Drastic cuts to immigrant support
By Dyan Ruiz
The South Asian Women’s Centre, a vital community service centre in the heart of an immigrant community, lost all of its funding from the federal government. These drastic cuts came into effect on April 1, 2011.
“We don’t know where people will go in the South Asian Community,” said executive director Kripa Sekhar. The federal funding represented nearly 70 per cent of the centre’s overall budget. Services were drastically reduced when the budget cuts came into effect. All of the settlement counsellors were laid off the day before.
To those who have been helped by the centre, such as Luximi Sri Pathmanathan, the centre is a “second home.” Without the South Asian Women’s Centre, isolation felt by new Canadians in this community will likely rise. This in turn could lead to higher unemployment, domestic violence, and depression. You’ll hear first hand accounts from staff and service beneficiaries about how the cuts impact them.
MULTIMEDIA:
AUDIO SLIDESHOW: South Asian Women Centre
Executive director Kripa Sekhar speaks at a Women’s Day celebration on March 10, 2011. The pictures were taken during various visits to the centre that month.
VIDEO: Settlement Counsellor:
Sabita Saha and all other settlement counsellors were laid off from the centre. On one of her last days at work, she talks about the services she offered and the funding cuts.
VIDEO: “Second home”
Luximi Sri Pathmanathan talks about how the centre helped her settle into Canada and became a “second home.” The interview was on March 24, 2011.
A woman standing outside the centre
“Everything Jason Kenney is doing is targeted to immigrants. And he has targeted our community by not giving us funding,” said Sekhar to an atttentive crowd gathered for a Women’s Day celebration at the centre.
Sekhar was talking about Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and his decision to cut 100 per cent of the federal funding to her centre, and other immigrant settlement organizations in Toronto. South Asians are the largest visible minority group in the city.
To justify the funding cuts, Kenney said, immigration patterns change and there are fewer people going to Ontario and Toronto. Meanwhile, other places like the prairies and the east coast are receiving more immigrants. ”Those funds are going to where the immigrants are,” he said. Click here or see below an interactive map on immigration patterns.
Saha looking through her files
The cuts are “unjustified and unfair,” said Saha, a settlement worker who was laid off. She handled over half of the clients at the South Asian Women’s Centre, where she worked for 12 years.
The centre was founded in 1982, and has since helped tens of thousands of new Canadians settle in the Greater Toronto Area. Program manager Manivillie Kanagasabapathy said that many of the women travel from outside of the city, taking several buses to regularly access their services.
According to the latest annual report, the centre helped 14,550 individuals in their settlement program from March 2008 to March 2009 alone. They provided 43,650 units of recorded service to these newcomers.
Saha offered a personal touch to the services she offered through the centre. This included accompanying clients to other public services, such as Ontario Works and hospitals, as well as her community outreach. She said much of what she does cannot be captured in their record-keeping, such as telephone support.
Art by Nazheem Islam
Nazheen Islam said until Sabeeha Saleque, a board member at the centre, advised her how to pursue work in Canada, she was applying to places like dollar stores. With the help of people like Saleque, the wife and mother hopes to pursue her previous field as an artist through places like the Ontario College of Art & Design.
Staff at the centre have exclusive expertise on the issues facing this community and can collectively speak 14 South Asian languages. The centre offers “short term help with long term gain” to new Canadians, Sekhar said. All of the services are open to men, except some support groups, and people of all nationalities.
The South Asian Women’s Centre is one of 28 Ontario organizations that lost all of its federal funding. The advocacy group Rewind the Cuts said that more than 78,000 newcomers will lose access to workers supporting immigration settlement due to the cuts. About 1,000 staff across Ontario will lose their jobs. They said organizations had no prior warning about the drastic reduction to their budgets.
With the end of Parliament for the upcoming national elections on May 2, 2011, there can be no changes to these budget cuts until a new government takes over.
Crowd gathered at the centre's Women's Day event.
Key facts and figures:
Assessing Citizenship and Immigration Canada claims:
The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) claimed the patterns of immigration are changing in Canada. These justified drastic cuts from Ontario agencies to be used elsewhere. See how this claim matches up with CIC’s own statistics.
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