Services that help immigrants learn English, find work and adapt to their new country are getting a $10-million federal boost over the next three years.

The money will help provide more language training at the Halifax Immigrant Learning Centre, where one of the programs helps immigrants who can’t read or write even in their own language, executive director Gerry Mills said.

“That’s a real challenge,” she said Friday. “People, often women, of course, they haven’t had the opportunity to go to school in their home country, but what they’ve been able to do is develop other skills that compensate for that.”

The learning centre will receive almost $1.6 million in new money. The Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association will receive almost $3.2 million, the YMCA gets $2.9 million, the Halifax regional school board gets $2.6 million and the Federation acadienne de la Nouvelle-Ecosse receives $34,000.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay, Nova Scotia’s lone cabinet minister, announced the money in Halifax on behalf of Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley.

Mr. MacKay said the more than $10.3 million will benefit an estimated 3,000 immigrants.

“This is very much about furthering all efforts to make new immigrants coming to our shores feel that they are very much welcome and very much a part of our society,” Mr. MacKay said.

The federal government had announced last year more than $121 million over three years for settlement services for provinces other than Ontario and Quebec, which get money under separate agreements.

Claudette Legault, executive director of the immigrant settlement association, said the multi-year commitment is a big help.

“It’s quite exciting,” she said. “It’s a very positive sign because it also corresponds with the provincial government being more interested in investing, so all of those things are kind of coming together.”

Leonard Preyra, the provincial NDP’s immigration critic, was at the news conference and said language training is important, but he’d also like to see Ottawa make it easier for skilled workers to have their credentials recognized in Canada.

Article by David Jackson, Provincial Reporter for The Chronicle Herald.
Link: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/1064727.html