:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I also want to thank the committee for its interest in these issues.
The issues of undocumented foreign workers and temporary foreign workers are complex and involve a number of stakeholders across the government of Canada, provincial and territorial governments, municipalities, employers and labour.
Within the Government of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, or CIC, works closely with both the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, and Human Resources and Social Development Canada, or HRSDC, on these key issues.
I am pleased that colleagues from those two departments are here with us today to respond to your questions.
[English]
CIC has the broad responsibility for developing the policies and programs related to the selection of permanent and temporary residents in Canada.
Together with HRSDC, CIC manages the temporary foreign worker program. HRSDC manages from the perspective of labour market impacts and the assessment of employer requests for temporary foreign workers; CIC assesses individual workers against the jobs offered by Canadian employers to ensure that they have the necessary skills and qualifications to perform the work and that they do not pose a criminal threat to Canada or to the health and security of Canadians.
The CBSA has the mandate for all immigration enforcement activities, including removals. Undocumented workers or those here working without legal status are a concern to all departments, given the need to manage access to Canadian territory and the labour market.
Today I would like to provide an overview and ask my colleagues to do the same from the perspectives of their departments.
First I would like to address the issue of undocumented workers.
I think it is very important to underline that most information we have about the undocumented population is not based on hard data. While a number of stakeholders have expressed views on this issue, there is no way of validating their estimates of the size of this population. What we do know is that many undocumented workers have been in Canada for some time--in some cases for many years--while many thousands of individuals are waiting to have their applications to enter Canada processed through normal legal channels.
There is no mechanism under the legislation, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, for someone who is illegally in Canada to become a permanent resident legally unless there are exceptional circumstances that warrant an application for permanent residence under humanitarian and compassionate consideration. Normally an undocumented worker needs to leave Canada and apply for legal admission through an overseas mission, with proper authorization, and subject to medical, criminal, and security checks.
I would now like to turn to temporary foreign workers. In 2006 approximately 112,000 temporary foreign workers came to Canada. While final data are not yet available, to the end of the second quarter of 2007 we saw an increase of approximately 25% over the same period in 2006.
In partnership with Human Resources and Social Development Canada, we are enhancing the temporary foreign worker program to make it even more responsive to the needs of Canadian employers. Following a series of administrative measures announced since November 2006--including improved employer outreach, streamlined processes, and increased federal-provincial-territorial collaboration--Budget 2007 provided new funding for CIC and HRSDC to deal with increasing volumes more efficiently and to fill gaps in the current programming, including the need for enhanced employer monitoring and compliance.
We are acutely aware of the need to improve the program to ensure employers are meeting their commitments to workers and that workers have the tools to raise their awareness of their rights and responsibilities.
At the same time, provinces and territories, which are largely responsible for monitoring employment standards and occupational health and safety, are actively engaging on this file. Under the Canada-Ontario immigration agreement, we have been negotiating an annex with the province to allow it to take a stronger role in identifying the temporary foreign workers it requires. The recently signed Canada-Alberta and Canada-Nova Scotia agreements also contain provisions to negotiate an annex on temporary foreign workers in the coming months, including recognition of the need to protect the interests of these workers.
To better support labour market needs, the government announced in Budget 2007 that it would permit, and indeed facilitate, the process of allowing skilled temporary foreign workers, including the skilled tradespeople who are already in Canada as legal temporary foreign workers, to apply for permanent residence without leaving the country. It is the government's intention to apply the same provision to foreign students who have earned Canadian credentials and work experience. We expect that by the time the program is up and running at full capacity, likely within five years, eventually some 25,000 people will be granted permanent residence status in Canada each year through this new mechanism.
In addition, the government has facilitated the entry of temporary foreign workers through various initiatives, such as the construction recruitment external workers services program, or CREWS, which helps to bring skilled construction trades into the Toronto area, and the memorandum of understanding for the entry of temporary foreign workers for projects in the Alberta oil sands, which facilitates the entry of the skilled workers required in that specialized sector.
