Ottawa cut Welcome Place funding after paperwork flub

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This article was published 20/08/2019 (1991 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — A federal official claims Welcome Place botched its reporting requirements for refugee-settlement work, prompting Ottawa to divert funding to another Winnipeg group.

Rita Chahal, head of Welcome Place, said she was blindsided by the claim.

“I have no idea what they’re talking about,” Chahal said Monday. “I’m not understanding the rationale.”

Last Friday, the Free Press revealed Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will let lapse next April a long-standing arrangement with Welcome Place.

Also known as the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, Welcome Place for years administered the Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP) for refugees who arrive in Canada without a sponsor group. RAP provides temporary housing, and help navigating things such as school registration, banking and dressing for the winter.

A federal official familiar with the application process said Monday that IRCC had been asking Welcome Place repeatedly to file data on how many unsponsored refugees were in temporary housing. The official claimed Welcome Place had also never sought training to meet this reporting requirement.

Yet Chahal said Welcome Place had been filing that data monthly through the IRCC platform called iCARE, and the department never raised this concern.

“We would love to have a face-to-face with them,” she said.

Ottawa uses this housing data to assess how programs are working, and the impact of newcomers on local housing markets. No one has accused Welcome Place of failing to house the newcomers it oversees.

The federal Liberals have refused to provide any straightforward answer as to why IRCC rejected Welcome Place’s funding proposal.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s office said he was not available for an interview Monday.

IRCC’s media team sent a generic response about cost-effective resettlement programs, without providing specific information. Chahal, meanwhile, received a letter in which IRCC said its decision could not be appealed and was “informed by a number of intersecting factors, rather than based solely on one element of your proposal.”

The Bannatyne Avenue group has 50 full-time employees and has operated for more than four decades. The RAP contract represents one-third of its budget, and Chahal said she’ll have to lay off staff next spring.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has approved Acceuil francophone’s proposal for the RAP contract, starting in April 2020.

A federal official said the group will administer RAP for all unsponsored refugees in Winnipeg in both official languages, at a cheaper cost than Chahal’s group.

However, Acceuil francophone’s executive assistant Wilgis Agossa said he’s still waiting for IRCC to specify what services his group will deliver, and to how many people, and that all they have is a vague email from the department.

“We don’t have any more information,” Agossa said.

NDP MP Daniel Blaikie said the Liberals ought to be more upfront about why they are changing funding for various settlement programs, like the Entry orientation classes run by Altered Minds Inc. He was “shocked” that IRCC rejected Welcome Place.

“It’s not an obviously great time to have a big shake-up strategy, and putting the screws to long-term, well-established players within Winnipeg, because we don’t know if we’re going to have the same players in government after Oct. 21,” Blaikie said, referring to the looming federal election.

“People expect some kind of explanation,” he said.

While IRCC is looking to save overhead costs for resettlement programs, it has raised federal allocations to keep up with the number of unsponsored refugees in Manitoba.

— with files from Carol Sanders

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca