Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I represent CAPIC, the largest association of authorized immigration consultants in Canada. Every year our members help tens of thousands of individuals come to Canada, to study, to visit, to live or work. We also assist those inside Canada to exercise their rights before the federal tribunals, such as the IRB and IAD. At the end of most processes, we happily help them apply for Canadian citizenship.
In our presentation today, we'd like to offer our understanding of the sources of undocumented workers, to offer practical solutions that can be implemented immediately, and to sound a warning about the future.
What are the sources of undocumented workers? We need to understand the sources, because the remedies will be different in each case. We believe that undocumented workers come in four main streams.
First, we have individuals who have come to Canada and claimed refugee protection and, in the process, have exhausted their appeals. Rather than leave Canada, they go underground.
Second, we have individuals who enter Canada illegally, bypassing inspection at ports of entry, or who gain entry through the use of fraudulent documents.
Third, we have a growing group of individuals who are allowed to be in Canada but who cannot work. This group includes the children of individuals who have valid work permits; inland spousal applicants waiting for approval in principle; spouses of work permit holders, where the work permit itself does not allow them to work; and some individuals who are caught up in the long processing delays involved in the issuance of work permits.
Fourth, and probably the most typical, are individuals who have entered legally but who are now working after their status in Canada has expired, due to a variety of factors.
What are the solutions for each type of case, in our opinion? In the first case, namely, failed refugee claimants, the answer is very clear. They have had the benefit of being able to state their case many times and will not be forced to leave Canada until it has been determined that it is safe to return to their home country. We can endlessly debate how to change the refugee determination system and process, but we must respect the rules of the system while those discussions occur.
In the second case, that of illegal entries, these individuals have demonstrated that they do not respect Canadian laws, and they may even be a threat to our national security. The government must ensure that sufficient resources are available to deny entry to those who try and aggressively pursue those who get through. Even in the sad cases involving human smuggling, where the entrants are more victim than participant, these individuals also have access to Canada's refugee system and agency processes.
The third case, that of individuals who are in Canada legally but are barred from working, is rarely talked about, but it's a growing problem as more temporary foreign workers come to Canada with their families. Parents of a 16-year-old high school student are asking why their children can't work at McDonald's, especially given the recent evidence from high-profile events in major cities of gang activities and what happens to youth who have too much time on their hands. Further, those who work anyway are at severe risk of exploitation, as their parents' right to work in Canada could be at risk if the young worker complains about wages or working conditions.
For the in-Canada class applicants in the spousal class, the wait to be able to work has increased substantially in the last few years, and if their cases are referred to local offices, their cases can stretch to two to three years, adding substantial hardships for the families.
The obvious remedy would be to make all of these individuals eligible for work permits at the time of application for permanent residence or at the time of entry for work permit holders. We have proposed such remedies for several years now, and after discussions at the highest levels of HRSDC and CIC—some occurring as recently as last Friday—we have not been able to effect a change.
Finally, there is the issue of those undocumented workers who entered Canada legally but who stayed and worked illegally. We maintain that one of the principal causes of this is the lack of responsiveness of Canada's immigration system to the urgent needs of employers. The minister herself has confirmed this assessment in her recent justification of Bill C-50. Where there is an urgent and overwhelming demand, market forces will seek to meet that demand. Conversely, if there were no work, there would be no undocumented workers.
The solution in this last category is to have employers offer employment to those working for them without documents, using current procedures. Applications for work permits would then be sent to the home countries of the workers to enter at the back of the work permit queue—not the permanent resident queue—and if there were no security or health concerns, workers could obtain work permits without the need to leave Canada. Of course, individuals who had criminal records would not be allowed to stay or re-enter. Applicants would receive an automatic minister's approval to re-enter Canada.
In this first instance only, and save for the next 12 months, the length of overstay would not be a factor. After that date, the time limit for regularizing the status of such individuals would be set, perhaps at 12 months after their original status expired instead of the current three-month period. This would deal with the problem on an ongoing basis.
The other need is to reduce complexity and eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic complications by amending the regulation that requires that HRSDC approve all jobs. This would effectively exempt all occupations where the demand clearly exceeds the supply. This concept is already being proposed by HRSDC to deal with the situation in western Canada.
Finally, what about the future? As serious as this problem has been in recent years, in our opinion it's about to get much worse, according to the studies by the Bank of Canada, the Conference Board of Canada, and the science of demographics.
CIC has recently implemented a new program allowing employers to bring in unskilled workers for two years, following which the workers must return to their home countries for four months. It is not unreasonable to presume that some of those workers will seek a way to stay in Canada, rather than leave when their work permit expires or if they should suddenly lose their employment.
CIC steadfastly refuses to consider any program that would allow these workers to have a path to permanent residency, including refusing to include them in the new Canada experience class, which will be introduced later this year. Instead, they prefer to simply hand over the problem to the provinces.
We believe that Canada must have a single program with well-understood rules, rather than a patchwork of different programs. Failure to have one will inevitably make the problem of undocumented workers much worse in the years to come. To let you know where the hands of the clock are on this ticking time bomb, the first individuals who gained entry through this program will have their work permits expire in the next six months.
We would also like to bring one very serious concern to your attention. The Immigration Act has severe penalties for employers who hire illegal workers, even though, because this is Canada, the provisions are rarely enforced. However, if an employer actually assists a worker to gain the proper documents but then refuses to comply with the terms of the agreement—even such things as the rate of pay—the worker has no recourse whatsoever to any remedy except the civil court. We're seeing more and more cases of such abuse.
Finally, our members, being professionals in the business and involved on a day-to-day basis with all of these issues, would like to offer a helping hand to any other group concerned about the issues before this committee by way of volunteering their knowledge of the immigration system to advise and assist these groups to better serve the needs of their constituents.
In our experience, a lack of detailed understanding of the current system can cause possible remedies to be missed while groups focus on proposing impossible means to achieve unattainable results.
Thank you for your time.
