Millions for immigrant services in B.C. went unspent

This has been a long-standing issue:

The draft report, called Lessons Learned Study: British Columbia’s Contribution to Settlement and Immigration 1998-2013, appears to explain why the federal government stripped authority to run the program from the province effective April 1, 2014, said Vancouver-based immigration lawyer Richard Kurland.

“It certainly justifies it,” said Kurland, who obtained the document through the Access to Information Act.

The report noted that B.C. officials were “less than effective” in presenting financial information, and “significant amounts were not accounted for.” It also noted that the federal government did not do an adequate job of ensuring B.C. gave a full account of how the funds were spent.

“(Citizenship and Immigration Canada) officials had ongoing concerns regarding consistent lapsed funds, accountability and access to (program) evaluation findings. C.I.C. also had questions related to B.C. serving non-eligible clients such as Canadian citizens and temporary foreign workers.”

The report said B.C. officials had indicated that the funding for non-immigrants and non-refugees came from B.C.’s contribution to immigrant settlement coffers, which generally totalled eight to 10 per cent of the entire federal-provincial settlement budget.

“While B.C. noted that ineligible clients were served with provincial funds, it was not always clear for C.I.C. officials if this was in fact the case,” the report said.

…The transfer back to federal government control has been a “huge transition” for the sector, Friesen said.

“Under the provincial government … the focus of the relationship was on the services to clients, the output. We had greater flexibility … to be able to move funds around to address gaps in services,” Friesen said.

“The funding regime is very, very different under the federal government with far more focus on the financial management than necessarily on the service side. … You could say it was the opposite under the provincial government.”

Millions for immigrant services in B.C. went unspent.