These measures will help to ensure that our immigration system continues to play its traditional important role in growing Canada's economy. Taken together, these additional pathways, along with improvements to the temporary foreign worker program, should not only improve labour market responsiveness but also encourage the legal movement of workers to Canada.
I would now ask my colleagues from the CBSA and HRSDC to provide you with their perspectives on these issues.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to appear before you today and to provide you with information on immigration enforcement, in particular how it relates to undocumented workers.
The Canada Border Services Agency is responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Clearly an effective immigration program requires controls. The CBSA's enforcement approach has several layers. As the first layer, migration integrity officers abroad screen documents and persons before they board flights to Canada. Next, border services officers at ports of entry screen those who arrive in Canada. Finally, for those who are already in Canada, inland enforcement officers identify, arrest, detain, and remove those who are inadmissible, including those who work illegally.
Once someone has been found to be inadmissible, they are entitled to various levels of appeal. In addition, those under removal order may apply for a pre-removal risk assessment to ensure that there is no risk to return to their country. Once all avenues of appeal have been exhausted, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is clear: a person under removal order must be removed as soon as reasonably practicable.
Controls such as removals ensure that Canada's best interests are taken into consideration in terms of safety and security, the economy, and our humanitarian and family reunification goals. A removals program supports continued compliance and is a deterrent for those who may choose to ignore our laws.
The CBSA prioritizes its removals. The first priority is those who pose a threat to our national security, who are involved in organized crime or crimes against humanity. The next priority is lesser criminality, followed by failed refugee claimants and all inadmissible persons, such as those who work without permission to do so.
The CBSA follows the priority system as closely as it can, but there may be times when a lower priority removal may be processed. For example, when work on higher priority cases has gone as far as it can, officers must move down the priority line. As well, removal priorities can shift, depending on when travel documents or the pre-removal risk assessment decision become available.
Enforcement activity, including removals, is not based on religion, race, nationality, ethnic origin, or gender. The country of nationality or the religion of persons being investigated by CBSA are not considered when deciding to pursue a case. Canada's removal policies are universally applied and do not target such specific groups as illegal workers.
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, the ability to remove inadmissible people is vital to the safety and security of Canada. Any deviation from this practice will act as a draw factor for illegal migration to Canada and will jeopardize the integrity of the immigration program.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
[Translation]
I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to speak to you on the issue you are studying, that is, undocumented workers and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
My name is Andrew Kenyon and I am the Director General of the Temporary Foreign Workers Directorate in the Skills and Employment Branch of Human Resources and Social Development Canada.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, today I will be speaking to HRSDC's role in the temporary foreign worker program, which we co-deliver with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. I'll explain briefly how the program functions within the Canadian labour market and how HRSDC manages its portion of the program in order to balance employer needs with those of Canadian and foreign workers. I'll also speak to what generally foreign workers do here, to certain challenges we face in operating our portion of the program, and to some new initiatives that we're undertaking to address those challenges from the HRSDC perspective.
HRSDC's role in the temporary foreign worker program is to assess temporary job offers by Canadian employers to foreign workers against a set of criteria and to evaluate the potential labour market impact of those job offers. The HRSDC assessment is called a labour market opinion, and it's provided to the employer and to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The labour market opinion is “positive”--meaning there's no adverse impact on the labour market--“neutral”, or “negative”.
The labour market opinion, or LMO, is developed based on the analysis of factors found in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act regulations. For example, did the employer conduct reasonable efforts to hire or train Canadians for the job? Is the foreign worker filling a labour shortage? Are wages and working conditions comparable to those offered to Canadians working in the same occupation? And will the hiring of the foreign worker affect a labour dispute or the employment of any Canadian worker involved in a labour dispute?
