MISSING
CONNECTIONS
The Newcomer Settlement Sector, the Canadian Disability
Community, and Social Exclusions
Remarks to the 14th National Metropolis Conference
Future Immigration Policies: Challenges and Opportunities
for Canada
Toronto, March 3, 2012
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Raising questions
• What do the settlement sector and disability movement look
like in contemporary Canada?
• How do these two communities compare? What are their
similarities and their differences?
• How might these sectors better connect for the aims of
community inclusion, economic opportunity and social
justice?
• What are potential implications of closer connections
between the settlement sector and the disability movement?
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Making statements
• Disablement and settlement are both processes: bundles of activities,
actions and inactions, through time and in place, which share many
issues
• Disablement is a part of the settlement experience of newcomers in
Canada
• As human and social phenomenon, both relate to several areas of public
policy and practice
• Both sectors face serious problems of policy incoherence and public
indifference
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Comparing groups
Newcomers to Canada
Persons with disabilities
Population
2 million people
(previous 10 years)
6.3% of population
4.4 million people
(2006 survey)
14.3% of population
Makeup
Diverse ethnicities, races,
nationalities
Diverse impairments:
physical, cognitive, mental
Location
Concentrated in 3 provinces Distributed across all
and urban centres (94%)
provinces/territories, rural
and urban (68%)
Age profile (2001-2006)
Less than 4% age 65 and
over
Nearly 40% aged 65 and
over
Educational levels
Higher than general
population
Tend to be lower than
general population
Health status
Tend to be in better health
than general population
Poorer health than
general population
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Living common experiences
Newcomers and Persons with disabilities in Canada
Evaluation
Refugee determinations, medical assessments
Income
Relatively lower income than all households
Housing
Lower home ownership rates than other households
Employment
Over-represented in precarious jobs, difficulties of recognition
of skills and capacities, limited accommodations at
workplaces
Education
Challenges of inclusion in public school system
Poverty
Over-represented in conditions of persistent poverty
Ambivalent images
• Economic burden/hard workers
• Add to rich tapestry/national security risks
• Sick or tragic figures/inspiring role models
Social risks
Isolation, marginalization, prejudicial attitudes, discriminating
actions of “mainstream society”
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As fields of public policy
Immigrant/Settlement
Disability
Official discourses
Help newcomers adapt to
Canada; to participate in all
segments of society; to
embrace diversity; to combat
discrimination and racism;
groups at risk
Promote the inclusion and
full participation in Canadian
life; to address
discrimination; vulnerable
groups
Core program areas
Immigration and refugee,
settlement services, human
rights, translation and
interpretation, language
training, legal assistance,
employment services, social
services, housing
Personal supports, technical
aids and equipment, social
assistance and other
income supports, tax
credits, employment
assistance, social housing,
special education
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As fields of public policy
Immigrant/Settlement
Disability
Clientele emphasis
Permanent residents and
Convention refugees
Persons with permanent
and severe impairments
Time focus
First-stage settlement
(short-term)
Various age groups with
problems of transition
Lead federal organization
Citizenship & Immigration
Human Resources and
Skills Development
Federal spending trends
Relatively static over last
decade
Selective and modest new
expenditures
Intergovernmental
relations
Shared jurisdiction
Devolution of federal role
to certain provinces
Shared and separate
jurisdictions
Devolution of labour
programs to all provinces
Primary service delivery
systems
Immigrant/newcomer
serving agencies
Community-based nonprofits/service clubs
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Both sectors straining under stress
• Contain a mix of single and multi-service agencies; ethno- or
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impairment-specific, and multi-ethnic and cross-disability agencies
Focus largely on service provision; some attention to community work
and capacity building
Receive funding mainly as annual contracts for particular projects;
little, if any, for infrastructure or multi-year support
Constrained by accountability rules and reporting requirements
Restricted ability of most agencies to engage in advocacy on behalf of
clients, individually or systemically
A few organizations active in advocacy work: Ontario Council of
Agencies Serving Immigrants, Canadian Council for Refugees,
Canadian Association for Community Living, Council of Canadians with
Disabilities
Reliance by many agencies on family members, friends and volunteers
to provide specific services
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System Cracks or Structural Chasms?
