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Committee, we'll get our meeting going. Some of our members are a little bit slow this morning. And of course some of our members are on two committees, so it's not always easy to get a full complement at our committee meetings, because some members have dual responsibilities.
I want to welcome our witnesses today. Our witnesses are from Vancouver, and they never got in until about one o'clock this morning, so they're still feeling the effects of the jet lag.
Hopefully you got some sleep, and you're ready to give us some important information today. We welcome you.
We're doing part 6 of .
Our witnesses are Mr. Tung Chan, chief executive officer of SUCCESS; Mr. Eric Szeto, who is with Voice of the Minority; and Mr. Aziz Khaki, from the Committee for Racial Justice. Welcome, and thank you for being here.
We generally give you the opportunity to make an opening statement of roughly seven to ten minutes. You can all make individual statements if you wish, and you can do it in any order you want to.
Whoever wishes to go first, please go ahead.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairperson and members.
Once upon a time I used to be in Ottawa about ten days a month. Finally they got tired of me, so for the last five to six years I haven't been in Ottawa that much. But it's quite a pleasure to see nice warm weather here, coming from rainy Vancouver.
I'm the president of the Committee for Racial Justice. I'm also the vice-chair of the Muslim Canadian Federation, and I thought I should also mention that. I sit on a number of committees, but I won't go through that list.
Once again, thank you very much for inviting us here. I will start with my comments and then we can have the discussion.
Fifteen years ago the Committee for Racial Justice published a research paper entitled Control and Inadmissibility in Canadian Immigration Policy. It began with the following introduction, and I quote:
Traditionally, Canadian immigration policy has encompassed the dual function of admission and control, that is, its stated purpose has been to encourage the admission of immigrants while attempting to screen out those individuals who have been deemed undesirable.
Since the time of the Committee for Racial Justice report, changes to Canadian immigration legislation have progressively limited and restricted access to potential immigrants and refugees, with some exceptions. It appears that those individuals who have been deemed undesirable are an expanding group defined by the whims of a minister or a government-based decision with fundamental disrespect of the charter, on the whims of political expediency and agendas.
We maintain that changes proposed under Bill , the budget implementation act, with respect to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act give rise to serious legitimate concerns and point to very troubling patterns. An ongoing erosion of access, transparency, and accountability is what we have seen. Without accountability or explanation or recourse, entire groups or populations may be deemed undesirable and excluded by the stroke of the minister's pen. The point system, when it was first introduced, removed considerations such as race or place of origin as consideration in the immigration process.
It would appear that Bill is an attempt to reaffirm arbitrary decision-making into the immigration system and to remove the predictability of the application process. Sneaking these controversial changes through the House of Commons via Bill C-50 is a backdoor-entry tactic. We are challenging the provisions of Bill C-50 concerning the reason of its implementation, its regulation, and the wider question of its relation to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Section 11 of IRPA, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, currently says that the official “shall” issue a visa if the applicant meets the requirements of the act. With the proposed changes, it will say that the official “may” issue a visa. Section 25 currently also says that the minister “shall” examine a humanitarian and compassionate application. Under the proposed changes the minister “shall” examine if the applicant is in Canada, but “may” examine the application if the applicant is outside Canada. So there's a change from “shall” examine to “may” examine if the applicant is outside Canada.
These proposed changes further limit access and undermine predictability and transparency in the decision-making process. There's a strong concern that some voices in Canada have been putting pressure on successive federal governments to stop recruiting immigrants from Africa or Muslim countries or other places in the global south.
Foreign workers have increased, while permanent residents have decreased. With poor working conditions, limited rights, abuse of their working ability, and the attitude of kicking them out when we are done with them, foreign workers are looked upon as disposable economic units. We have seen problems in Europe. European countries, to increase their prosperity, hired foreign workers. They want their cheap labour, but not the labourers.
With the introduction of immigration matters under Bill , we would like to inquire what the intent of the government is. Is it to dismantle the Department of Immigration and make it operate under the Ministry of Finance as one of its functions?
The process of selection of immigrants should remain fair and transparent. The current status under Bill C-50 makes the minister and the government above and beyond accountability. There is a very clear erosion of our rights and liberties. When you look on human rights as favours you are granting someone, instead of as fundamental democratic freedoms, your intentions are underhanded.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's my presentation.
Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs.
My name is Tung Chan, and I'm from Vancouver. I'm the CEO of SUCCESS.
By way of introduction, I want to say that SUCCESS has been around for 35 years. We currently employ 390 employees in 18 locations in the lower mainland of British Columbia. We provide settlement, employment, language training, and health care services to youth, adults, families, and seniors, and particularly to the community of new Canadians.
I want to thank you for inviting me to appear before you to talk about Bill , in particular part 6 of Bill C-50. As an organization, we applaud the intention of the new legislation. We believe it is a good intention. We do need to speed up the processing of applications of immigrants whom we need. But we also would like to say that the legislation, particularly in its application, needs to ensure transparency.