[Translation]
The department issues labour market opinions to cover periods as short as two days or as long as three years for high-skilled workers. For low-skilled workers, for example, long-haul truck drivers, meat packers and general labourers in construction, changes were announced in February 2007 allowing the extension of the labour market opinion period from 12 up to 24 months, with wages being reviewed after 12 months.
Labour market opinions are required for approximately 50% of the work permits issued by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The main exceptions are workers who come in under international agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and intra-company transfers.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, to avoid potential misperceptions about the temporary foreign worker program, it's important to note two things. First, the program is driven by employer requests and there are no numerical limits or quotas. Second, HRSDC processed LMOs for over 163,000 workers in 2006. Despite this, temporary foreign workers represent less than 1% of the Canadian labour force.
To give you an idea of who the temporary foreign workers are in Canada today, the United States is Canada's top source country for temporary foreign workers, followed by Mexico, France, the United Kingdom, and Australia. About 45% of foreign workers entering Canada are in the managerial, professional, entertainment, and technical trade occupations. About 55% are in the lower-skilled occupations, and nearly half of these workers are seasonal agricultural workers who meet the temporary needs of Canadian agricultural producers during peak harvesting and planting periods, when normally there are shortages of Canadians.
I'll move on now to the challenges we face and some of the solutions we're initiating.
One of the biggest challenges we face is the steadily growing demand for labour market opinions in certain regions and sectors. This, combined with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requirements for case-by-case assessments, has resulted in backlogs and increased processing times, notably in Alberta and B.C.
Program changes have been announced to address the situation, including the creation of lists of regional occupations under pressure for B.C., Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec, and others as they are developed; ensuring employers will have shorter and simpler advertising requirements prior to hiring temporary foreign workers where shortages are clear and ongoing; the creation of online labour market opinion applications; concurrent processing of labour market opinions by HRSDC and work permits by Citizenship and Immigration; the creation of federal-provincial working groups in Ontario, B.C., Alberta, and Manitoba; and most recently, the expedited labour market opinion process, allowing eligible employers to receive labour market opinions in specified occupations in B.C. and Alberta much more quickly than under the regular LMO process.
In January of this year Minister Solberg announced the expansion of the E-LMO pilot project from the original 12 occupations to 33 occupations, representing 50% of the total volume of labour market opinion applications from employers in B.C. and Alberta.
[Translation]
These changes are taking effect and we expect to see the benefits, particularly with the addition of funding from Budget 2007. However, with the total number of TFW requests up 100% between 2000 and 2006, and with a 200% increase in Alberta and a 40% increase in BC in the first six months of 2007 as compared with the same period in 2006, the pressure is likely to continue to grow.
[English]
An additional challenge we face is to ensure a balance between the facilitative elements of the program and adequate worker protection. As I noted earlier, temporary foreign workers have the same protections as Canadian workers under federal and provincial laws. Provinces and territories have the primary responsibility for establishing and enforcing employment standards and occupational health and safety, such as wages and working conditions.
Nevertheless, we're working with Citizenship and Immigration Canada to improve information for foreign workers regarding their rights and recourse mechanisms. We are producing and releasing a pamphlet to foreign workers in a number of languages to advise them of their rights and the recourse mechanisms available to them.
As well, HRSDC is implementing improved information to employers about their responsibilities and the requirements of the program. We're also developing information-sharing agreements with the provinces to allow us to identify and share information where there have been violations of labour standards.
We still have a lot of work to do. What we're hearing is that we are moving in the right direction.
I'll conclude on that note.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
:
Mr. Chair, neither CIC nor stakeholders are really able to determine the exact number of persons who are in Canada illegally, including undocumented workers.
There is no hard data, as I said in my opening remarks, to accurately support an estimate of undocumented workers or illegal persons. Estimates range from 80,000 to 500,000, depending on the source, and while media and the stakeholders often cite very high numbers, these are not based, as I said, on supportable evidence.
What the department has done relates back to 2005, when we compiled our own estimate of undocumented workers, which we calculated to be between 80,000 and 120,000. This was an estimate arrived at after consulting with industry associations, labour groups, and regional CIC offices across the country.
