National Initiatives

National Settlement Conference 2
(Calgary - October 2-5, 2003)

Settlement Accord

Section One:
Background

Section Two:
Research Methodology

Section One: Background

The Voluntary Sector Initiative (VSI)[1] is a joint undertaking between the voluntary sector and the Government of Canada. It is an opportunity to focus on the voluntary sector as one of the three pillars of Canadian society, equal in importance to the public and private sectors.

The long-term objectives of the VSI are to strengthen the voluntary sector’s capacity to meet the challenges of the future and to enhance the relationship between the sector and the federal government so that they can serve Canadians more effectively.

The VSI Project on Strengthening the Settlement Sector is one project of this initiative. Its overall objectives are to provide a national forum for meaningful dialogue around priority policy issues, to assist in enhancing the overall capacity of the sector for policy development, and to facilitate learning within the sector. The initiative is divided into three phases. The first phase was completed with the First National Settlement Conference (NSCI) in Kingston Ontario, June 2001. The conference was a working forum designed to provide meaningful dialogue on settlement policy in Canada, to enhance overall service delivery capacity in the sector and to facilitate learning within the sector.

Four Working Groups were formed in phase two in order to continue addressing the settlement issues identified at NSCI. Working Group III was assigned the task of examining the Accord between the Government of Canada and the Voluntary Sector as it applied to the settlement sector. The task was to consider whether a supplementary Settlement Accord needed to be developed. After discussion and reflection, the Working Group decided that a separate Settlement Accord is probably not needed. However, the application of the Accord and the Codes of Good Practice to the settlement sector is a complex and challenging issue and should be the subject of sector-wide discussion.

Therefore the Working Group retained a consultant to compile a discussion document on the practical application of the principles of the Accord and Codes of Good Practice to the working relationship between the settlement sector and Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) as well as other federal government departments. This discussion document is to be circulated for additional input in advance of the National Settlement Conference II (Phase 3) and will be brought forward to the conference for further discussion. The main thrust of the discussion document is to:

• document the history of the sector and its relationship with CIC;
• highlight areas of uniqueness of the sector and their implications for the Accord and Codes;
• present useful practices found in the relationships between government and the voluntary sector relationships in British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta, Quebec, the United Kingdom, and Australia;
• examine feedback mechanisms and dispute resolution models in light of the needs of the settlement sector in Canada; and
• make recommendations for the Addendum/Implementation Document.

Appendices, containing summaries of the Accord and Codes of Good Practice, have also been added.

Section Two: Research Methodology

The Working Group intended to collect data by reviewing documents and the Internet, speaking to key informants by phone, and holding focus groups.

The comprehensiveness of the project was challenged by the limited time and resources available. As well, the project was carried out in March, well-known to be a busy time for both government and the settlement sector. Compounding these obstacles was the fact that many of the key stakeholders were attending a national Metropolis Conference and a meeting to select the papers for the NASCII, and were thus effectively unavailable to the consultant.

As a consequence, it was not possible to interview all the identified key informants. It was also possible to arrange only one teleconference focus group with three managers from CIC (two regional and one national).

Many of the key informants, both in the settlement sector and in government, had only a general idea about the content of the Accord and Codes of Good Practice and therefore could give only their impressions rather than considered opinion.

Because of the low level of awareness of the Accord and Codes of Good Practice, summaries of these documents have been included as appendices. Readers who are not familiar with them are strongly recommended to read these summaries before reading this document.

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[1] Voluntary Sector Initiative (June 2000): http://www.vsi-isbc.ca/eng/about.cfm [March 22, 2003]. Back