9

Federal Policies on Immigrant Settlement

CAROLINE ANDREW AND RACHIDA ABDOURHAMANE HIMA

Federal policies on immigrant settlement affect us all: directly for people who receive services that are part of federal policies and indirectly for all Canadians, since the success of immigrant settlement is central to the success of Canada in the twenty-first century. For this reason, understanding who is influencing the direction of federal policy, who plays a central role, and who has little or no influence over the policies is an important social and political question. It is also a very large and complex question and one that cannot be covered adequately in one chapter. For example, one could look across different immigrant communities and see whether certain communities have greater influence over settlement policies than others. Or one could look within immigrant communities and try to understand who within these communities has more influence and why. Another perspective would be to look across Canadian society and ask who influences settlement policies – is it economic actors, social actors, or political actors.

Our decision was to focus this chapter on two questions: one relating to political and administrative actors and one relating to social actors. Doing so allows us to ask questions about who makes the decisions and who structures the concrete settlement activities while at the same time restricting the scope of the chapter to manageable dimensions. In terms of the political and administrative actors our interest is in which levels of government play an increasing role in immigrant settlement and why. More specifically the chapter will document the growing role of municipal governments in settlement activities and in settlement policy. In terms of social actors, we will focus on the role of francophone minorities and their associations in trying to influence the direction of federal settlement policies. These are clearly only two of the many threads one could follow about recent federal immigration policy, but they are the ones chosen here – the story of municipal involvement and that of francophone minorities and their associations. It is also clear that this analysis of immigration policy does not go beyond the Harper minority government of 2008–11.

Clearly, increasing the involvement of municipal governments and of civil society actors does not eliminate the role of the federal government, it simply increases the number of significant governmental and non-governmental players involved in immigration policy. The field of immigration policy can be seen as a particularly interesting example of multilevel government, and multilevel governance, in that it clearly incorporates important economic, social, and cultural dimensions and therefore involves horizontal coordination within levels of government as well as vertical coordination between levels of government. The governance dimension adds additional levels of complexity since both horizontal and vertical coordination involve a large variety of non-state actors along with the governmental players. Of central interest to policy analysts and to the interested public is the relative weight of the state actors and the non-state actors and the ways in which they influence the overall policy direction of, in this case, the Canadian federal government (see, among others, Dirks 1995, Kelley and Trebilcock 2000).

Scholars of multilevel governance can be criticized for according more weight to state actors in their vision of governance than to non-state actors. It is argued elsewhere (Mahon, Andrew, and Johnson 2007) that the literature on scalar analysis has been better framed to consider that this is a question for empirical research and that in the development of a theoretical framework state and non-state actors should be situated on the same level. Determining the actual influence of the different categories of actors, and indeed specific actors within state and non-state categories, is an empirical question and one that this chapter will attempt to address.

As we have just articulated, in order to focus this chapter, we have chosen to look at the increasing multilevel governance of federal immigration policy in two ways; at the involvement of municipal government in federal immigration policy and at the involvement of minority francophone communities and their organizations in multilevel governance. One of those leads to multilevel government and one to multilevel governance, but as we will discover, the distinctions between these two are not clear-cut.

The formal involvement of municipal government in federal immigration policy stems from the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement (COIA) signed in November 2005, since it is the first federal-provincial immigration agreement to specifically include municipal governments.1 However, to properly understand the context for this agreement, it is necessary to situate the growing provincial government role in immigration, since the route to an official municipal role is through the provincial role. We will therefore look at the changing federal perspective on provincial involvement in immigration policy but focus on the governance arrangements in the Ontario case and, in particular, on the evolution of these arrangements as they affect municipal involvement.

The involvement of francophone minority communities and their associations is particularly interesting in the context of multilevel governance, since these associations operate at federal, provincial, regional, and community levels and therefore their involvement in federal immigration policy has been both horizontal and vertical: horizontal in the relations between the national association of francophone minority communities (FCFA – Fédération des communautés francophones et acadiennes), Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), and other federal bodies, and vertical in the relationships between provincial associations, regional associations, and community associations, their provincial governments, and the federal government. Here, as with municipal involvement, some contextual information is important so as to situate the genesis of the minority francophone communities’ interest in immigration policy.