Really, for us to have an accurate estimate of this population, Canada would need to have exit controls so we could track the entry and exit of people and therefore understand how many people have overstayed.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Actually, that's a good point to start off with. When we did touring on this, our estimates were from 200,000 to 500,000.
You mentioned some figures here that say we're taking in 165,000 folks, 45% of whom are high-skilled and 55% of whom are low-skilled.
I really want the committee members to understand this. The low-skilled folks are the ones who were eliminated as possible immigrants to Canada at the time the point system was changed. Just so the committee members know, the committee was overwhelmingly against the way the point system was changed. It was the classic case of a minister who knew little being convinced by the officials that it was the way to go.
If you start looking at the low-skilled workers and the way you categorize them--not the professionals--you're talking about 90,000 people. The new point system has been in operation now for a long period of time. So if you multiply 90,000 people by five years, you have 450,000 people.
The problem is that the system is not very functional, and that's why there's such a huge shortage. It doesn't matter where you go in this country. From the Maritimes, where fish plants are threatening to close down, to the west coast, to up north, we're in a real mess. And it comes back to the point system. Skilled trades have a hard time coming in. Labourers have a hard time coming in. So having the point system and the way it was changed has created a real problem.
There is talk about protecting Canada and what have you and protecting security in the country. Can you tell me how many people we are trying to deport right now because of criminality, Mr. MacDougall?
:
I guess that question would probably be for my colleague. But if I may, Mr. Chair, I would just respond to the criminal element briefly.
I'd just like to say that when you look at how we remove people.... We have a priority list, as I mentioned, which starts off with the serious criminals and works its way down to failed refugee claimants and then others in an inadmissible class that would include illegal workers. So that's our priority system. When we look at the history of what happened last year, we look at a total of, as I mentioned, about 8% in the global inventory, if you like, of those people to be removed who have a criminal history.
Last year, of the 12,636 people removed, 15% were with criminal backgrounds. I think what that demonstrates is that certainly the priorities of removing criminals are being respected in our regional offices. They did remove a larger percentage than exists in the overall global inventory, and of course then they worked their way down to the others.
So I just wanted to provide you with those numbers, but I'll pass on the second part of your question.
:
Mr. Chair, just to clarify, in 2006, while HRSDC processed 165,000 labour market opinions, in fact, only 112,000 temporary foreign workers came into Canada, and of that number, approximately half were high-skilled and half were low-skilled.
With regard to the selection criteria and avenues for low-skilled individuals to come into Canada, there are a number of avenues that are open to them. The first would be provincial nominee programs, where we have extensive documentation of strong provincial history, particularly in Manitoba and Atlantic Canada, with the nomination of low-skilled workers, as well as the arranged employment scheme, which provides bonus points to individuals who have secured a permanent job offer validated by colleagues at Human Resources and Social Development.
At the same time, Budget 2007, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, has announced the government's intention to create a new mechanism to allow temporary foreign workers, including the skilled trades and other individuals in technical occupations, to transition to permanent residents.
With regard to the question related to the previous government's activities on this file, work was indeed carried out in the past on possible initiatives to regularize the status of undocumented workers. In 2005, a draft memorandum of understanding with the undocumented workers coalition was developed at the working level. However, it was never signed and it was not endorsed by the previous government.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here today in this rather subdued meeting room. I have a few questions for either Mr. Kenyon or Mr. Linklater, for the person who feels more qualified to respond. These questions pertain to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. I merely want to understand the mechanics of this program.
You mentioned that when a request is made, a labour market opinion is required. The request comes from an employer who is experiencing a labour shortage and wants to hire foreign workers. If I understand correctly, it is the employer who requests permission to hire foreign workers.
Is that how things work? Fine.
So, taking into account the criteria that you listed, you will either grant, or deny, this employer the right to hire foreign workers. Is that correct? So far so good.
