Speaking notes for the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, at an event to recognize the CIC Young Newcomers Internship Program

Ottawa, Ontario
June 8, 2009

As delivered

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Good morning. It’s a pleasure to join you and celebrate the Young Newcomers Internship Program.

I think this program is one of the best things I’ve discovered in the Government of Canada. I remember when I began working on the issue of foreign credential recognition before joining this Ministry. I said to people that we see incredibly effective and progressive mentorship programs and internship programs happening in the private sector to help newcomers resolve the Canadian experience paradox.

We see programs like the one supported by Triec in the City of Toronto, with dozens of private-sector employers. But here in the federal government we employ hundreds of thousands of individuals in virtually every professional domain conceivable and we don’t seem to have a public service that reflects fully the diversity of the country, or which seems to provide the kind of opportunities towards employment and experience that newcomers need.

I was absolutely delighted when I joined the team at Citizenship and Immigration Canada last year to learn about the YNIP program. I have spoken to my colleagues throughout the government, saying that this ought to be a model for how we can open doors of opportunity and inclusion for new Canadians, particularly for young new Canadian professionals. I want to salute everyone involved in making this program a success in our Ministry and, I hope, a reference point for all others in the Government of Canada.

The Public Service of Canada must represent the people it serves. When it comes to the people of Canada, one in five of our citizens were born outside of our country.

These newcomers are key to building a stronger Canada, which is why CIC is working to lead by example, encouraging newcomers to be part of the public service.

We make in our Ministry more than two million decisions a year affecting people’s lives, 7,000 decisions a day about who can come to live, to visit, to work or to study in Canada. To develop and implement our policies we benefit from having people who understand the experience of moving here from another country. This is why we created the Young Newcomers Internship Program.

This program is just one of the many ways that Canada is opening its doors to provide young newcomers with important work experience. It provides work experience to 12 carefully selected interns hired under a short-term contract. The World University Service of Canada helps to recruit the interns by providing a pool of newcomers who come to Canada via their student refugee program. All of those hired are either permanent residents or new Canadian citizens and were graduates from a Canadian university.

I can tell you I had a great opportunity a few months ago to meet with our interns. I was massively impressed with their focus, their determination, and the amazing personal stories that they have brought to Canada and to our Ministry, all of them having overcome remarkable challenges as refugees abroad. Now to be able to work in our Ministry which, in part, provides refuge to victims of persecution around the world is, I think, a kind of poetic justice.

All of those hired are either permanent residents, as I said, or Canadian citizens, and in last year’s pilot the interns were hired in various branches at our national head-quarters from September to December. The second phase of the program was repeated in the new calendar year, and the interns received a second contract to continue their valuable work experience.

I know that they are really giving us value for money because more than once I’ve come down the elevators late at night, well past closing time, only to meet one of our interns who has been putting in extra hours. For them, I think, this is a labour of love.

They worked in a variety of jobs involving areas such as citizenship, refugee policy, newcomer integration and human resources. These interns brought great skill, knowledge and education to the Department, so much so that four of them now have been hired full time by CIC. Congratulations!

In the end, however, we have all benefited from the experiences of these interns, and the Department plans to continue the program and recruit another 10 newcomers for next year. I should also note that the Young Newcomers Internship Program was recognized with a Deputy Minister’s Award last year, and more recently, the CIC Human Resources team won a 2008 Michel Comeau Human Resources Leadership Award for its work on the program.

Named in memory of an Associate Deputy Minister at Agriculture Canada, these Government of Canada awards recognize leadership and excellence in human resources management in the federal public service.

I expect that several more of those who go through the internship program will become the next generation of Canada’s public servants. I hope this program will inspire other departments to make similar efforts to recruit newcomers.

There are also broader actions we are taking to improve the chances of prospective newcomers to find work in Canada. A key one is the Foreign Credentials Referral Office, which helps prospective immigrants understand our labour markets before they come to Canada in order to improve their abilities, if necessary, and to have a better understanding of the pathways to credential recognition.

Such efforts could help renew the public service and demonstrate our Government’s support for immigration and our commitment to diversity in Canada.

After all, diversity is more than just accepting other people’s differences. It’s also about believing that we can all learn and benefit from such efforts to help all people in Canada understand and appreciate the country that we share.

So on behalf of the Government of Canada, I commend all of your efforts to help support this diversity in both our public service and our country.

We’re all better for it. Good luck to all of our interns in their current and future endeavours.