Currently the wait time is far too long. We have been dealing with immigrants coming from offshore who say they have been waiting for way too long to come here, and that it makes it difficult for them to plan. Many of them, actually, before they came, when they applied, had a different set of economic and family situations than they have by the time they actually get approved to come. So it's important that whatever we do, whatever Parliament wants to pass, this be kept in mind.
As we heard earlier from Mr. Khaki, the most controversial point in the bill is clause 116, which replaces the word “shall” with the word “may”. We do, however, recognize that in order to achieve flexibility there is a need to have some discretionary powers. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to do anything if we simply stated everything. However, the point we want to make is that if we want to insert this kind of discretion and allow our offshore posts or the civil servants to exert that kind of discretion, then it is important that at the same time we put in place a very transparent, open, and clear reporting system so that when such discretion is being used, the public know, after the fact or before, how it will be used.
We understand that the minister, on an annual basis, gives a report to Parliament, so perhaps that would be a place where the reports should appear, in terms of when and how the discretionary power is used. Because as stated earlier by the previous witness, when people are allowed under the regulation to come in, but the bureaucrats may exercise the discretion and disallow people to come in, then any report from the department should contain that.
On a more general note, though, in terms of immigration we know that as a country we need immigrants. That's almost an established fact for most people; it is no longer an opinion. I've heard that assertion from different departments of the country, and we've heard it from different departments of the provinces.
The sad fact, though, is that the current points system causes a lot of false hope, particularly for the skilled-labour immigrants. So when you're done with studying this particular section, I would respectfully request that perhaps Parliament should look at totally reviewing the current points system as it applies to what is happening now. The points system has not only created false hope, but it's actually also creating a situation where we have a mismatch of the types of immigrants who will come in. When I say “type”, I refer to their economic background in terms of their skills.
We also note that as a country, the way we apply our immigration law is that we divide it into two basic doors. The one is economic and the other is humanitarian.
I'm glad to hear the say that this amendment applies only to the economic side. Nonetheless, on the other side, humanitarian and family reunion, I believe that we have to continue to make sure people can come in early, and that we should look at providing better information to people before they come and adequate assistance afterwards.
We've often seen in both the economic and humanitarian streams that people could have done a lot better had they been told in their home country what they could expect. It would be even better to provide them with orientation and integration training, telling them about the Canadian system, the Canadian culture, even the language. People can train and learn far better in a home environment than in a strange one.
We also need to look at improving coordination between the provincial governments and the federal government. I would suggest that the federal government and the provinces come together to form a national standard on immigrant settlement. I know that under our constitution immigrant settlement is within the realm of the provinces. However, that should not stop the federal government from imposing, or at least requesting, minimum standards in language training, employment training, and integration of services within the host communities.
As we become more and more a country of multicultural communities, it is not only the newcomers who have to adapt and change. I firmly believe that the host country also needs to adapt and change. Culture is not static. Culture is always dynamic, and that dynamic would be all the better if we could all learn from each other in creating a unique and inclusive Canadian culture—not just a one-culture or bicultural community, but a more multicultural one.
With respect to employment training, I believe that this bill is going to allow people in the economic classes to come in faster. But even more important, once they are here, we have to have a good program to integrate them economically into employment. Census data indicates that recent immigrants are doing far less well than Canadian-born citizens.
We could take a page from the Quebec government's book. Quebec has a very good program for integrating economic immigrants. They provide people with wage subsidies of up to $7,500 per person. They provide wage subsidies for supervisors of the companies—small and medium-sized enterprises—of up to $1,100. They also provide grants to those SMEs of up to $2,000, which allows them to adapt their workplaces, to find out how they can change and welcome the newcomers.
As I've said again and again, by the year 2011 the Canadian labour market net growth is going to have to come from new immigrants. It behooves us as a country to make sure that we have a good system to help to integrate those immigrants.
The other part of this is the foreign credential recognition program. The European Union is able to find ways to harmonize the 2,600 regulations that govern all the different professionals. If they can do that with so many countries, I'm sure Canada, if we have the political will, can find a way to resolve this issue.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will be straightforward as to what I would like to say.
The Minister of Immigration claims that she needs , the amendment to the Immigration Act, to reduce the backlog and give priority to the category of immigrant that Canada needs the most. Voice of the Minority, the group that I'm representing here today, supports this objective; however, we have serious concerns about the approach the government is taking with Bill C-50.
Bill C-50 will allow the minister to cherry-pick from applicants and simply discount others in a very unreasonable way by using the following provision in the bill: proposed paragraph 87.3(3)(b), which states that the minister may establish “an order, by category or otherwise, for the processing of applications or requests”.
And further, under proposed paragraph 87.3(3)(c), the minister may set “the number of applications or requests, by category or otherwise, to be processed in any year”.