• Cracks: partial fractures or breaks in systems; small breakages in
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services; narrow gaps or holes
Metaphorically, minimizes the extent of problems
“Falling through the cracks” individualizes the phenomenon
Empirically, suggests a system of services and supports does exist
which, more or less, has reliability
Chasms: deep gaps; wide fractures and profound differences;
significant empty spaces
Points to growing social exclusion and persistent economic
marginalization of newcomers; and to continuing isolation and
systemic segregation of many Canadians with disabilities
Both sectors have astonishing fractures and absences in political
leadership, investments, and public policy
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Policy Chasms: examples
• “At any given time, tens of thousands of immigrants,
refugees, and other newcomers to Canada live without
provincial health coverage.” Sarah Wayland (2006)
• “Most employment training is administered by Service
Canada, but eligibility hinges on having a Canadian
employment history, thereby disqualifying newcomers.” The
same barrier applies to thousands of people with disabilities
across the country
• Immigrant Serving agencies often are not allowed, under
government contracts to provide actual work experience
programs
• Employment options for disabled extremely limited and
frequently in segregated settings
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Making connections
• Community organizations
• Ethno-racial, newcomer/settlement, and disability services and rights
• Social theories
• Cultural perspectives
• Materialism (historical, feminist)
• Social construction
• Societal divisions
• Intersecting barriers, identities, and experiences
• Simultaneous discrimination and multiple oppressions
• New social movements
• Objectives of redistribution, recognition, and representation
• Coalitions of interests
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Exercising democratic practices
• Inserting settlement and disablement issues into current political and
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policy debates
Questioning dominant social images and public understandings of these
groups
Emphasizing the significance of disability and immigration in the
Canadian social order
Fostering shared understandings between communities
Widening the definitional scope of “disability issues” and “settlement
issues”
Building structural links with other equality-seeking groups and social
movements
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Recapping observations
• Newcomers to Canada and people with disabilities represent embodied
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diversities of the population as well as entrenched inequalities
Both communities confront a varied and contradictory matrix of images
and stereotypes
Both groups are somewhat changeable in composition
Both are subject to assorted forms of assessment, surveillance,
diagnostics, and categorization
Both sectors are mixed and complex organizational spaces that are
under tremendous pressure
Making connections in theoretical, research, and political ways opens up
many possibilities for change
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Noting some references
• Haynes, Roy (2011) None is Still Too Many: An Historical Exploration of
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Canadian Immigration Legislation as it Pertains to People with
Disabilities. Winnipeg: Council of Canadians with Disabilities.
http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/socialpolicy/access-inclusion/none-still-toomany
Prince, Michael J. (2009) Absent Citizens: Disability Politics and Policy in
Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Rice, James J., and Michael J. Prince (2012) Changing Politics of
Canadian Social Policy, Second Edition, Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.
Richmond, Ted, and John Shields (2005) “NGO-Government Relations
and Immigrant Services: Contradictions and Challenges,” Journal of
International Migration and Integration, 6 (3/4): 513-526.
Vernon, Ayesha (1999) “The Dialectics of Multiple Identities and the
Disabled People’s Movement,” Disability & Society, 14 (3): 385-398.
Wayland, Sarah V. (2006) Unsettled: Legal and Policy Barriers for
Newcomers to Canada, Law Commission of Canada. http://www.cfcfcc.ca/doc/LegalPolicyBarriers.pdf
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Thank you
Michael J. Prince
Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy
Faculty of Human and Social Development
University of Victoria
mprince@uvic.ca
Disabling Poverty and Enabling Citizenship
Community-University Research Alliance (CURA)
http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/socialpolicy/poverty-citizenship