Of the four criteria mentioned in your presentation, there is one that appears very important and obvious to me:
Are wages and working conditions comparable to those offered to Canadians working in the same occupation?
I would image that the aim here is to avoid a situation where companies hire cheap foreign labour.
Practically speaking, how do you ensure that this criterion is being satisfied?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In five years, if we look at 150,000 temporary foreign workers coming to Canada each year, to use this year's figure, we're looking at 750,000 or three quarters of a million workers. Your document said that about 25,000 of them will get landed immigrant status—that's about 3.3% who would get to stay—and you're looking at something like 725,000 who will not be able to stay, which means they are not likely going to be able to get landed immigrant status.
These workers, it seems to me, have absolutely no power. I've heard cases of abuse, exploitation of these workers, and overcrowding of accommodations. They put their money into employment insurance, but they can't get any of it because they have to leave. Some provinces don't have health insurance until they've been here for more than three months. Their family members most likely are not able to join them and never really would have a chance to join them.
We are setting up a system that, in my mind, at the end of the day, is going to be driving down Canadian wages. These workers basically have very little in the way of rights. The minute they complain.... Their permit is really for that job, for that employer; the visa is not really for the employment period of, say, two years. That has been one of the recommendations previously, and I notice that it hasn't been quite implemented yet.
Also, we know there are recruiters overseas, and some of them are pretty unscrupulous. They ask for $5,000, $10,000, and they promise the sky. There's no training. They come in, they don't know the safety measures, and they don't know the labour laws.
What has the department done, whether it's from CBSA or the CIC, to make sure the recruiters overseas, those who are operating in not a very legal manner, are punished?
I notice that none has gone to jail. I can't see that many have been charged. Who really is in charge—is it CIC, or is it CBSA, or is it the RCMP—to make sure that at a bare minimum these workers coming in would not have these recruiters just exploiting them?
:
Mr. Chair, these are issues of great concern, not only to the departments here today but also to our provincial colleagues. In fact, as Mr. Kenyon has mentioned, information-sharing agreements with the provinces are being developed to help us share information around infractions not only of federal statutes but also of provincial statutes.
For example, the four western provinces all have legislation on the books that makes it illegal for recruitment agencies to charge a fee to the prospective employee. Although they may charge the employer for their services, it is illegal under provincial statute for them to charge the employee.
When an employee comes forward with that type of information, either to HRSDC or to CIC or CBSA, we direct them to the appropriate provincial officials. We do, I think as Mr. Kenyon pointed out, recognize that the systematic follow-up is something we need to work on through future regulatory initiatives.
The key to that is being able to share information with the provinces more freely and between the three federal departments that are involved to make sure we're bringing all of our tools to the table to look at the activities of recruiters.
:
I think some of the key aspects of the work that's ongoing will be very helpful in bringing additional clarity to processes for the applicants and for those who are using the program.
For example, with temporary foreign workers, since 2006 we've been taking administrative measures to simplify the process for employers to make it easier for it to be understood by employees and employers alike. There is a new online temporary foreign worker guide that helps walk people through the process so that all the information from the three federal departments is now in one place to help employers use the program better.
We're looking at simplified processing. The expedited labour market opinion process is helping employers. At the beginning of this session I distributed some of the information that we are now going to be providing to temporary foreign workers, a pamphlet that advises them of their rights and responsibilities and provides them with current information about relevant provincial labour offices where they can address any complaints they have about wages and working conditions. That pamphlet is now available in English, French, and Spanish and will soon be available also in Mandarin, Hindi, and Tagalog, and we will be providing it with our documentation to foreign workers.
At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, we've been working with Ontario on an annex to the temporary foreign worker agreement. That will help bring to the table all the tools the province has around labour standards and the sanctions the province can take and the information that can be shared between the province and the three departments here to be able to take action against employers.
