Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 19th, 2006

[Avvy Go]

Certainly we should do that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ed.

Andrew, please, for three minutes.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just until we wrap up, I'll respond to Mr. Komarnicki.

Whether I sit on that side of the table or on this side of the table, I have always been consistent. As a matter of fact, I've probably been rougher on my ministers than I have been on yours. Like Barry, I really wish we were a little less political and were looking at it more from the standpoint of saying this is a real problem. I hope the committee collectively can do that and exert whatever influence we have.

I say to the delegations that the numbers I heard on undocumented workers go from 200,000 at the minimum to 500,000 at the top. In the United States, up to 10% of their workforce is comprised of illegals. In Canada, it's 1.6% if you take the top end, so we really have much smaller numbers.

As Blair said, we have a labour shortage in this country, and there's a real mismatch between people we let in under the point system and the kinds of jobs that need to be filled. It's just so obvious. I dare say that when the committee dealt with the point system, they condemned the stuff that came down from our minister, who was a mouthpiece for the bureaucracy. Now we really see the problem.

I think it's important that you guys, the delegations, seize upon that report, the response of the minister to our thing on the undocumented workers, on whom we want to see some resolution. That report is on the website of the committee. I want you to take a look at it, because the report doesn't make any sense. It's bureaucratic rubbish.

The best example I can cite for you is Senator Roméo Dallaire, who says there are some bureaucratic terrorists in the system who manage to frustrate what seems like an obvious solution. So I really would urge you to take a look at the report, respond to it, and disseminate it. The political will of the committee was that we go after the criminals who should be gotten rid of and that we stop wasting money rounding up people who are contributing to the economy.

Stan, do you have an idea as to what percentage of the farm labour is now provided by non-Canadians, by migrants?

[Stan Raper]

Do you mean undocumenteds, or do you mean the migrant workforce?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Both, if you can break it down.

[Stan Raper]

The mushroom farm that we organized in Kingsville, Ontario, is a good example of the high-end agricultural sector, and it has roughly 85% migrant workers. The greenhouse sector is almost 100% seasonal agricultural workers, foreign workers. The foremen and lead hands would be Canadian, but the sector is almost completely dominated by new Canadians and/or the foreign worker program and seasonal agricultural worker program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for coming in today. It's been very interesting. I wish we had more time, but we do have a committee looking for this room and they'll be meeting here in a few minutes. Thank you very much for coming. We really appreciate it.

On Tuesday we will be having our steering committee meeting. We may not be having our full committee meeting because of the unavailability of the witness, so I think it will be our steering committee meeting on Tuesday.

We will have our budget put before the subcommittee today for approval and we would encourage all of you to get in touch with your House leaders to talk to them about committee travel and that kind of thing and getting permission. Hopefully, we'll be able to travel to Kingston and Montreal fairly soon.

I have a request here from Bill. He'd like to make a formal request for a research paper on regularization of amnesty programs for our meeting next week.

Is that a motion you're making, Bill?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I'm not sure that we need a motion. But if we could request the analyst to maybe research past amnesty or regularization programs in which Canada may have engaged or examples from the United States, I think that would be very helpful for us as we pursue this work down the road.

To have some clear information about what the Government of Canada and the American government have done in the past on that issue might be very helpful to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Andrew, on the same point.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

No. Get somebody else to provide--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, so we'll have the research analyst do that work.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

The timeline can be down the road, because I think we're more focused on refugee issues right now. But as long as--

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

There is, I think, a good six-part series of articles running on refugees in The Ottawa Citizen. It started last Sunday and it finishes today. It would be useful for the committee to have that series.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Devolin.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

A really quick comment. On days like today, I appreciate the flexibility that you gave, Mr. Chair, both to questioners and to witnesses on the clock. I think if we all respect the spirit of the clock, then some of these answers.... We all wanted to hear the answer, and I appreciate the fact that you didn't cut things off. And I appreciate the fact that my colleagues didn't try to take advantage of that situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes. We try to get everyone in, and sometimes it's hard to cut people off in the middle of a long, drawn-out answer. So I appreciate your indulgence on that.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.