The following is an extract from the Report presented at the JIAS Canada Annual Meeting in Toronto on December 4, 2005

We have accomplished a great deal during the past year.

We have traveled to communities across Canada from Halifax, where we met with the Atlantic Jewish Council and Government officials to discuss the new Provincial Nominee Program, to Vancouver where we met with the Federation and worked closely with the Jewish Family Service Agency.  We have also met with representatives of the Federations of Hamilton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa.  

In January 2005 Mila attended a meeting of the World Jewish Russian Congress in New York.  She has maintained contact with HIAS both in New York and worldwide, meeting with the new President in Toronto just a few weeks ago at the General Assembly.  In April she attended the Annual Meeting of the AJFCA (Association of Jewish Family and Child Agencies) where she was presented with two awards.  On a personal level, she received a Distinguished Service Award.  We both recently attended the AJFCA Canada Poverty Conference and met with Government Officials while in the capital. 

Mila met twice this year with Minister Volpe, once as part of a CJC (Canadian Jewish Congress) / JIAS Canada delegation and once with other NGO’s.  She also serves on the CCR (Canadian Council for Refugees) Taskforce on Professionalization of Settlement Workers.

Over the past year we have continued our role as a “clearing house” - receiving and processing information on immigration and settlement issues, trends and policies, and then disseminating it to the service providers and other affiliates across the country.  We have also continued to manage and distribute funds to our service providers on behalf of the UIAFC. 

We have carried 125 cases during the year and answered approximately 1,000 enquiries.In addition we have continued to work on complex cases which are referred to us by our service provider partners.

Our Advocacy Taskforce, under the leadership of Board member Mira Thow, made two presentations to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in April; the first on Family Reunification and the second on Foreign Accreditation.  As a result of vigorous lobbying by all of our partners in the field, the Minister announced measures to speed up the processing of sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents coming to Canada as family class immigrants.   

We continue to publish our newsletter three times a year and were very proud to receive the Kvod Award for Excellence in Electronic Newsletters from the AJFCA in April.  We recently received an offer of help to redesign, update and make our website more user-friendly.  We are very excited and grateful to the volunteer and are looking forward to having this project completed within the next few months. 

Seventeen scholarships were awarded for the 2005/2006 academic year.  Students receiving awards ranged from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Vancouver, British Columbia, and from undergraduates to Doctoral students.  Two students were awarded John Hirsch Scholarships for the arts, one in the field of visual arts and the other in music.  The Michael and Marta Herling Scholarship was awarded to a PhD student at McMaster University who is working on a project to develop a prototype for the next generation of network-centric maritime surveillance systems for Canada.

Our thanks to the members of the Audit Committee, chaired by Fred Florence, for their insight and dedication to JIAS.  Our special thanks to the Board and Executive for their hours of hard work, enthusiasm and commitment.  We also want to thank our service delivery partners across the country for providing the highest level of service to our clients.  We would like to express our appreciation to those who will not be continuing as Board members in the coming year.  Thank you for your contributions.

We owe a special debt of gratitude to Leslie Wilder that we will never be able to repay.   As President for the past two years she has led us through the most difficult times we have ever faced – with skill, intelligence and sang froid.  We look forward to continuing to benefit from both her efforts and her wise counsel for years to come.  Yasher Koach, Leslie.

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Immigration is now recognized as an important vehicle to ensure the availability of adequate human resources and maintenance of our prosperity by all Canadian Provinces as well as the Government of Canada.  The needs of the Jewish community, while not identical, are similar.  We at JIAS believe that it is our responsibility to ensure that Jewish immigration to communities across Canada is recognized as one of the solutions to maintaining a strong, vibrant, and influential Jewish community that will continue to have the resources to fight anti-Semitism and support Israel.  We believe that JIAS Canada is well positioned to lead this process and we will do our utmost to this end.  We trust our voice will be heard. 

Shlomo Mayman                                                                Mila Voihanski
President                                                                                            Executive Director