And in proposed subsection 87.3(4), “If an application or request is not processed, it may be retained, returned or otherwise disposed of in accordance with the instructions of the Minister.”
As we can see from the above provisions, the minister can set the priority and order for processing by category and very possibly by individual. And the applications that were not processed will be “retained, returned or otherwise disposed of”, according to proposed subsection 87.3(4), as mentioned. This is very unfair and very undemocratic to the applicants who will be discounted, because it replaces a well-defined rules-based system with an unclear person-ruled system that has no recourse for the applicants. Also, discounting those who were not picked simply by retaining, returning, or otherwise disposing of their application is not a reasonable way to deal with the backlog problem.
Worst and most worrisome is the amendment to proposed subsection 11(1), which changes “shall” be granted an immigrant visa to “may” be granted an immigrant visa. This one single word change from “shall” to “may” gives the minister the authority to cherry-pick once again by refusing to issue visas to those who have already cleared the requirements. This provision would not contribute in any way to reducing the backlog, as efforts would have been used in processing their file. Shutting the door for them to come to Canada even after they have successfully passed the bar, without any recourse, is very unfair.
has been defending for the last couple of months but has failed to deal with the above-mentioned concerns from the public. She is often evasive by refusing to deal with the specifics of the bill we are concerned about. She sometimes double-talks and is often misleading.
She repeatedly told the Chinese media that Bill C-50 would not cap the number of applications and would not affect the family reunification class, as family reunification is a priority of the government. However, on April 28, at the Standing Committee on Finance, she admitted that Bill C-50 is intended to cap and restrict immigrants, and that if at a future point in time we decide that family class is the priority, they will be fast-tracked just like any of the worker categories.
This leads us to believe that the family class application is not currently a government priority. Ladies and gentlemen, if one category of applicants is designated as a priority, others would be a lower priority. And it's impossible for them not to be negatively affected. It is common sense. And how could the minister just write off our concerns?
The minister claims opposition to the bill is misleading, as she will only set the order by category and has no intention of setting the order individually. If this is so, then why do they have “by category or otherwise” in proposed paragraph 87.3(3)(b)? Why is “or otherwise” needed, if the order she intends to set is only by category?
I also noted that she dropped the provision to dispose of the unprocessed applications in her explanation on how to deal with the backlogs at the committee. Is it because she realized how unfair it is to simply destroy one's application in order to deal with the backlog? Why does the minister insist on not allowing any amendments to Bill C-50?
The minister further commented that
There are millions, literally millions of people, in China and India alone, who qualify for admission to this country. That doesn't mean we can accept them all.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is particularly important that when we have more immigrants than we can accept in this country that we have a transparent, rule-based system that respects democracy and equality for all of them. How we select immigrants to our country will define who we are in the world. We will be telling the world that we are abandoning our cherished values if we adopt the immigration amendment of Bill C-50.
I truly believe there is no conflict between having a fair, equal, effective, transparent, and rules-based immigration system and addressing the need of skilled labour for the benefit of our economy. If we need more resources to streamline our system in order to deal with the huge problems in our hands, then we must do this. What we must not do is give the minister such arbitrary power, as it diminishes our core values of fairness, democracy, equality, and the rule of law, which have made Canada a great country.
We must amend Bill C-50 to rescind the above-mentioned provisions.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for allowing me to share our concerns with you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Some of the adjectives I heard used—“unfair”, “undemocratic”, “double-talk”, “misleading”, “undermining transparency”, “doing it through the back door”—are pretty good descriptions of the neocons who happen to be driving this bill.
In your statements you mentioned that you were glad that the minister said the changes were not going to apply to anybody but the economic class. Well, the reality is that they can apply to anybody.
Mr. Szeto, I share your concern. I saw the interview on television, where the minister talked about the Chinese and the people from India all qualifying. Good old-fashioned immigrant bashing is how I'm starting to perceive this, and it's done for electoral purposes.
You keep making reference to the minister. I wish it were that simple. I was here when we changed the Immigration Act back in 2002. I was on this committee. Essentially, what happened is that the bureaucracy misled the committee and misled government, and their duplicity only became apparent when the case of Laurentiu Dragan was taken to court, where the justice issued a mandamus thwarting the desires of the bureaucrats to use the new standard to apply to the backlog so they could disqualify applicants. Well, it didn't work.
In essence, I always thought that the driving purpose of the new point system was to do exactly that. They didn't succeed, but what they succeeded at was in creating a real crisis by having a point system that doesn't reflect what the economy needs. It is a problem, and as a result we have the rise in temporary foreign workers, which is the way to get around it, because they can't get them in under the point system, but these people are needed by the economy.
The question I have for you, and this really has been a concern of mine, is that, as you know, we apologized for the Chinese head tax, the Asian exclusion—and the government is going to be apologizing for the Komagata Maru—and the fact that the Chinese were brought in to build the railway, single men who couldn't bring their families. Now, with these temporary foreign workers, we're doing the same thing. I thought about the lessons of history and how important it was to recognize the mistakes of the past, so let's make sure we don't repeat them. I can see this temporary foreign worker class, where people can be exploited, as something that, if it's carried to its conclusion, we'll be apologizing for down the road in a 100 years' time.
