Vancouver, December 5, 2011 — Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, today announced allocations for settlement funding for British Columbia for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.
“The Government of Canada wants newcomers to integrate into Canada. That is why we have tripled settlement funding since 2005-06,”
said Minister Kenney. “We are committed to ensuring the distribution of settlement funding is fair and that immigrants receive the same level of service, regardless of where they choose to settle.”
The allocation for settlement services in British Columbia will be $109.8M for the 2012-13 fiscal year, an increase of $4.3M from this current fiscal year.
Settlement funding is also being more fairly distributed, to serve the needs of newcomers, as a result of a national settlement funding formula that is based on a province or territory’s share of immigrant intake. This formula now applies in all provinces and territories except Quebec.
The funding formula was also updated recently to reflect the use of settlement services by refugees and will increase the amount allocated to provinces and territories, based on their intake of refugees.
“We believe it is only fair that settlement allocations across Canada should be based on the share of newcomers that provinces and territories have,”
noted Minister Kenney.
The priority for the 2012-13 allocations is to focus on delivering services directly to immigrants and away from supporting expenses such as administration, travel or capital costs for organizations. The total 2012-13 amount for all provinces and territories outside Quebec is $576.8M, compared to $184.7M in 2005-06.
Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/CitImmCanada.
For further information (media only), please contact:
Candice Malcolm
Minister’s Office
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
CIC Media Relations
Communications Branch
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
613-952-1650
CIC-Media-Relations@cic.gc.ca
Building a stronger Canada: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) strengthens Canada’s economic, social and cultural prosperity, helping ensure Canadian safety and security while managing one of the largest and most generous immigration programs in the world.