As stated in the opening paragraph, the theme of the increasingly multilevel governance of federal immigration policy is only one of the possible perspectives on recent federal immigration policy and the choice of focus affects the nature of the central questions of the chapter. We are interested in understanding why and how municipal-provincial-federal arrangements have come about and what the consequences of municipal involvement have been, both in terms of federal administrative arrangements and in terms of policy, program, or project orientation. Similarly with minority francophone community involvement, we want to look at federal administrative arrangements and with policy, program, or project impact. Indeed, in looking at these two dimensions, it is also possible to see whether there are tensions or complementarities between multilevel government and multilevel governance. Does the inclusion of municipal governments make the participation of non-governmental actors more likely and more significant or, on the other hand, is municipal involvement an alternative to civil society involvement? No definitive answers can be drawn, but this does not make the question less important.

Table 9.1
Government of Canada – Planned Spending by Program Areas

	2008–09($)
Economic affairs	101,186,098
Social affairs	47,787,447
International affairs	27,356,088
Government affairs	12,487,898
Other expenditures	34,821,575
Total planned spending	223,639,106

Source: Citizen and Immigration Canada, Report on Plans and Priorities, 2007–08, 55; http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/imm-system.asp

Indeed our interest in understanding the impact of the increasing relations between the federal government, municipal governments, and francophone associations in the field of immigration also allows us to situate the role of the lead ministry, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, within the evolution of federal activity in the field of immigration and also within the evolution of federal activity in relation to the provincial governments, and it is to these questions that we will now turn. Clarifying the federal context will allow us to better understand the emerging roles of local governments and of minority francophone interests.

IMMIGRATION WITHIN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is not one of the large federal departments in terms of expenditures. The government of Canada categorizes its expenditures into five categories and the planned spending for each of these categories was for 2008–09 is set out in table 9.1.

As can be seen from the table, social affairs is a poor cousin to economic affairs, and within social affairs, health expenditures are clearly the most important. The federal government describes its social affairs as falling under four objectives (table 9.2).

Table 9.2
Social Affairs Planned Spending, by Objectives 2008–09 ($)

Healthy Canadians	28,179,942
Safe and secure communities	10,424,536
Diverse society that promotes linguistic duality and social inclusion	6,008,812
Vibrant Canadian culture and heritage	3,174,157
Total	47,787,447

Source: Citizen and Immigration Canada, Report on Plans and Priorities, 2007–2008, 55; http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/imm-system.asp.

Table 9.3
Citizenship and Immigration Canada – Expenditures by Program Activity ($ millions)

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Report on Plans and Priorities, 2007–2008, 55; http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/imm-system.asp

Of the four objectives, the one relating to immigration comes in third place as part of the objective of creating a diverse society that promotes linguistic duality and social inclusion. Within that objective, the largest expenditures are those of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and the Canadian Polar Commission ($4.2 billion), followed by CIC ($995 million). So federal expenditures on immigration are relatively small, and, moreover, as table 9.3 indicates, over 60 percent of departmental expenditures take the form of grants and contributions, rather than operating expenditures. This is most evident in the case for the integration program, by far the most important expenditure area for CIC. Table 9.4 gives details of the transfer payment programs and illustrates the impact of the signing of the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement. Planned federal spending increased by $212 million between 2006–07 and 2007–08, and of this increase, almost half ($102 million) represented the amount allocated to Ontario.

Table 9.4
Details of Transfer Payment Programs ($ millions)

Program Activity	Forecast Spending 2006–07	Planned Spending (note 1) 2007–08
Integration Program – Grants
Grant for the Canada-Quebec Accord	194.9	224.4
Citizenship Program – Grants
Institute for Canadian Citizens (note 2)
Total grants	197.9	224.4
Canada’s Role in International
Migration and Protection – Contributions
Migration Policy Development (note 3)	0.3	0.3
International Organization for Migration	1.1	2.0
Integration Program – Contributions
Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program	72.8	173.6
Host Program	5.2	10.1
Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada	119.7	174.7
Contributions to provinces (note 4)	77.6	97.6
Resettlement Assistance Program	46.3	49.5
Total Contributions	323.0	507.8
Total Transfer Payments	520.9	732.2

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Report on Plans and Priorities, 2007–2008, 62; http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/imm-system.asp.

