And more immigrants are choosing to settle in Western Canada than previously. Whereas Ontario once attracted well over half of the immigrants to Canada, it is now just over 40% — more in line with its share of the population.

Ontario’s ability to attract immigrants can no longer be taken for granted. New immigrants can and will choose to settle elsewhere – or leave if Canada’s promise goes unfulfilled. Recently, the economic performance of newcomers has been weaker than experienced by previous generations of immigrants. All Canadians have an interest in reversing this trend.

The Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement (COIA), signed in 2005, will come up for renewal next year. Governments will soon begin to negotiate the terms of an enhanced Agreement.

The original Agreement was a good first step. Settlement services are now better funded and coordinated among the levels of government, and the settlement sector has become more professional. However, we need to do better if Ontario is to continue to attract and retain the people it needs, and if newcomers are to achieve the quality of life that they expect from their new home.

What needs to be done in the next agreement is clear.

It goes without saying that the federal government has to spend the money that it promises. In the first Agreement, the federal government promised a cumulative total of $920 Million in new investments by 2009-10 – yet, by April 1, 2009, $407 million of the $600 million designated for the first four years of COIA had been spent.

More importantly, one needs to make integration services work better with other government programs – all of which are delivered by provincial and municipal governments. Integration services cannot be delivered in silos. They will be much more effective if we take advantage of the whole range of programs in areas as diverse as sport and recreation, early childhood education, family counselling, housing, employment services, job training, community mental health, and all of the various services offered through the provincially-run education system that connect with children.

It’s a no-brainer. It means doing in Ontario what the federal government has done in Quebec, Manitoba and BC: allowing the provincial and municipal governments the power to introduce and manage more flexible programs for newcomers. Ontario needs to be treated in the same way as these other provinces; programming should be devolved to the provincial level.

In exchange, the province must commit to spending the money on services for newcomers and give the federal government appropriate credit for its spending.

Currently, the federal government uses eligibility criteria for programs, such as language training, that are too rigid. They won’t fund many newcomers and they won’t find a broad range of programs. This largely explains the federal government’s inability to spend the money it promised. The federal government is not mean-spiritedly trying to deprive newcomers of the services, but narrow federal rules make it hard for them to get the money to the people who need it.

In many other policy areas, we are moving away from centralized, rigid programs, with eligibility criteria managed centrally in Ottawa. This 20th century model produces standardized products that often fail to meet individualized circumstances. Manitoba and BC have both been able to introduce programs designed for their newcomers and integrate them with other social services. The federal government should grant Ontario the same degree of flexibility in service delivery as other provinces.

What does this mean in practice? Temporary Foreign Workers are currently ineligible for federally-funded programs – a rule that no longer makes sense because more temporary workers are being granted permanent status in Canada. Also, once an immigrant becomes a citizen, they become ineligible for all of the programs to which they once had access – deterring some from applying for citizenship.

These are classic examples of “policy incoherence” – one set of rules that is no longer consistent with another set of rules. In practice this means that many newcomers to Canada who should have access to settlement and integration services don’t.

The Government of Ontario is heavily involved in providing services to new immigrants, as are other provincial governments. At a time of diminishing fiscal resources, it only makes sense to avoid duplication.

The federal government has enough challenges just to ensure that the selection and processing of immigrants in a timely manner.

The federal government, through Citizenship and Immigration Canada, has a moral responsibility to focus on selecting immigrants to Canada, processing their applications quickly, giving fair and timely decisions on immigration and refugee issues and choosing newcomers to Canada who can play a role in nation-building.

But on-the-ground delivery of programs and services can be done best by provincial governments, as BC and Manitoba have shown. It is provinces who run the services most important to newcomers – those related to family, housing and employment – and who have relationships with local and municipal delivery agents. It is the provinces that can most quickly and nimbly adapt new programs and delivery models to serve specific needs or communities.

The reality is that the federal government isn’t on the ground delivering services. The intellectual energy of Citizenship and Immigration Canada is elsewhere, which is as it should be. They are focused on attracting the right people to Canada. They simply do not have the time or energy to figure out which group is best able to deliver which service – and in what way – to particular groups of newcomers.

Newcomers to BC and Manitoba have benefited from federal recognition of these realities. It is time the federal government did the same for newcomers to Ontario. Ironically, by devolving immigration settlement services to the provinces, the federal government can build a stronger Canada – because it will help newcomers better adjust to their new country.