Hussein Hamdani blames a lost e-mail to explain CIC’s $5 million cut to SISO’s funding

Author: Denise Davy
Source: The Hamilton Spectator, October 15, 2010, p. A3

Original title: SISO blames funding cuts on lost e-mail

It was a lost e-mail that cost Hamilton’s largest immigrant and refugee settlement agency millions of dollars in federal funding, according to the agency’s board chair.

Hussein Hamdani, board chair at Settlement and Integration Services Organization, said the lost e-mail was at the root of a decision by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to pull almost $5 million from the agency’s $12-million budget.

The CIC disputes that assertion, a spokesperson said Thursday.

Hamdani said SISO provided CIC with more than 120,000 documents as part of an audit but was unable to find an e-mail from a former CIC account manager that gave them permission to use certain funds. SISO admits they made a mistake by not properly archiving the e-mail, but Hamdani said the CIC overreacted by pulling their funding.

“All this revolves around not being able to find 2 to 3 per cent of the funding,” Hamdani said. “We think, without sounding disrespectful to taxpayers’ dollars, that 2 to 3 per cent unaccounted for is not a crisis.”

A CIC spokesperson said the cuts were based on lack of financial accountability and “insufficient internal management controls” plus a potential overpayment of more than $1 million.

CIC met with SISO five times in 2010 to try to resolve their concerns. “This effort was ultimately unsuccessful,” Tasneem Yahya, spokesperson for the Ontario CIC, said in an e-mail.

When asked about a lost e-mail, Yahya said, “There is no validity to this claim.”

The funding cuts are a major blow to the 17-year-old agency that provides services to hundred of immigrants and refugees who move to Hamilton every year. The agency has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years and went from an annual budget of $3 million to $12 million.

Funding cuts will result in a loss of 70 to 80 jobs out of SISO’s 150 full-time employees. The cuts mean no new dollars for its host program, immigrant settlement and adaptation program (ISAP), youth host and youth ISAP.

Hamdani said they’re seeking private donors to keep the Globe Centre for newcomer youth open. The Main Street West centre costs around $1 million annually to run. “We believe it is critically important for these young people to go somewhere positive after school,” Hamdani said.

The Host program, which matches newcomers with volunteers, is also impacted and relies on five to six staff. SISO received almost $3 million from CIC to run the program from April 2007 to September 2010.

Yahya said there will be no reduction of settlement services in Hamilton and the services will be delivered through other agencies, including St. Joseph’s Immigrant Women’s Centre, YMCA of Burlington/Hamilton/Brantford and Centre de Santé Communautaire Hamilton-Niagara.

Yahya said once CIC determines which organizations have the capacity to expand services, they will receive the additional funding.

Ines Rios, executive director of St. Joseph’s Immigrant Women’s Centre, said they will be receiving $300,000 to expand its ISAP and will hire 13 people. “We are equipped to do it because we have the experience and have people there who are up to the challenge,” said Rios, adding the funding is temporary until March.

Jim Commerford, CEO of the YMCA, said they were asked by CIC to submit proposals to expand their newcomer youth settlement services.

ddavy@thespec.com

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