Note 1: Includes Main Estimates plus Supplementary Estimates, including the transfer to the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Initiative to the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Note 2: Represents resources approved for 2006–07 for the payment of a new grant to establish the Institute for Canadian Citizenship

Note 3: Migration Policy Development provides funding to several organizations, including the Regional Conference on Migration (RCM or “Puebla”) and the Intergovernmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee and Migration Policies in Europe (IGC).

Note 4: Contributions to provinces include contributions to British Columbia and Manitoba. Explanation of change: Planned spending for 2007–08 increases by $212 million over 2006–07 and includes new resources of $102 million for the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement, $74 million for the extension of settlement services nationally, $28 million for increased costs under the Canada-Quebec Accord, and $20 million for additional settlement funding. These increases were partially offset by sunsetting funding of integration costs related to the processing of parents and grandparents, totalling $12 million.

So not only is immigration a relatively small federal expenditure, the majority of the expenditures are grants and contributions to third parties, both non-governmental and governmental. Table 9.4 also indicates the major programs within the integration section in terms of expenditures; for 2008–09 Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) and the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program (ISAP) were both around $175 million, and the comparatively very small HOST program was around $10 million. These programs have been well described in Biles (2008) and are also on the CIC web site (www.cic.gc.ca/english/newcomer/isap-fs.html; www.cic.gc.ca/english/newcomer/host-newcomer.html).

Although the distinction in mandate between the responsibility of Citizenship and Immigration Canada for immigrant settlement during the first three years of arrival to Canada and of Canadian Heritage for programming the following three years is clear, the settlement period is in reality less clearly defined. Immigrant-serving agencies provide service to considerable numbers of people who have been in Canada for more than three years.² It is not clear whether these are people who have been in on-going contact with the agencies since their arrival in Canada or whether conditions change and/or new problems emerge after a longer period in Canada.

This distinction between the first three years as being settlement-oriented and a later period as relating to full integration has been further complicated by the transfer of the multiculturalism program from Canadian Heritage to Citizenship and Immigration. Following the federal election of 2008 and the appointment of Jason Kenney as minister of citizenship and immigration, the responsibility for multiculturalism went with Minister Kenney from Canadian Heritage, where he had been the minister before the election, to his new portfolio in citizenship and immigration. At the time of writing this chapter, the implications of this transfer in broad policy terms are not clear: to what extent will it mean the lessening of the distinction between policies for the initial three-year period and for a longer time horizon or the elimination of this distinction? As we reported above, the immigrant-serving organizations deliver services to people well beyond the initial three-year period, but there are also clear differences in the program priorities between the language training and settlement programs of CIC and the focus on the adaptation of Canadian institutions that has marked the multiculturalism program. Its recent policy goals have been identity, social justice, and civic participation; the building of capacity within immigrant and visible minority communities to participate in Canadian society; eliminating barriers within Canadian institutions that prevent the participation of the full diversity of Canadian society; and encouraging debate and action in combating racism (Biles 2008, 149).

CANADIAN HERITAGE

Turning to Canadian Heritage, the focus is more, as noted earlier, on the capacity of the host society to offer an environment that allows for the successful integration of all Canadians, including ethnic, racial, linguistic, and religious minorities. This is the idea of the “two-way street” of Canadian immigrant integration, namely, that immigrants will adapt and so too will the host society. There has been much debate about the “two-way street,” particularly concerning the extent to which there really is one. Has Canadian society been willing to transform itself, to adapt itself, to consider that immigration will produce a new Canadian society? And there has been a whole different set of arguments: should Canadian society transform itself and should the goal be a new Canadian society or a society where the newcomers have adapted to the existing Canadian society with perhaps only marginal alterations at the edges (see, for example, Banting, Courchene, and Seidle 2007)? A lot has been written on these questions, much of which is polemical in tone. Moreover, considerable survey data suggests that Canadians, in the majority, feel that immigration has a positive effect on Canadian society (see, among others, Abu-Ayyash and Brochu 2006; McDonald and Quell 2008). However, some of the survey results certainly suggest that born-in-Canada Canadians do not see the “two-way street” as involving equal adaptation; they prefer a situation where more adaptation is done by immigrants than by themselves.

These questions form an important backdrop to an understanding of the programming done by Canadian Heritage. The major program that relates to immigrant integration is the Multiculturalism Program, which, as mentioned, is now part of CIC. Another important area within Canadian Heritage that increasingly relates to immigrant integration is the Official Languages Program. We will discuss this involvement in much greater detail in terms of the influence of the minority francophone communities and their associations.