My thing is that we need immigrants; that's what we need. We need immigrants who come here to build the country, and we should always have that as the first priority for immigration.
What's your thought about that, about the dangers of temporary foreign workers increasingly replacing immigrants?
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We don't need to abandon some of them and cherry-pick the others, but we can take care of them both by refining the system. The government could do something more to put more resources to upgrade the system.
Let me give you an example. Under the previous government it was a two-way highway with two lanes each way. After a few years, as more cars came in and wanted to use the freeway, it became a traffic jam. Now the government is saying it is going to put traffic police to dictate which cars can use the freeway and which ones cannot. The ones it picks, who can use the freeway, go straight ahead, but the ones who cannot use it, it tells them, “Okay, go ahead, because you are going to wait for a long time. If you don't want to wait, drop out and come back when the freeway is clear.”
Why doesn't the government build or expand to three lanes, or car-pool lanes, or speed-up lanes for those skilled workers? That way the other people waiting on the freeway can still move ahead and speed up a little bit. But if they use a car pool, and they move to the car-pool lane, the cars using the old freeway can still move ahead. That's what I want the government to do, in fact.
:
Good morning, gentlemen. I very much appreciated your presentations. Please be assured that the comments you make to us are very instructive. I agree with the vast majority of your arguments.
Personally, I've been a member at this committee for only six months, and I find it very frustrating to see that a potential reform of our immigration system amounts to two pages.
Two pages of the bill, which contains 130, concern immigration. In two pages, all discretion is simply left to the minister. I find it appalling that this kind of treatment is given to the entire immigration system, of which you are good representatives. You have expressed some good ideas which could be used to reform immigration.
Mr. Chan mentioned that the points system had raised false hopes. I would have liked him to develop that idea. What false hopes has the system raised? You also talked about improving our immigrant integration program. You cited the example of Quebec, where my colleague and I are from. Thank you for your good appreciation of Quebec. Quebec puts a lot of emphasis on integration of the communities it wants to welcome, and I think that's appreciated. I wonder how it can be explained why Canada does not succeed as well as Quebec. Is Quebec more aware of its nationhood and does it want the people it welcomes to integrate? Is it a lack of appreciation by the Canadian nation, as manifested by the Canadian government? I note that what you said about Quebec is interesting.
Do you want to react to what I've said?
:
I want to answer that quickly. Thank you for the question. It's a wonderful question.
Quickly, should relatives have more points? Yes, definitely.
Second, on the ability to speak French and English, I'd like to answer this way. I think what we need to measure is the ability to adapt and adjust. Take me for example. When I first came here at age 22, my English was so poor you would not have been able to understand me. I went to Alliance Française and studied French. I spent four months learning French, trying to adapt, but I never had a chance to use it. I live in Vancouver, so all my French is comme ci, comme ça.
It's important, though, to find a way to help people adapt and integrate and adjust. If we have some kind of measurement, language is not as important. It's not that it's not important, but it's not as important.
I'm listening with interest as the honourable member speaks of the current system. She says there are over 925,000 applications in the backlog, and she's saying many people have died in the process because it has taken so long. I think that would underscore the point that it just takes too long to process an application if many people have died during the term. That certainly wouldn't be the type of thing that employers--and others who need skilled trades--would expect. They need people here within months. Other countries are able to do that, and some would suggest even more quickly than that, certainly not taking years, or multi-years, where people die in the process.
I was also interested to hear from Mr. Chan that the point system builds a certain amount of false hope where people came in but aren't matched to what the country needs. There needs to be a better alignment of those types of services, and certainly Bill C-50--whether you like it or whether you don't--addresses some of those issues and says that you are no longer required to process every application. I think many have said that simply receiving applications and storing them in a warehouse, and processing every application as it comes, or trying to circumvent it, is not the way to work a system. Bill C-50 would allow the departments to select among the applicants those who are best suited to Canada's labour market needs, which would make it more flexible and quicker, and it would respect the three pillars: family reunification; refugees; and skilled workers. It's in the skilled-worker class that the selection would be made to best match those who are most suited to what the country needs.
Now, you have to do it somehow. Bill C-50 does that. Now just to put to rest some of the concerns, at least a couple of lawyers who testified yesterday indicated that refugees will not be affected by Bill C-50. So you can rest assured that those applying for refugee status in Canada or out of Canada are not covered by Bill C-50.
Now having said that, in listening to Mr. Khaki, he seemed to indicate that Bill C-50somehow would weed out groups of people. I think we heard the word “undesirable”. What did you mean by “undesirable”, and what did you mean when you said groups of people would be taken out of the system?
