footing with children born to Canadians. I therefore intend to introduce legislation to put this change into effect on a priority basis.

Success in each of these initiatives will represent an important step forward in our efforts to improve the immigration and citizenship programs. But together we also need to look at ways to do much more. The challenges ahead might be daunting and complex. But I think by working together we can achieve a lot. I would like to briefly illustrate this point with a story I recently heard.

The Calgary Catholic Immigration Society has an Oil Workers Orientation Program for newcomers. For one particular client, a young Ethiopian man, the Society went to the oil patch looking for supervisors that were open to the idea of mentoring a newcomer — people who could see the value that this man, and his differences, would bring to the work place.

The company hired him under an orientation program. At first he had trouble fitting in. So he took the trouble over coffee breaks and during his lunch hour to pitch in to help his new workmates. He even offered to work extra shifts during the holidays — all in an effort to learn more about his new environment and demonstrate his eagerness to work hard alongside the more established workers.

It wasn’t long before the company and the employees recognized that this new person in their midst wanted exactly the same things that they wanted. He wanted to do a good job and to be a part of the group. Today this Ethiopian immigrant is now a fulltime employee with a great pay-cheque, and a lot of new friends.

That’s what happens when agencies, government, business and newcomers work together. I know that may sound like a cliché, but it’s also a fact. Each of us has a role to play. Each of us has a stake in the outcome.

Service provider organizations have a role to play. They can help connect newcomers with employers. They can provide services like mentoring, job search skills and they can partner with CIC or the provincial and territorial governments to offer language training that helps newcomers more quickly integrate into Canada’s society and labour market.

We’ve seen some early success with regard to language training in particular. In Alberta, for example, CIC has partnered with the province and the Bredin Institute to provide an integrated English language program for internationally trained pharmacists that includes classroom study, case management and support.

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Association for New Canadians are also working with CIC to provide a comprehensive Enhanced Language Training Program (ELT) that includes a suite of programs to facilitate labour market attachment. The story is the same across Canada. All in all, CIC has managed over 156 ELT projects that have seen almost 5,200 immigrants acquire the language skills they need to fully participate in the labour market.

Businesses too have a role to play in welcoming and integrating newcomers. They provide the jobs. But just as importantly, they need to ensure newcomers are made to feel welcome in their workplace. They need to encourage immigrants to fit in, feel like part of the family, and feel that they are making a contribution to the business in line with their levels of skills and experience. Frankly, businesses also need to engage the professional accreditation bodies that their own employees belong to in order to encourage them to be more pro-active in recognizing credentials and offering guidance on how to upgrade their skills. I hope the business leaders in this crowd will take that as a challenge.

Newcomers themselves have a role to play. Sometimes they will need to improve their language or vocational skills. They will need to understand the culture of the Canadian workplace. Sometimes it may mean leaving the big cities for unfamiliar parts of the country that offer better opportunities, but with none of the support that comes from the community that they left behind. I know how daunting that must sound, but it’s also the way forward to a more prosperous future for many newcomers.

Communities have a role to play. In many ways, it’s in communities that immigration does or doesn’t work. Immigrants need to feel welcome and should want to stay in the region in which they settle. Local infrastructures must also be able to respond to changing needs.

Working together, governments and other stakeholders need to evaluate the needs and impact of newcomers on local infrastructures, and ensure the necessary welcoming and settlement services are in place. Communities need to know who is arriving and when. They must also be ready to meet the early needs of newcomers.

As we found in my home town of Brooks, Alberta, there’s often a myriad of cultural and other barriers that need to be addressed in order for newcomers to feel truly welcome and at home in their new surroundings. Brooks is now home to 1,200 former Sudanese refugees, nearly ten percent of the community’s total population. The Sudanese are one of many diverse groups who have flooded into Brooks in the last five years in search of jobs, mostly at the local meat packing plant. I won’t sugar coat this and say that’s its all been wonderful. It’s been very tough at times, but we’ve made progress and we’re determined to see it through.

Finally, of course, different levels of government have a role to play in welcoming and integrating newcomers to Canada. In the case of the Government of Canada, our role is primarily one of bringing together the partners in each region and community and making sure all of us act in concert to welcome, support and guide newcomers to Canada.

At the turn of the last century, many looked to the federal government for leadership in helping to bring Europeans here in order to open up the Western Canadian prairies. Today the country still needs leadership from the federal government, but in a much different way. Of course we still bring newcomers to Canada. But just as importantly we also work with our partners to help newcomers to settle in to their new country.

I’ll conclude by saying that while I’m new in my position I’ve also come to see how important immigration policy was and is in making Canada a great country. But I also know that policies are transitory and they change as the world changes. What must remain static are the underlying principles.

I think Canadians will always want immigrants to help us meet our economic goals and to contribute to building our communities and our society. When immigrants succeed, we succeed. I think Canadians will also always have a heart for helping refugees. That is our tradition, and I think it’s our moral obligation. Finally, I think Canadians will agree that our immigration policy is a success when newcomers choose to become Canadian citizens because they understand that Canada is a great country, not because of economic opportunities, but because Canada is founded on and instills important values, values like personal freedom, respect for each other, commitment to the rule of law, equality of opportunity, and democracy.

When people of any kind, newcomer or native born, understand that about their country then they make the transition from being just a taxpayer or a consumer to being a citizen, and there is no higher calling than that in civil society.

Thank you.