Issues of coordination and of policy directive within Canadian Heritage have emerged concerning the department’s role as lead in the cross-government anti-racism plan. The Action Plan against Racism was designed to build links across federal departments, including CIC, Canadian Heritage, Human Resources and Social Development Canada, and Justice Canada, and thereby to build horizontal coordination.

OTHER FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS

If CIC and Canadian Heritage are the main policy players in terms of immigrant settlement and integration, they are certainly not alone. Human Resources and Social Development Canada has responsibilities in the area of foreign credential recognition, cited as a significant barrier to immigrant economic integration (Ikura 2007), and in relation to the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, an indication of the increasing problems being faced by some immigrant families in finding adequate housing.

Immigrant health raises the question of the involvement of Health Canada in federal immigration policy. Health has been an interesting area in that there has been much debate and much data around the question of the “healthy immigrant” effect. Immigrants are in better health on arriving in Canada than they are after being in Canada for several years, and there has been a vigorous debate about measurement, results, and policy implications (Chen et al. 1996a, 1996b; Guruge and Collins 2008; Hyman 2001; Parakulam et al. 1992; Tracey and Wheaton 2006; Vissandjee et al. 2004).

Other relevant federal departments include Status of Women, Public Safety Canada, Industry Canada, and Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Coordination issues across the federal government can take several forms, and these can be measured in different ways. One can look to see which government programs have highlighted immigrant issues and which have not. One example is Status of Women Canada, where the emphasis on immigrant women has been relatively clear and where immigrant women are one of a limited number of priority groups, along with Aboriginal women, disabled women, and elderly women. This is, however, not so much the result of direct coordination between CIC, Canadian Heritage, and Status of Women as it is the result of the internal dynamics of the women’s movement, the importance of intersectional analysis both in theory and in practice, and the relations between the women’s movement and Status of Women Canada.

Another coordination mechanism in federal immigration policy has been the Metropolis Project. Founded more than ten years ago, Metropolis has had as one goal the funding of research on immigrant settlement, and it has created four (and later five) regionally based research centres that bring together university-based researchers, community agencies, and government policy-makers in order to produce and disseminate policy-relevant research. Metropolis has acted as a coordination mechanism in at least two ways. First, general funding for Metropolis, as well as specific funding for conferences and special projects, has come from a whole variety of federal departments and therefore involves coordination across the departments. Second, Metropolis’ annual conferences bring together policy-makers, along with the NGO community and university researchers. This is essential for linking research and policy, as well as for knowledge transfer and mobilization (often referred to as KT and KM). As John Shields and Bryan Evans concluded in their description of Metropolis as a case of knowledge mobilization and knowledge transfer, “The achievements and initiatives of this working experiment in research partnering is worthy of study. It offers valuable lessons for forging even deeper and more meaningful institutionalized KM/KT relationships” (2008, 23).

From this description it is clear that even within the federal government coordination of immigration policy is a highly complex process. The recent transfer of the Multiculturalism Program to Citizenship and Immigration may signify the consolidation of some of the most important programs, but this is not yet clear. And even if this were to be true, there are still a large number of federal departments that have relevant immigration-related programs. All the challenges described in Bakvis and Juillet’s analysis of horizontality within the federal government (2004) are certainly present in the immigration field. As Canadian society becomes increasingly aware of the challenges of immigrant integration in Canada (Sweetman and Warman 2008), the pressures for better horizontal coordination increase. As we turn to the provincial and, later, the municipal role, these coordination challenges simply expand.

PROVINCIAL INVOLVEMENT AND COORDINATION

As was noted at the outset, the question of growing provincial activity in the field of immigration is a necessary foundation for an understanding of federal-provincial-municipal arrangements.

Quebec was the first province in the recent period to want to expand its activity in the field of immigration, and with a clear objective: increasing francophone immigration to Quebec and integrating immigrants into a French-speaking host society (for a description of Quebec immigration policy, see Chiasson and Koji, in Tolley 2011). The beginning was marked by conflict between Quebec and the federal government, but over time the two governments worked out a more harmonious working relationship, beginning with the Cullen-Couture agreement in 1978. Since the Quebec-Canada Accord of 1991, Quebec has had powers in the area of immigrant selection and full responsibility for all settlement and integration services.