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Absolutely, and in fact when the instruction issues, and that will happen after some time in consultation, those who apply the instructions must apply them in an objective way that meets the charter and all of its requirements. So there are some built-in provisions that safeguard some of the issues you raise.
Finally, the legislation itself indicates that these measures or instructions must support the attainment of the immigration goals established by the Government of Canada, so the government establishes some goals in its policy consideration. They have to decide, in weighing all of the issues, the policy they want and then it must be applied in accordance with Bill C-50. I think that what we find is clear: immigrant or newcomer intake is in the amount of 235,000 to 265,000, but the numbers that apply are far greater than that.
So what we have if we do nothing is a system that continues to grow, as we have now, whereas the honourable member said that people start to die in the process before their application gets received. And if you want to stay competitive with other countries, something needs to happen. Bill C-50 indicates that there can be establishing of categories and selection within the category, and the indication has been, within the economic class, to ensure that those who are needed with respect to the economy are those who will be processed, and processed on a quick basis without interfering with refugees or the family class itself.
So it's important to appreciate the context within which Bill C-50 arises. It's in the context of a system that's burgeoning with a backlog that's not moving anywhere. And it's fair to say we have the tools now, and why have they not been used? Why has it taken a decade without any action? Because nobody grabbed the bull by the horns to wrestle the problem down.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you for your presentations and for the contribution you've made to the study of Bill C-50.
I do want to get a sense from you. When you look at this bill, here is a government that wants to essentially speed this bill through the entire parliamentary process. I could understand that if it were a brilliant idea. I could understand that if this was such a great thing that we would have to rally the country just to make it happen because it's just the idea that will fix the immigration system.
The reality is that after listening to so many presentations, one thing is certain. This is by far a lousy idea. It hasn't really addressed anything they originally stated that it would when you're talking about the backlog.
When you look at this bill as a demonstration of how to be undemocratic, it's certainly one of the best I've seen in 20 years here. There's been no real consultation with people. The concentration of power in the minister's hands has been criticized extensively. You have a misinformation campaign. You have advertisements being purchased before the bill actually even becomes law. And it doesn't address the original intent of the backlog of 925,000.
Then there are the inconsistencies of values, and this is what really bothers me. The Conservative government wants us to believe that it's all about skilled labour, it's about understanding the economy, and it's about structuring the economy and addressing the human resources consequences of not acting on this issue. When it comes to the economy, the credibility is obvious, right? These are the same people who left us with a $42-billion deficit, so it's very hard for me to believe that they actually have the answers to what the economy needs.
Having said that, what would be your recommendation to the minister? Would it be simply to go back to the drawing board, to open up the process, to scrap this bill and start anew? What is it that you would like to see from your government?
First of all, let me welcome all of you. You're from my home province of B.C., and I think I'm the only MP from B.C. It's nice to see you, Mr. Chan.
I think all of us are familiar with the system. We know that the immigration system has been broken for many years. What with the wait times and backlogs, things are out of control and change is essential. We agree with this. The potential immigrants, especially from India and China, are waiting too many years for verdicts on their applications. The changes we are proposing to the immigration legislation will tackle the 900,000-plus backlog. The changes will help to ensure that people with badly needed skills will gain quick admittance to Canada.
In your submission, you expressed a concern over potential discrimination. Ministerial instructions must comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects against discrimination based on race, ethnicity, colour, religion, sex, or whatever. The instructions must be published in the Canada Gazette and reported in the immigration department's annual report to Parliament. Considering all these facts, do you think any minister would publicly issue a discriminatory instruction? Do the charter and the Canadian Human Rights Act address your concerns?
As you can see, we ran out of time. We managed to get in every individual who wanted to have a word or two. We try to do that in fairness, to try to get everyone on.
We're going to do a report, and I hope our report will be ready by Thursday. We're certainly pushing for it. Your submissions were very valuable to the preparation of the report by the analysts.
Thank you very much.
We will call to the table the Canadian Labour Congress. I would invite you to come to the table, Mr. Hassan Yussuff, secretary-treasurer; and Mr. Karl Flecker, national director, anti-racism and human rights department.
We have approximately 50 minutes. I invite you to take your seats, and we will try to get back on schedule.
Thank you, Mr. Yussuff and Mr. Flecker, for coming to our meeting this morning. You have appeared before our committee before and know what the drill is.
I'll go to you, Mr. Yussuff, secretary-treasurer, for an opening statement. You have approximately five minutes or so, and then we'll go to questions.
:
We will try to be as brief as we can, recognizing the time constraints of the committee this morning.
Let me thank the committee for allowing us to present before you on behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, essentially coast to coast. But more important, we will submit a comprehensive brief to the committee. I'm sorry we didn't get it done on time, given the shortness of the request to present before the committee.
I will outline some of the key points we want to make, and hopefully that will generate some questions from the committee members.
The government argues that the proposed changes are designed to make our immigration system more flexible and responsive to Canada's labour market needs. However, the process the government is using to advance their planned changes and proposed amendments represents a significant change in Canada's immigration system. It raises serious concern about the fairness, transparency, and public accountability.
