Pathways to Prosperity: Ontario

Policy and Practice Rationale

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) spends well over half-a-billion dollars annually purchasing settlement services for immigrants. A further $50-$100 million is committed by other organizations, including provincial governments, federal ministries (outside of CIC), municipalities, and various quasi-public and private organizations. The lion’s share of this expenditure is directed to non-profit agencies under tightly controlled service purchase arrangements.

Surprisingly, despite the size of the annual expenditure, neither CIC, nor settlement agencies and settlement umbrella associations, have systematically studied the ways in which capacity at either the industry or agency levels could be built. Instead, changes in capacity tend to be equated to changes in government expenditure levels. Not enough attention, however, has been paid to issues related to the use of technology, product and service specialization, comparative advantage, sequencing and integration of services, and ideas for nurturing and sustaining innovation within the settlement sector. In short, there does not presently exist a well-articulated institutional strategy to promote innovation and to build capacity at the agency and sector levels in order to respond to profound policy and environmental shifts. Existing research and evaluations focus on services and outcomes, but they generally ignore the institutions delivering the services. This research seeks to address this important knowledge gap.

Conceptual/Theoretical Framework

The research would contribute to a deeper understanding of the institutional complex that comprises and supports settlement and integration, as well as to the literature on efficiencies in service provision more generally. For example, it would shed light on the relations between ‘firm’ behaviour and ‘industry’ organization, and on performance measurement as it relates to the organization of settlement services. The research would also contribute to a more complete view of the role of social capital in promoting integration.

Research Questions

Specifically, the following questions will be addressed in this research:

• What is the full range of services that settlement agencies produce?
• What are the key determinants that shape the full range of agency outputs?
• How does the organization of the settlement sector shape service delivery and agency capacity?
• How can innovation be nourished within the settlement sector and how can we best measure it?
• How do we balance the trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery?
• What capacities need to be developed by settlement agencies to respond to policy and technological shifts? What ‘environmental’ changes (for example changes in the way that government agencies interact with the sector) are required to support these capacities?

Description of the Project and Possible Approaches

The research project would be broken into several sub-studies that would be investigated by P2P teams and integrated into a comprehensive analysis. The following component studies are envisioned:

1. A pan-Canadian study of settlement agency behaviour, outputs and determinants focusing, in particular, on the influence of alternative financing sources and financing structures, government- agency relations, agency scale, and agency program organization. The study would commence by comprehensively cataloguing and analyzing settlement agency outputs and relations. These include program services paid for by external funders as well as ‘hidden’ outputs such as program and service integration on the ground (an essential but unrecognized and unfunded task), collaboration with and support for (other) non-profit and ethno-cultural organizations, and the full range of bridging social capital activities undertaken by agencies and senior staff, such as participation on boards and advisory councils. The study would make an effort to capture differences between agencies in Northern and remote locations and those located in larger centres.
2. A study of how the settlement industry as a whole functions. This would include an examination of how industry behaviour at the macro level is affected by the composition of local organizations at the municipal or regional level. The influence of parameters such as the number and size of agencies; the ethnic, cultural and religious composition of the client caseload; and the degree of ethnic and service specialization would all be studied. The study would also look at the performance of immigrant umbrella associations, notably, what functions they perform and what services they provide to member agencies. Particular topics would include an examination of how the industry supports learning, innovation and policy and program development. An important feature of the study would be an examination of how services to Francophone minorities outside Quebec are supported at the industry level; the study would also examine the links between umbrella organizations and agencies in Northern and remote locations.
3. A comparative study of different government approaches to mobilizing and working with the settlement sector, including the regimes in Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia. The study would focus on discrete topics such as financing methods, eligibility rules to obtain support, and accountability measures. For comparison, the study could also examine approaches in parallel service areas (for example, the methods used by ministries concerned with employment).
4. A study structured around the identification and analysis of best practices in select areas of service delivery. The analysis would be accompanied by training in the delivery of these best practices for agencies interested in improving their current program offerings or expanding into the designated service areas. The research would evaluate whether innovation in the settlement sector could be institutionalized through a systematic process involving best practice identification and agency training.
5. A study aimed at developing a framework for the “Settlement Agency of the Future” and identifying best practices in this regard. The design would anticipate shifts in program direction and newcomer composition, shifts in newcomer destinations, and technological possibilities. The focus would be on optimizing the performance of individual agencies with a view to optimizing the performance of the settlement system as a whole. This would include augmenting essential agency capacities; optimizing the support that agencies obtain from the ‘industry’ or sector; and optimizing relations and exchanges with governments. An important sub-component of this study would focus on services to Northern and remote sites as well as to Francophone minority communities.

The sub-studies would employ a mix of qualitative and quantitative analyses, including surveys of settlement agencies; interviews with settlement agency leaders and government officials; focus groups involving settlement agency staff; statistical analyses employing program performance data reported by settlement agencies; and controlled experiments and measurement of results.

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