After the initial hostility of the federal government to giving important powers to Quebec in the area of immigrant settlement, it is the federal government that offers full control over immigrant settlement to the other provinces as part of the Program Review exercise in 1995–96 (Vineberg 2010, 40). The Department of Citizenship and Immigration had to come up with savings of over $60 million, and the settlement services seemed to be the best option. Federal immigration activity overseas and federal activity relating to border services were seen to be clearly federal responsibilities and, in addition, the settlement services had only been back as part of immigration since 1993, having been part of the manpower portfolio for several decades (Vineberg 2010, 38).There was also a logic to offering settlement services to the provinces, in line with their responsibility for social services and education. Discussions were held in 1995 and 1996 with the provinces, and following federal promises to increase spending outside Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba accepted the federal offer and, in 1998, the two provinces signed settlement realignment agreements with the federal government (Vineberg 2010, 42).

Manitoba has been seen as the success story of a provincial role in settlement services. Any initial concern of the settlement sector was soon over as the province quickly began improving settlement services. Manitoba developed an ambitious provincial nominee program, the first of the provinces to do so. The aim of the Manitoba program was both demographic, to use immigration to counter population decline, and economic, to use immigrants to stimulate economic and employment growth. Manitoba has played a major role in advancing the active provincial role as a model for Canadian immigration policy (Amoyaw 2008; Burstein 2007).

British Columbia also signed an agreement to take over responsibility for all integration and settlement programs, but the settlement sector in British Columbia was worried by the fact that a large part of the federal funds were put into general revenue and not clearly allocated to settlement services (Vineberg 2010, 43). The other provinces were not initially interested in taking over control of settlement services, arguing that the federal government was not putting enough money on the table. The Quebec agreement had always been a point of comparison for the provincial governments. This was clearly the case for the Ontario government which held out for an agreement comparable in financial terms to the agreement with Quebec. In 2005, with the approach of a federal election, the federal government agreed to the Ontario demands, which led the way to the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement (COIA) signed in November 2005 (Vineberg 2010, 45). Table 9.5 provides a list of the dates for the various federal-provincial agreements.

The Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement included municipal governments for the first time in a federal-provincial immigration agreement. One of the sub-agreements to the agreement covers partnership with municipalities: “The Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement includes a provision to involve municipalities in planning and discussions on immigration and settlement. This marks the first time all three levels of government have worked together to meet the needs of immigrants across Ontario. Canada and Ontario will work with the City of Toronto, as well as the Municipal Immigration Committee, which has been established with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario” (Andrew 2008).

The agreement set up a Joint Steering Committee, composed of the deputy ministers (DM) of CIC and MCI. The Steering Committee oversees implementation of the COIA, approves joint priorities annually, resolves disputes, and establishes the Management Committee. The Management Committee reports to the Steering Committee and is composed of the assistant deputy minister (ADM) of CIC and MCI. Its mandate is to recommend priorities and direct the development of annual work plans and establish and manage working groups related to the implementation of the annexes (as of September 2008 there was a Research and Accountability Working Group, and two sub-committees: Evaluation and Research).

Below this management structure, there were three divisions: integration initiatives, economic initiatives, and municipal partnerships. The Municipal Immigration Committee is co-chaired by MCI, CIC, and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) and includes a representative from the Association française des municipalités de l’Ontario (AFMO). It has two working groups: Attraction and Retention, and Settlement and Integration. Municipal participation is also allowed in other COIA working groups (such as settlement and integration or language training). Also included in the municipal partnerships is the tripartite MOU with the City of Toronto. The MOU was signed in October 2006 and is managed by a Steering Committee composed of the Toronto City Manager and the ADMs of CIC and MCI. The Steering Committee identifies priorities for joint action/initiatives and oversees the MOU. It allows for Toronto representation on other COIA working groups. Priorities as of September 2008 included data sharing and research on temporary foreign workers (Andrew 2008).

