Remarks by the Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism at the Immigrant Language and Vocational Assessment Referral Centre to announce a pilot program for language training vouchers

Calgary, Alberta
October 16, 2009

As delivered

* * * * *

Thank you very much. It is a great honor to be back here in Calgary to make this important announcement.

Canada has maintained the highest relative level of immigration in the development world, at .8% of our population. We have done so even during some difficult economic times because we believe in the promise of immigration to build Canada’s future prosperity and we acknowledge that our demographic future is, in large part, dependent on population growth through immigration.

With that enormous level of immigration comes huge opportunities and also significant challenges. Over the past couple of decades there has been, in many respects, a decline in the economic outcomes of newcomers to Canada, who are both not getting the same kind of quality jobs that they did in previous decades and certainly not as quickly. There are many reasons for this, one of which obviously is the challenge of foreign credentials recognition for people in regulated industries.

But all of the evidence indicates that language is an essential skill for newcomers seeking to integrate successfully into the Canadian economy. That is the reason why our government in 2006, shortly after taking office, decided to more than triple the federal investment in the language training and other settlement and integration services.

The challenge is this: we have put more than three times more federal investments in language training because we want newcomers to succeed – newcomers who may not have perfected their official language skills before arriving in Canada. But what concerns us is that only about 25% of newcomers who qualify for free language classes in English and French have actually enrolled in those classes, despite the tremendous efforts, high quality programming and innovative services provided by settlement organizations like this.

The Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada program serves many purposes for newcomers, but the title explains its main goal: to help them learn English or French. So why is the response so low and what can we do to address it? Are language training programs that we support responding as much as possible to the needs of newcomers?

We are working to address these issues and I really look forward to input that stakeholders can provide. In the first Speech from the Throne following the last election, our government promised to work with the provinces to increase uptake in settlement services and since 2006, we have substantially increased, as I have said, more than tripling the funding to settlement programs to the tune of an additional $1.4 billion over five years in provinces and territories outside of Quebec.

This reaches roughly the per capita funding level that existed in Quebec. In the past, there was a very significant unfairness where Quebec had a much higher level of support for integration programming than other provinces. That no longer is the case and now there is rough parity.

So the funding is there, but I still have questions if there new ways we should consider to better encourage the use of settlement programs such as language training? This is why I’m interested in exploring if some sort of certificate could be given to newcomers for an appropriate amount of language training, one where they could use the language training provider that they feel would be best for them and one which would also be more portable.

A recent report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is about the costs to large municipalities of secondary migration. This is a particular challenge faced by Alberta, in general, and Calgary, in particular. It is that many newcomers will arrive in Toronto or Vancouver and then within the first year or two of their live in Canada, move to, quote, “where the jobs are” here in Alberta and here in Calgary.

The settlement funding notionally flows to Ontario and Quebec or British Columbia, the larger provinces, but the fastest growing provinces, in terms of immigration, population and secondary migration, don’t see the services and dollars follow.

So I have said that perhaps, a certificate like this would assist with settlement costs for centers of secondary migration. I realize that this idea breaks with the status quo, but I still believe it is worth discussing because of the possibilities that it raises. Perhaps it would prompt settlement organizations to be even more responsive to the needs of the newly empowered newcomers.

Our department has worked with stakeholders, settlement organizations, provinces and territories to explore this idea and I’m really pleased to be here today to announce that starting this fall, a new language training voucher pilot project will begin in three provinces: Alberta, Nova Scotia and Ontario.

Through the pilot project, a selection of newcomers will receive a voucher for language training in the mail. The voucher will encourage them to participate in the pilot project and use language training programs funded by the government of Canada. The vouchers will be distributed randomly by mail to 2,000 newcomers and will explain how these people can enroll in the free language training based on their needs.

The pilot will run for 18 months, following which we will evaluate the project, to see if the vouchers motivate newcomers to take language training. The results of that evaluation will contribute to a larger collective effort to determine how best to continue helping newcomers to learn English or French.

The Government of Canada funds settlement service providing organizations so that they can provide free language training to newcomers to Canada. I really do support the tremendous work done by these innovative organizations, who are doing everything they can to make the story of immigration to Canada a successful one for newcomers.

I have talked at length to many students across the country and I’m always moved and motivated to meet newcomers who are making this effort, because they demonstrate that immigration to Canada is not a one-way street, it is a two-way street. Canada offers opportunity, prospects for economic prosperity and a better life for people, their children and grandchildren.

In turn, we have an expectation that people will make a real effort to integrate into our society. The ultimate tool for integration is language ability – for social and cultural integration as well as economic integration. This is not to say that people cannot succeed without fluency in French or English. But it is to say that their chances of success are much greater with competency in one of our two official languages.

So I’m really delighted to make this announcement today, in part because I’m hopeful that this pilot project will succeed and raise the level of awareness amongst newcomers about the free language services that exist. I hope that it will begin to increase their participation level in programs, like the ones offered here.

If this project succeeds and we then consider in the future whether to roll it out, I think it presents the possibility of a paradigm shift, where we empower newcomers as customers, as it will. We go directly to them and say, “You have the power to select where and when you are going to get your language training. We are giving you support and we expect you to do your best to work with us in improving your language skills because this government and all Canadians are ambitious for new Canadians.”

We want new Canadians to succeed. We don’t want new Canadians to be underemployed or unemployed. We want them to find good, gainful jobs. We want them to feel fully members of the Canadian community and that is what having ability in one of our two official languages can provide. We hope that this program will be an improvement on the kinds of services that we provide to newcomers.

Thank you very much for your welcome, thanks for your great work. I look forward to our continued collaboration together, to make the Canadian experience a more successful one to the hundreds of thousands of newcomers from around the world who we welcome here.