Immigration reform must not simply be about addressing labour market needs. Immigration is fundamentally about the welcoming, supporting, benefiting, and integrating of newcomers into Canada. Immigrants are more than a component of an economic agenda. Immigration reform requires thoughtful policy attention and building an inclusive, vibrant, and diverse society.
Significant changes in Canada's demographic profile are well under way. We have an aging population and a declining fertility rate. The country is largely dependent on immigrants for both population and labour market growth. Unfortunately our immigration system is also overloaded with applicants on the waiting list, and many have been waiting for years.
There are serious challenges that require broad public engagement and thoughtful and effective policy solutions. Embedding major immigration reform inside a budget bill is playing electoral politics with people's futures and is both a wrong-headed and unsound approach to transparency and policy development. We urge the committee to sever the immigration amendments from and undertake a set of comprehensive national public hearings.
Let me outline some very quick points.
We think embedding the reform in the budget bill is wrong.
There has been a failure to conduct meaningful and inclusive consultations prior to the development of the initiative.
Arbitrary powers granted to the minister fail the transparency and accountability test this government has promised.
New process is not the best way to deal with the backlog. The process of simply asking applicants who have been in the queue for years if they still wish to have their application processed demonstrates that other ways exist to cut down the line. Competing systems are unlikely to lead to a streamlined process.
The inappropriate use of ads to sell the initiative after the fact and before the amendments become law is problematic.
To view immigrants as an economic unit and skew the role of employers to determining citizenship is wrong-headed.
Unclear process steps exist in how labour market needs or priority occupations will be determined and how many assessment and selection processes will operate. We're likely to see a rise in applicants in the temporary foreign worker category or CIC numbers. It is not a balanced immigration system.
And last but not least, the funding allocation for competing systems may not be adequate.
I'd like to make one last point here, and this is a fundamentally important point for us. Immigration is about building more than just the well-being of employers' interests. Immigration policy is fundamentally about building our communities, workplaces, and society in a thoughtful, inclusive, accountable, and democratic manner. The proposed amendments come in the context of and contribute to a disturbing shift towards the use of immigration primarily to meet Canadian employers' needs without regard for the broader Canadian interests. This includes the problematic increase in reliance on temporary foreign workers. Canada needs to consider immigrants as full participants in society, not simply as temporary or disposable units to fill current available jobs.
Thank you so much.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank the Canadian Labour Congress for their presentation and for their contribution to Bill C-50.
I was trying to find something you like about this bill, and I think in many ways you reflect the opinions we have heard. The concern I have is that we really don't know where to start. We really haven't heard one presentation that has been very supportive, or supportive at all, of the government initiative.
Outside of the parliamentary secretary, the members of the Conservative Party, and the minister herself, I wonder if there are people out there who actually support this bill. After having talked to a lot of people across the country--I've spoken to many--I've come to the conclusion that this bill really doesn't have any legs to stand on as a response to the challenges we face in immigration.
It is also of major concern that the consultation process-before and after--has not been adequate. The fact that they're trying to push this through in a budget bill is of concern from a democratic point of view and a parliamentary process point of view. Above and beyond the fact that this bill does not address its original intent, which was to deal with the backlog, it is a bad example to give Canadians as to how our democracy works. That's the great damage of this bill. It goes above and beyond the issue of immigration.
So I'd like to give you this opportunity. What kind of advice do you have for the minister? If she were here--and Mr. Komarnicki can actually report to her--what would you tell her?
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I would simply advise the government and the minister to take the changes she wants to consider on immigration and put them in a process that's transparent, and to have meaningful consultation across the country.
Canadians as a whole, regardless of what part of the country they're from, and especially those families and individuals who have been waiting in the queue for quite some time to have their application dealt with to get their families here, are very frustrated. I think that's a real issue.
If you're going to advance changes to the immigration system, recognizing that we, as a country, are also competing for immigrants from around the world, we need to be very thoughtful about how we go about that. No immigration policy should simply be driven by employers' demands. It should be driven by the desire of the country as to what kinds of individuals we want to bring to our country and how we are going to integrate them in building this country. That's fundamentally what the immigration policy should be about.
I think this policy shift is trying to accomplish how quickly we can respond to the employers' demands. And employers' demands, as you know, change with the speed of lightning. Today it's a need for widget makers, and tomorrow it's a need for windmill makers. We can't build a country that way if we adopt that approach to immigration.
I would simply argue that the minister should seriously heed the concerns raised by others who have come before the committee to withdraw these amendments in the budget bill and put them out separately for us to have meaningful discussion.
We, as a congress, represent three million members. A large percentage of our members are immigrants. Many of them have helped build this country and want to continue to do that. We want to help shape the policy of the country. But it should not be skewed in the direction for employers to determine, and this is exactly what this policy does.