Table 9.5
Federal-Provincial/Territorial Agreements

Agreement	Date Signed	Expiry Date
Agreement for Canada–British Columbia Co-operation in Immigration	5 April 2004 (original signed in May 1998)	5 April 2009
Canada-Alberta Agreement on Provincial Nominees	11 May 2007 (original signed in 2002)	Indefinite
Canada-Saskatchewan Immigration Agreement	7 May 2005 (original signed in March 1998)	Indefinite
Canada-Manitoba Immigration
Agreement	6 June 2003 (original signed in October 1996)	Indefinite
Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement	21 November 2005	21 November 2010
Canada-Quebec Accord	21 February 2005	Indefinite
Canada–New Brunswick Agreement on Provincial Nominees	28 January 2005 amended 29 March 2005 (original signed in February 1999)	Indefinite
Agreement for Canada–Prince Edward Island Co-operation on Immigration	2008 (original signed in 2001)	29 March 2007
Canada–Nova Scotia Agreement on Provincial Nominees	2007 (original signed in 2002)	27 August 2007
Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Agreement on Provincial Nominees	22 November 2006 (original signed in September 1999)	Indefinite
Agreement for Canada-Yukon Co-operation on Immigration	2008 (original signed in 2001)	2 April 2007

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada Report on Plans and Priorities, 2007–2008, 51. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english//department/laws-policy/agreements/index.asp

The municipal involvement has led to a new program initiative: Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPs), which offered support to initiatives bringing together municipal and non-governmental bodies to improve access to, and coordination of, effective services that facilitate immigrant settlement and integration. In the case of Toronto, there was a specific call for proposals focussing on the neighbourhood level, whereas outside Toronto it was at the level of the municipality. At the time this chapter was written, over forty LIP initiatives existed across Ontario (Bradford and Andrew 2010).

To understand the COIA it is important to begin with the very special position of the City of Toronto in regard to immigration but also in terms of civil society initiatives, post amalgamation in Toronto, to rejuvenate economic development and to put pressure on the senior levels of government in order to give Toronto a greater say over its own destiny.

To begin, Toronto has attracted an extremely high percentage of recent immigrants and even though the most recent period saw a slight decline in the numbers of immigrants going to the City of Toronto, the Greater Toronto Region is certainly the focal point for immigration in Canada. Recent immigration has transformed the demography of Toronto; approximately 50 percent of the population is foreign-born. The city had been active in adopting policies, developing programs, and establishing projects (Siemiatycki 2008). One example was the Break the Cycle of Violence grants whereby the city administration had taken a pro-active role in seeking out recent immigrant groups and encouraging and supporting them in applying for grants to develop projects improving culturally appropriate services around violence prevention.

Both the demographic weight and the municipal activity made the case for Toronto exceptionality. Added to this were the series of civil society initiatives to increase the role of Toronto, starting with the Toronto Charter Movement, the mobilization against the Harrisimposed amalgamation, and the subsequent Toronto City Summit Alliance, which brought together a broad coalition of business and labour, cultural, educational, social, and civic leaders to develop initiatives to rejuvenate Toronto and to try and re-establish the economic, social, and cultural dynamism of the pre-amalgamation period. One of the programs falling under the Toronto City Summit Alliance was TRIEC, the Toronto Regional Immigration Employment Council (Alboim and McIsaac 2004). It has an Intergovernmental Relations Committee (IGR), chaired by Naomi Alboim of Queen’s University (and a former deputy minster with the Ontario government), which includes representatives from four departments of the federal government (CIC, Service Canada, Canadian Heritage, and Industry), three departments of the Ontario government (CIC, Training, Colleges and Universities, and Economic Development and Trade), the City of Toronto, and the regions of York, Peel, and Halton. TRIEC recognized the importance of local labour markets and local coalitions bringing together business and labour along with government representatives. It served as a model and again illustrated the importance of Toronto in immigration policies and programs.

It is important to underline the interrelated nature of the nongovernmental and governmental initiatives. Civil society organizations, such as the United Way of Greater Toronto in collaboration with the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD), published Poverty by Postal Code (2004), which linked visible minority status and poverty; the Toronto Metropolis project undertook research and disseminated the findings on the need for more regional activity on the part of the city. The city also undertook projects in partnership with the United Way, such as the Strong Neighbourhood Task Force, that recommended neighbourhood-based programming that could be sensitive to the particular make-up of specific neighbourhoods. This is not to say that there are not tensions and differences between the City of Toronto and the Toronto City Summit Alliance but rather that the importance accorded to Toronto in relation to immigration policy is the result both of civil society activities and those of the City of Toronto.