We're also looking at regulatory changes to make the regulations less directive, to say, for example, if there is adverse information about a past infraction on the part of an employer, either with regard to a provincial statute or a federal statute, we would look at that as part of our assessment and perhaps refuse service to that employer if the infraction was of such seriousness that service withdrawal was warranted.
So there are a myriad of things that we are doing. It is complex because there are federal-provincial dynamics; there are labour standards and wages and working conditions; there are employers. We also have a regular dialogue with organized labour around the program and how we can move forward better.
So as a result of a number of consultations and other policy work that has been ongoing, we have been trying to bring all these pieces together to tie them up in a more concise package that ministers can bring forward.
First of all, the employer approaches HRSDC or Service Canada in the regions in each province making a request for a labour market opinion. For instance, they need a certain number of employees in a particular occupation. They identify the advertising they've undertaken, the wage they're proposing to pay, and we do an assessment of that application. That's the quickest explanation of what it is. We produce an opinion that describes the impact that we expect the bringing in of those workers will have on the Canadian labour market. That is what we provide to the employer. If it's a positive or neutral opinion, the employer then takes the next step and goes to CIC with the names of the employees they would like to bring in. It is the employees' responsibility to deal with CIC. I'll let Mr. Linklater speak to that. We deal only with the employers and we deal only with their specific applications.
You mentioned how we collaborate with the provinces. Of course, we do work very closely with the provinces. Generally, though, it is HRSDC, Service Canada's responsibility to take a decision on a labour market opinion. The exception is with Quebec, where we have a memorandum of understanding, a long-standing agreement by which Quebec actually has the final word on whether or not they concur with the labour market opinion that we produced.
:
The discrepancy in the numbers can partly be attributed to refusals, but I think a number of employers look at a number of options to meet their HR needs, and temporary foreign workers would be part of that strategy. In effect, sometimes an improved labour market opinion may not actually manifest itself in an application with CIC for a worker, but of course there are refusals, as you have mentioned.
When it comes to the way the program works, HRSDC does deal with the employer. Their role is to establish whether or not there is a legitimate job from a legitimate employer with a need that cannot be met domestically.
When it comes to the actual issuance of the work permit, it is CIC's responsibility to determine whether or not the applicant that the employer has identified has the ability to do the job that's been offered; that they have the acceptable experience, as outlined in the labour market opinion; and if, finally, they are someone who, in the opinion of the visa officer, is going to return to their home country or leave Canada once their work permit has expired. Those are, grosso modo, the assessment factors that our officers take into account.
You mentioned low-skilled. I think there are some instances where perhaps people may not have established to the satisfaction of a visa officer that in fact their ties to their home country would be sufficient to have them return to their home country after their work period.
:
The other one is this. Please provide the information. You said you don't have it right now, but I think it's a legitimate question.
Immigration should have an idea how many Canadian citizens there are living abroad. Every time you deport undocumented workers, there are children going along who are Canadian citizens. Surely to God, having dealt with lost Canadians all this time, we're trying to get a handle on how many Canadian citizens we have abroad, and that includes how many kids.
Mr. Linklater, you should be able to get those figures, so we are looking for those figures.
The other issue is the power relationship. You admit a worker into Canada to work for one employer. It's a terrible power relationship. The worker is totally powerless. I think it would be much better if you were to admit someone to work in a sector, so that they can go to another employer.
We saw that with the live-in caregiver program. Somebody comes in, is totally victimized by their employer, and then, if they want to respond to it, they are booted out. That's not fair, so we really want to deal with the issue.
We have temporary foreign workers, particularly in the agricultural sector, who come back here decade after decade after decade—some of them up to four decades. It reminds me of the old days when we brought the Chinese in to build the railway and then put in place the Chinese Exclusion Act. There is something wrong with that.
If we're going to have people the economy needs, it would be preferable to have them be Canadian citizens, rather than have them be here, be put out, and be brought back for that many decades. I would really love to have some discussion of that.