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Mr. Carrier, as to where that comes from, I attended a technical briefing offered by senior members of Immigration Canada on April 18, in an effort to better understand how the mechanics of this program would operate. As Hassan was pointing out, the minister is going to have the opportunity to make these ministerial instructions for the class of immigrants. We asked how they were going to determine which class of economic immigrant or skilled worker was going to receive the priority attention that is implicit in this bill. The response was that it was going to be something done in coordination with the provinces and the territories and with the employers' input.
We've already seen, in immigration changes over the last 18 months to two years by this government, the creation of the Canadian experience class. We've seen a phenomenal growth in the temporary foreign worker program. James Sutherland, the director of that program, on March 12 acknowledged that in 2007 there were 236,000 applications for guest workers received from employers. In 2006 we had granted permanent residency status to 251,000. There is enough data there to show that decisions on classes of immigrant workers are being made principally by employer groups.
When we pushed the question on April 18 and asked where the opportunity will be and how labour, for example, will be meaningfully involved at the regional level to determine the class of immigrants, the answer was not forthcoming because it hasn't been thought through yet.
Second, immigration, if we're seeing it in a comprehensive way, is not just about employers. It's not just about labour. There is the role of immigration and settlement agencies. There is the role of communities that want to be able to see their needs identified. These are other stakeholders that have to have meaningful input, and clearly, what we have seen so far is that the group that has the ear is the employer group. That is where that's coming from.
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I have in front of me a very interesting report that showed a number of requests from four provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. We need labour, right? We need skilled labour. People kept saying this is the reason we're going to do this.
It's interesting to note the top jobs that are requested by employers under the temporary foreign worker program. In British Columbia, the number one temporary foreign worker position requested is cooks, 1,771. In Alberta, the number of cooks requested is 3,343. In Saskatchewan, the number two position, actually, is cooks, with 167 being requested. In Manitoba, it's cooks again, 197 or thereabouts.
The minister keeps saying we need these doctors; we have to have doctors in Canada. When employers desperately need labour, they go the temporary foreign worker route—which I have a great deal of difficulty with, because if people are good enough to work here, they're good enough to stay here, and they should come in as landed immigrants.
It actually is fascinating to look at this whole area. Do you know what the second area is, in terms of low-skilled occupation? It's babysitters, nannies, and parents' helpers. In Alberta, for example, the request came in, in terms of labour market opinions, for 5,597. For specialist physicians, there are 210—just to give you the contrast in numbers between specialist physicians, babysitters, and chefs.
We do need babysitters and chefs. They do require skill, and they are trained, but we can certainly bring them in as landed immigrants.
It brings me to a point that I want to ask you. The present point system does not really give a whole lot of points, if you're applying for landed immigrant status, to people who are cooks, babysitters, carpenters, people we desperately need in Canada. Nor does it give any points to people who have relatives in Canada. That would allow them to adapt easier.
I hear that you dislike the Bill C-50 immigration changes. You have already said a lot about that. To really fix the situation, should we actually change the point system? If so, in your mind, how can we change the point system?
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Here are a couple of quick points.The evidence you are stating regarding the provinces' requests for temporary foreign workers raises, fundamentally, a more serious question about what we're not doing in our country in training individuals to meet the skills needs of the economy.
That comes back to the whole transfer of responsibility from the federal government to the provinces. They have the resources, and yet they are not equipping their people with the skills needed.
What employers are doing, and we're seeing it again, and this needs to be highlighted in this process, is an abuse of the temporary foreign workers program. All you have to do, essentially, is file an application. Most of the procedures that are supposed to be followed by the department are not being followed, and essentially people have been brought in to work for minimum wage, or in some cases worse, and some in situations of abuse. We have tracked it in complaints we have filed with the department.
In regard to changes to the points system, there's no question that the points system brought a little more transparency and fairness to what had existed prior to that, but if there's going to be a thorough review of our immigration system, of course we need to look at it to ensure that if these are the categories employers have identified for which we need to bring in people, it is fair that they be given an equal amount of points, so that they could come into the country. Right now, they would not be qualified, because they're not the ones Canada wants. Essentially, we're mostly looking at skilled immigrants—and highly skilled immigrants, for that matter.
There are many changes we would consider or be supportive of respecting what the points system needs to reflect, given the current challenges we face in our economy, but the reality is that this is not the question we're asked.
I'll also ask Karl to comment on this, based on our knowledge of the temporary foreign workers program.
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Going quickly to the point of your question, there's no question our points system needs a re-examination, particularly when your numbers so clearly expose something going on that actually has a bit of rank to it. The employer demand is for low-skilled or lower-skilled, likely less-waged, less-protected workers.
Yet on the other hand, we have two decades of data showing immigrants who are highly credentialled, who actually have a higher academic standing than most Canadians: 37.5% have a BA or higher degree, compared with Canadian-born citizens at 19.1%. We're seeing the same thing with their kids as well.