If Toronto was the impetus for the recognition of the role of municipal governments within COIA, it was not the only factor. Municipal governments all across Canada, often in partnership with civil society organizations, were becoming more interested in the attraction and retention of immigrants. Issues of Our Diverse Cities (2004–08) and the 2009 special issue of Plan Canada have described a number of municipal initiatives across a wide variety of municipal policy areas. Local policies on housing, public transportation, recreation, public health, policing, culture, and, of course, education all have significant impact on the success of integration, and in all these areas, there are good practices of culturally sensitive policy adaptations and transformations. Factors that influence the likelihood of adaptation include demographic changes (the size of the immigrant population), administrative capacity, political will, and community mobilization and pressure. A recent Université de Montréal PhD dissertation comparing the immigration policies of Montreal and Laval emphasized the importance of local definitions of the legitimacy of various political actors by analyzing the differences between Laval, where group-based identities of all kinds were not recognized as legitimate by the municipal government, and Montreal, where immigrant group identities have been recognized as legitimate for many years (Fourot 2008).

Municipalities all across Canada were becoming more active, but clearly for municipalities in Ontario, their inclusion in the COIA opened up new spaces for local activity. The agreement included a program to fund municipalities to create websites and as of September 2008, seventeen municipalities had received funding. In addition the funding of the LIPs proposals across Ontario increased municipal interest in developing immigration initiatives. All this led the then deputy minister of MCI to state that “municipalities are becoming more involved with immigration attraction and immigration initiatives” (Andrew 2008, 4).

Up to the present, Ontario and Alberta have explicitly included municipal governments in the federal-provincial agreements, and so formally constituted federal-provincial-municipal collaboration may or may not spread beyond these two. But municipal activity will continue to grow and will necessarily influence the environment of both provincial and federal policy and program and project development. “What makes local involvement critical is the emphasis on retention and the influence of local authorities in the domain” (Burstein 2007, 43). As research indicates growing problems in the integration of recent immigrants, the importance of involving local government and local communities can only grow. In pursuing the idea of community involvement, we turn now to the role of minority francophone communities and their associations and their influence on federal multilevel governance of immigration settlement and integration.

MINORITY FRANCOPHONE COMMUNITIES AND IMMIGRATION

The official beginning of federal involvement in promoting immigration in minority francophone communities began in 2002 with the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The 2002 amendment included the objectives of favouring the development of official language minority communities and ensuring conformity with the Charter of Rights and Liberties and therefore the equality of French and English as official languages (Farmer 2008, 125).

This led to the creation in 2002 of a Citizenship and Immigration Canada–Francophone Minority Communities Steering Committee, followed by the creation of sub-committees for Alberta, Ontario, and Manitoba in 2003 and for British Columbia in 2004. The federal government support for this policy development was strengthened by the adoption in 2003 of the Action Plan for Official Languages, which included federal support for encouraging and promoting French-language immigration to francophone minority communities.

The federal government interest was in fact the result of the growing activity of the organizations of the minority francophone communities. The Société franco-manitobaine (Farmer 2008, 126) can be seen as the initiator of this activity, paralleling the leadership role of Manitoba in provincial government activity in immigration policy. This activity was then picked up by the national association, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA), which played a leadership role in promoting the francophone immigration dossier. Many factors lay behind this growing interest: a movement to go beyond the traditional area of education where basic rights had more or less been won, a recognition that additional efforts had to be made to successfully integrate francophone immigrants, an increased preoccupation with levels of assimilation, and the aging of the minority francophone communities. Diane Farmer has outlined the development of the FCFA’s position through its major briefs (2001, 2004, 2006, 2007) to the federal government articulating the argument for the promotion of francophone immigration and for the appropriate federal role. The 2003 plan allocated some federal funds for this objective, which led to some specific projects, including public education, preparation of education material, and municipal and school projects. The CIC–francophone community National Committee produced a strategic framework in 2003 and a strategic plan in 2006. The objectives of the framework and the plan include increasing the number of francophone immigrants, improving the capacity of francophone minority communities to welcome francophone immigrants, ensuring the economic integration of the francophone immigrants, ensuring their social and cultural integration, and fostering the regionalization of francophone immigration.

The political context was also extremely favourable during the Chrétien and Martin years, with Mauril Bélanger as minister in charge of the Official Languages Act. A study by Cardinal, Lang, and Sauvé (2005) discusses the potential and the challenges of the structures of joint governance across the various policy fields, including immigration. Although these structures remain, the political context is less favourable for federal initiatives in this area.