Mr. Linklater, you mentioned that this is a very complex issue. It really doesn't have to be that complex. If you look at the fact that we have undocumented workers, for the most part it was because of the failure of the point system we have in place, which we have finally recognized, and we see the programs that are being put in place because that has been recognized.
If you look at undocumented workers who have been contributing to building this country from the perspective that they are persons who had a chance to be in the country helping the economy, let's look at them as an immigrant on probation. Did they do well or did they not do well? Did they establish ties in the community or did they not? Did they break the laws or did they comply with the laws?
Mr. Chair, if somebody comes in as a regular immigrant, once they are in it's very hard to get rid of them. Let's look at these people as having been here and having helped the economy. Let's see how they did. If they did well and fulfilled the probation, then we have a way for them to stay. So I'm looking for those issues.
The last issue is to take away with you the questionnaire from our researchers. We would like to have answers for all the questions that weren't answered. There are 18 questions, but many of them were answered. This would be a good homework project for you, and it would be beneficial to our committee.
This is a critical issue we are dealing with. Immigration has been the lifeblood, is the lifeblood, and it's going to continue to be the lifeblood.... Our productivity is suffering because we do not have enough people working in jobs that need them. We have too many jobs and not enough workers.
:
Thank you, Mrs. Grewal.
I'll just dive right in here. I agree with Mr. Telegdi that a robust immigration strategy is essential for this country. We are facing a labour shortage like nothing we've seen before, and it creates some great challenges.
I just want to ask you a few questions about a case that presented itself in my office, in my constituency. Granted, this was pre-9/11, so the world has changed an awful lot since then. My understanding is that this was fairly common pre-9/11. This individual came to Toronto from Iran, from a flight from Tehran. In any event, he came to Canada on a fraudulent passport, using someone else's passport. The customs officials recognized right off the bat that this gentleman was not the gentleman he said he was on the passport.
I realize you'd have to know the specifics of the case. But in general, why would that individual, or individuals like that, not immediately be put on the next plane back to Tehran and just dispatched out of the country? This individual was allowed to stay in Canada. My memory is failing me. I'm not sure if he applied as a refugee, but he didn't originally come in applying for refugee status. He came in on a falsified passport and was allowed to stay in Canada and was granted a temporary work permit. He fell in love with a girl in Canada and she then had his baby, and the story goes on and on. Now my office has the nightmare of this individual really wanting to come to Canada because this woman has his baby, and the story is, understandably, “No, you tried to get in the first time using a fraudulent passport”.
So that's my question to wrap up the time. An individual like that gets off a plane...and maybe you could comment on how it was handled then and if it would be handled differently now. In the same scenario right now, if that happened, would the person be put on the next plane back to Tehran or wherever they came from if they used a fraudulent passport?
Thank you.
Thank you for being here. I have three quick questions, but they may be long in answers. But don't take too long because I want to share my time with my colleague here.
You talked about the increase in temporary foreign workers, 100% between 2000 and 2006, and that Alberta will have a 200% increase. What mechanisms are there in place to track these temporary foreign workers?
Then I have another question, which boggles my mind. There are planeloads of Mexicans or foreign workers being brought into the oil sands and they don't meet any category of temporary foreign worker. They are brought in, they work, and they're brought out. They seem to bypass any immigration system or a border security system. What checks and balances do you have? The look on your face is saying, “My God, what is happening!” But that's what we have been instructed.
When you talk about border security, when you talk about three agencies working together, I want to ensure that there is security in the system. I want to ensure that there is no person coming in to create problems for me. But these things are happening. What sanctions do we have against businesses? I think the question that was asked by my colleague here was, “Do you have the resources necessary to monitor those things?”
The last question is on undocumented workers. They come from different areas, be they failed refugee claimants or trafficked persons, and I'm very cognizant as the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women that trafficked persons are very vulnerable. How do you track them? How do you find them? Do you wish to regulate the industry, and if you do, what are some of the benchmarks and best practices that you have observed? The U.S. had amnesty and Spain had amnesty, and I watched a program on Italy. I just want to throw this in the loop.
