Multilevel Governance: Immigration and Settlement Services

1
Multilevel Governance Immigration and Settlement
Services

• Nov. 22

2
Federal-Provincial Agreements on Immigration

• Citizen and Immigration Canada (CIC)
• Some provinces and territories have
  comprehensive agreements with CIC that cover a
  wide range of immigration issues. Yukon, British
  Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
  Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward
  Island have this kind of agreement with CIC.
• Other provinces and territories have agreements
  that cover more specific issues, in response to
  their respective needs. For example, British
  Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
  Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island,
  Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest
  Territories and the Yukon have signed Provincial
  Nominee agreements, which allow them to nominate
  immigrants to meet specific labour-market needs.

3
Canada-Ontario Agreement

• Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement, signed
  November 2005
• federal funds are provided for settlement and
  integration programs and services in Ontario
  communities, and for innovative services and
  delivery mechanisms to improve outcomes for
  newcomers (Burr, 2011 3).
• This led to Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPS)
  to support a new form of locally based
  collaboration among multiple stakeholders. These
  partnerships enable communities to develop
  strategic plans to address the opportunities and
  challenges associated with fostering inclusive
  and responsive environments. They also signify
  and innovation in multi-level collaborative
  governance encouraging co-operation among
  federal, provincial, and municipal governments
  (Burr, 2011 1).

4
MLG and Toronto

• The Canada-Ontario-Toronto Memorandum of
  Understanding on Immigration and Settlement,
  signed in October 2006
• Toronto Newcomer Initiative, signed in May 2010
• Cuts to immigration services were announced in
  December 2010. 34 Ontario organizations 14 in
  Torontolost federal funding when Citizenship and
  Immigration Canada cut 43 million in settlement
  services in Ontario this year.

5
Comparing settlement programs in Vancouver and
Winnipeg

• proved to be textbook examples of the contrast
  between provincial policies that respect
  community difference and ones that do not (Leo
  and Enns, 2009 94-96).

6
Winnipeg case study

• the provincial government built an impressively
  successful system of immigration and settlement,
  carefully tailored to meet the requirements of
  disparate Manitoba communities, not along any
  particular line of governance theory but on the
  well-established political and administrative
  arts of close consultation and co-operation with
  stakeholders, thoughtful design of a provincial
  nominee system of immigration, attentive
  monitoring, and flexible adaptation to lessons
  learned (Leo and August, 2009 493-494).

7
Winnipeg case study

• shows how a provincial government that is open
  to community involvement in policy making is
  perfectly capable of respecting community
  difference in both formulation and implementation
  of policy while entirely bypassing municipal
  government, in this case a municipal government
  whose record of responsiveness to community
  involvement is less than stellar (Leo and Enns,
  2009 96).

8
Local role in Manitoba

• There seems to be a case for municipal
  minimalism in this instanceprovincial
  administration arguably makes sense (Leo and
  August, 2009 505).
• In Toronto and Vancouver, by contrast, matters
  stand differentlyit makes sense for each of
  those cities to manage at least some aspects of
  settlement, and problems arising from settlement,
  in their own way (Leo and August, 2009 505).

9
Vancouver case study

• the provincial government, in its fervour to
  impose a new ideological direction, placed
  serious obstacles in the path of a famously
  effective network of community organizations
  (Leo and Enns, 2009 96).
• market-oriented governancemilitated directly
  against community input. Applying methods common
  to public choice policy making, the provincial
  government defined community-based service
  providers as contractors. Once so defined, they
  were all but excluded from providing feedback to
  the government in the successes or failures of
  its policies, on the grounds that a contractor
  making representations to the contractee was in a
  conflict of interest (Leo and Enns, 2009 101).
• a one-dimensional, ideologically driven approach
  to community governance is likely to be unequal
  to the formidable challenge of deep federalism
  (Leo and Enns, 2009 112).

10
Vancouver case study

• Issues with the immigration settlement system in
  Vancouver
• Funding
• Lack of consultation
• Open tendering process
• Performance measures

11
Implications for MLG and Deep Federalism
12
MLG and Deep Federalism

• The rationale for multi-level governanceis to
  strike an appropriate balance between the
  realization of national objectives, on the one
  hand, and the achievement of governance
  appropriate to the requirements of local
  communities on the other, leaving open the
  question of which particular constellation of
  organizational forms is best suited to accomplish
  a particular task (Leo and Enns, 2009 94).
• the formulation and implementation of national
  policies in a manner sufficiently flexible and
  responsive to take full account of the very
  important differences among communities (Leo and
  Enns, 2009 94-95).

13
Different forms of deep federalism

• there are many possible ways deep federalism may
  be achieved in particular local circumstances
  different permutations of public and private
  initiative, different forms of cooperation among
  the various levels of government, and different
  means of securing the necessary degree of local
  participation in policy formulation and
  implementation (Leo and Enns, 2009 95).

14
Avoiding MLG

• Intergovernmental agreements are obviously
  superior to intergovernmental disagreements, but
  they are not superior to a state of affairs in
  which one government is clearly in charge
  (Sancton, 2008 7).

15
Deep Federalism and Municipal Government

• official recognition that local governments can
  play an important role in ensuring the effective
  delivery of federal and provincial programshas
  been slow in coming (Leo and Andres, 2008 109).
• apparentlyno organization is better placed than
  a municipal government to identify both available
  job opportunities and community needs, secure
  funds for meeting them and then make the jobs
  available (Leo and Andres, 2008 112).