Municipal involvement took place through the activities of the organizations that represent francophone and/or bilingual municipalities in Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Ontario. In New Brunswick the association got funds from the Canada–New Brunswick agreements for francophone municipalities to organize projects aimed at welcoming new immigrants and raising community awareness of the importance of attracting and retaining them. The municipalities were for the most part small, and the projects were limited in terms of funding. In Manitoba the organization representing francophone municipalities focussed its activity on economic development projects, and it feels that they have been successful. The small rural francophone communities had, for the most part, made small gains in population, in contrast to long-standing rural population loss in Manitoba. In Ontario the Association française des municipalités de l’Ontario (AFMO) has carried out, over the past few years, a number of research projects relating to the role of visible-minority and foreign-born francophones active in municipal government in Ontario. Although both Toronto and Ottawa are members of AFMO, the majority of the member municipalities have received little recent immigration. However, the annual conferences of AFMO have maintained the question of francophone immigration as an area of interest for the organization.

Several of the federal-provincial agreements refer specifically to minority francophone communities and to their specific needs in immigration attraction and integration. This is true of the British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario agreements. However, with the arrival in power of the Conservative Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Harper, the priority given to minority francophone communities lessened. The federal government did renew the Action Plan, but without expansion.

What have been the results of the efforts to increase francophone immigration in minority francophone communities and to retain them in these communities? Research in Ontario (Andrew and Burstein 2007) demonstrated the considerable challenges involved in this policy. Francophone immigrants arriving in Ontario discover that English is required for the vast majority of employment in Ontario, which many of them felt had not been explained clearly to them before they came to Canada. Moreover, given the relatively small amount of public services in French in most, if not all, Ontario communities, francophone immigrants therefore choose English-language services. There is also little evidence of a medium- or long-term clearly articulated federal plan for the development of francophone immigration in Ontario and for a strategy of working with provincial, municipal, and community partners to develop greater capacity to attract and retain francophone immigrants. One example of the absence of developed partnerships was a reference within the federal documentation to designated communities within Ontario that had been chosen for the development of French-language services. However, because these communities had not been consulted about or even informed of this designation, it was not surprising that this designation had not had any impact on service delivery.

In terms of process, minority francophone communities and their organizations did have an impact on federal policy: a national steering committee was set up, and it has met and articulated plans (Belkhodja 2008). There appears to have been some policy impact in Manitoba, but it seems to be more related to the pro-active nature of Manitoba provincial immigration policy. The arrival of the Harper government seems also to have lessened the influence of the minority francophone organizations. However, it is too early to tell to what extent their influence on federal policy was related to a specific political context or whether the demographic and community mobilization factors that remain important will re-establish a capacity to influence federal immigration policy.

The impact of the increasing involvement of municipalities in activities aimed at attracting and retaining immigrants on federal immigration policy would seem to be more certain that that of the minority francophone organizations. This impact is, in part, a consequence of the increasing provincial government role in immigration policy but it is also a product of the increasing importance of “place-based” policy (Bradford 2007; 2008) and therefore an expanded local and municipal role (particularly in the case of the larger cities and metropolitan regions) in economic development and in the policies for social and cultural development that are increasingly understood as necessary for economic development. Immigration is a necessary base for economic development and the appropriate activities of local government, in partnership with the full range of local community actors, are seen to be crucial in attracting and retaining immigrants. Municipal governments in Canada are only just beginning to see that this can lead to greater municipal involvement in federal immigration policy, potentially through federal-provincial collaboration and coordination, including not only governments but also civil society organizations. Federal policies on immigration settlement will increasingly interact with municipal activities; what remains to be seen is whether this will occur through collaboration and coordination actively engaged in and supported by the federal government. The argument in this chapter is that this would be the route for improved policies for immigration settlement.

NOTES

This chapter was first published in Tolley/Young, Immigrant Settlement Policy in Canadian Municipalities, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011.

1  Information on COIA comes specifically from the slide presentation “Immigration Governance: Ontario’s Experience,” presented to the UK Study Tour by Joan Andrew, deputy minister, Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration (MIC), Government of Ontario, 9 September 2008.

2  Interviews with Berna Bolanos, Catholic Crosscultural Services – Peel Region, and with Mohammed Dalmar, Catholic Immigration Centre, Ottawa.

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