:
Certainly with regard to the seasonal agricultural workers program, given the institutional history and the involvement of partner governments, notably Mexico and Commonwealth Caribbean governments, they've developed the expertise to be able to provide that additional support to their workers before they come to Canada, so they can counsel them on what to expect here.
With regard to other employers and other temporary foreign workers, some of the efforts we've undertaken collectively would include the online manual for employers wanting to hire temporary foreign workers and the establishment of temporary foreign worker units across the country to take a more hands-on approach with employers in the regions, together with provincial governments, looking at how we can do joint promotion with provincial governments.
This happens quite regularly in Alberta and British Columbia, and it's a model that we'd like to replicate more across the country, where federal and provincial representatives are going out to the employer community to educate them about their rights and obligations under the program, to advise them of the requirements of provincial statutes such as those related to the use of recruiters, and certainly to help them understand the immigration process from A to Z, starting with the labour market opinion process, the work permit process, and arrival at a port of entry with CBSA.
:
Under the experience class right now—our committee has not had the opportunity to discuss this—these would be the temporary foreign workers who would be able to apply for landed immigrant status in Canada, so they can then be able to become landed immigrants. You projected 25,000 in five years, but mostly you have to speak fluent English or French, with certain skills, etc., which means I can see that the folks who have the degrees would be able to stay in Canada, but the folks who don't, the manual labourers, won't.
Given that at least half the workers in the temporary foreign workers program are the low-skilled workers, the category C and D rather than the A and B, why wouldn't you structure your experience class in a way that at least you give those who are not highly skilled, with degrees, with fluent English or French, a chance that they could actually stay in Canada or apply in Canada? That's the first question.
Also, why 25,000? Why 3.3%? Why can't 5% or 10% or 15% of the 150,000 actually stay in Canada? The 25,000 seems to me fairly arbitrary. Is that to meet the target, that is, the 260,000 number?
:
Mr. Chair, when we look at the program parameters—and they are still very much under development for the Canadian experience class—our thinking is that those temporary foreign workers in the skilled trades, the technical occupations...that is a very significant gap the labour market is missing out on now. We would like to ensure that those individuals have the opportunity to apply to remain permanently in Canada, after having worked for a specific period of time. We know that only about 8% of the skilled workers coming in through the overseas grid are in the skilled trades, and those are the key occupations that the economy needs now.
With regard to low-skilled workers, a fair proportion of the low-skilled workers are eligible, through the LCP program, to apply for permanent residence. There's another significant group, the seasonal agricultural workers, who come for about eight months every year, who are part of that low-skilled group, who would not be eligible to remain permanently at this time. The remainder of those low-skilled individuals are very much coming in at the request of specific employers in specific sectors in specific regions.
I use the example of long-haul truck drivers, which is an occupation that most provinces are experiencing a shortage of, and many of whom are using their provincial nominee programs to allow those people to remain in Canada as permanent residents. So there is an avenue there, as well as the arranged employment scheme, which would allow individual employers to nominate individuals to meet their particular labour market needs.
With regard to our forecasts as to who would be applying under such a new class, we have looked at the historical data of those temporary foreign workers and international students who are in Canada and who have been in Canada for two years. If we implement this category in 2008, that means people who have been here for at least one year, if not two, would be eligible to apply. So it's a retrospective assessment of the number of workers here at the higher skill levels.
We have purposefully taken Americans out of that group because we have found, historically, that temporary foreign workers from the United States do not stay. They are here for a number of days, a number of months, but they tend to go home. So looking at the remainder of the population, as well as taking out working holiday participants, international youth students who are here and who have open work permits, we have based our assessments on the remainder of that pool, which would lead us to about 25,000. We've also factored in a potential draw factor for implementing this program as well as anticipated growth in the temporary foreign worker program.