Meanwhile, the employers have insisted that we're moving into a knowledge-based economy. They've said that the new area for our dependents is biotech or IT. I have to ask the question: how's Nortel doing? We have these credentialled immigrants; they're living in low-income situations; the system does not work to put them in jobs that are commensurate with their skills.
Meanwhile, your numbers show, and it will not be a surprise to us to see, probably in the near future, yet more changes to the temporary foreign worker program, probably saying that some classes of those immigrants are going to be allowed to bring in their spouses and their children with work permits. I wonder how many of them will suddenly find themselves as cooks and babysitters, working in positions with less protection.
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We would argue that most of the skill shortages claimed by employers don't exist. Some of them do, a very small number. In a large number of categories that employers are claiming have a shortage, there's no real shortage.
One point I wanted to make concerning Madam Chow's point about cooks is that a simple way to get cooks is to pay them a higher wage. You'd be surprised how many cooks you'd get if you paid them a higher wage. People are prepared to work. Some people are just not prepared to work for minimum wage.
I think the employers are abusing the system. There's clearly documented evidence, which we have filed with the government, on the temporary foreign workers program; it is there.
The issue, too, about skill shortages, and I think my colleague just made the point, is that all of the immigrants we've been bringing into the country, and we're doing our own research on this, come here highly skilled to begin with; yet they can't find meaningful employment in the areas in which they're qualified.
If you simply bring in more people on demand because we say we need more skilled people, the question is whether you can get them to work in the categories in which you're bringing them in to work in the first place. The government has yet to respond to the failures of our policy; yet we're proceeding with more proposed changes that will meet employers' demands, rather than asking how we give meaningful employment to the people who are already here in this country and can't find meaningful employment.
So yes, our policy to some degree has been a failure, because it does not allow the immigrants who have the qualifications to work in the fields they're qualified to work in.
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The government should learn from that.
If I were in the labour movement, I would be concerned about the greater reliance on temporary foreign workers. It reminds me of the history of the Chinese when they were brought in to build the railway. As soon as they were used up, they were considered redundant, and the government did what they could to get rid of them.
Having people come here without their families is totally the wrong way to go. To me, one of the big questions is whether, if you're going to build a nation, you build it through temporary foreign workers or you build it through immigration.
We have a problem with the point system. The point system was designed in such a way that it really doesn't let in the people the economy needs. If you're in the trades or if you are going to come and do hard labour or whatever, you should be able to get into this country, because we need that in society. If you can't find anybody in Canada, then it's legitimate to bring in immigrants to do those jobs. That has been part of history. When you look at most of the temporary foreign worker jobs that are coming in, such as truck drivers, I mean, there's no way a truck driver is going to pass the point system the way it's set up. Australia has much better success with the point system, because they give greater relevance to what the economy needs.
The example that comes to me is that we bring in engineers from Pakistan or India, but they do not get to work as engineers. They're unhappy campers. They quit their jobs. They sold what they had and brought their capital here. Then all of a sudden, they find out that chances are that they will never work as engineers. So we have unhappy campers. On the other hand, if a bricklayer from Portugal comes here, and we have a shortage of bricklayers, he finds a job fairly quickly, and he's happy. We have a system that brings in the engineer who cannot be absorbed and keeps out the bricklayer who could be happy and do well.
Of course, the other big issue is the underground economy for the undocumented worker class. Once you bring in a lot of temporary workers, a lot of those folks aren't going to go home when their visas expire. They're going to join the class of undocumented workers. We saw the Auditor General's report that said that 41,000 people have not been kept track of. And there are a lot more. The numbers are something like half a million. It's asking for trouble.
I'm going to put the question to you: Do we need immigrants or do we need temporary foreign workers?
I believe that's quite clear. I continue to ask it in the hope that one day someone may answer yes, but unfortunately the government conducted no consultation on the subject. And that shows.
The bill under study is almost unanimously criticized by everyone following this issue. I get the impression that even the government realizes this makes no sense. I've already seen this parliamentary secretary defend files with greater conviction. We're in a political situation—and that's very unfortunate—in which the government doesn't want to back down, when it knows very well that won't resolve the issue. I won't ask you to comment on that because that's more my personal political analysis.
I want to talk about the compassionate component of the amendments under consideration. Previously, when a person filed an application for permanent residency on compassionate grounds, the officer had to evaluate that application. According to the amendment, the officer may examine the application. It would no longer be mandatory, and that's of particular concern to me. Having handled a number of problem immigration cases, I know that this compassionate application procedure is used by a number of refugee claimants who have been refused by board members.
If a person appears before a board member who rejects 98% of applications on which he is required to rule, that person will feel unfairly treated, which is legitimate. As there is no refugee appeal division, that person will apply for permanent residency on compassionate grounds in a second attempt to come and settle in Canada.
If the government closes that door, don't you fear we will lose another opportunity to meet our international obligation to help the people who need it?