Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 8th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, I have to--

[Chris Ramsaroop]

Many of the same promises--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order.

When I bring you to order, please pay attention. It's in the interests of the time of committee members. I don't want to cut you off, but I have to manage the time as best I can. I don't want to cut anyone off, but, please, you can't eat into your colleagues' time.

I'm sure you'll get a chance to make your points in the Q and A.

I will now call on Mr. Lyn to share his time with Ms. Castanos.

[André Lyn, Researcher, Community Social Planning Council of Toronto]

Thank you.

On behalf of my colleagues--Navjeet, who is sitting behind me, and Zenia, who will be co-presenting--I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto's position on undocumented workers. Our submission focuses primarily on policies affecting undocumented workers, a group that can more broadly be described as non-status immigrants.

We have been doing work with community groups and academics around undocumented workers. In May of 2008 we will be releasing a report documenting barriers to public education for children of non-status families in Toronto. Last year, in a partnership with the Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre, we released a multilingual guide listing services for non-status immigrants. Because of our work with community groups, academics, and non-status immigrants, we have become keenly aware of the need for a regularization program in Canada that will provide non-status immigrants with a direct path to landed status and citizenship as well as other crucial changes to Canadian immigration policy.

I will now turn it over to Zenia.

[Zenia Castanos, Intern, Community Social Planning Council of Toronto]

Thanks for inviting us here.

It is difficult to establish an accurate figure on the number of non-status immigrants residing in Canada. Based on anecdotal information provided by service providers, employers, and unions, estimates range from 20,000 to well over 300,000, with a majority of them living in Toronto.

Their length of residency in Canada without documentation is also known to range from a few months to over twenty years.

For many, the act of staying is in effect an act of survival and the need to seek refuge from deteriorating conditions in their own country through poverty, military conflict, hunger, or to escape domestic violence, physical and psychological abuse, or state persecution.

Non-status immigrants live in constant fear of arrest, detention, and deportation and are most likely to live in extreme poverty and under exploitative conditions. Their situation is further marginalized by their lack of access to social programs and services. The irony is that not only have non-status immigrants directly contributed to the Canadian economy, but through the taxes they pay, they help to fund the very programs they are ineligible to receive and the institutions that will not accept them.

Non-status people endure many hardships and sacrifice their rights and safety in Canada for fear that things would be much worse if they were to be sent back to their home country. For these reasons we believe that a full and inclusive regularization program is required to give all non-status people living in Canada the opportunity to acquire permanent residency. Without such a program in place, non-status people will continue to be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

While not explicitly recognized, regularization programs are a part of Canadian immigration policy. These programs have been favoured and adopted by governments and parties of all political stripes in response to the failures of immigration policies and the realities of residents without status.

This has occurred consistently over time. Since 1960, federal governments have introduced regularization programs that have granted over 230,000 non-status immigrants permanent residency status. One of the most successful regularization programs was the administrative review and the backlog clearance program that took place in the 1980s. This inclusive program resulted in approximately 160,000 applicants accepted. Any future regularization program that is created must be inclusive and accessible for all non-status people for it to make a true difference.

A regularization program also makes good economic sense. The financial and human resources required to apprehend, detain, and deport the thousands of non-status people currently living in Canada would cost much more in the long run than to establish an inclusive regularization program.

With many industries currently experiencing chronic labour shortages, the supply of available workers would help to alleviate this need.

Recognizing the critical role that non-status workers play, the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association and the construction recruitment for external workers services submitted regularization proposals to the federal government in 2003.

Just last year Parliament showed its support for non-status immigrants by passing a motion calling for a moratorium on all deportations for non-status people until immigration policies are revamped. However, the federal government, dismissing the will of Parliament, has failed to take any action on the motion.

In conjunction with regularization, we urge the federal government to act on this motion by introducing a moratorium on deportation until immigration policies are reformed.

In addition to a regularization program, other important related policy changes are needed. At present, the point system excludes many applicants despite the recognized need for their labour in Canada. Instead of revamping the point system to be more inclusive, the federal government in recent years has turned to an increased reliance on temporary migrant worker programs.

Between 2000 and 2006, the demand for temporary migrant workers has increased 110%, from 79,000 to 166,000. These programs give disproportionate powers to employers, offer workers little or no protection under Canadian labour laws, and for many provide no access to permanent residency.

We are also concerned with the impact of the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act contained in the current federal budget, Bill C-50, and urge members of the committee to reject this recent move.

The backlog of immigration cases is best addressed, as it has often been in the past, through a transparent regularization program rather than the individual decisions of a single member of Parliament.

In closing, we thank the committee for hearing our submission. We urge you to take action on regularization, as so many of your predecessors have done in the past. It is time for a new regularization program in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Castanos and Mr. Lyn.

Now we'll go to the Industrial Accident Victims' Group of Ontario, Alberto Lalli. Mr. Lalli.

[Alberto Lalli, Community Legal Worker, Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario]

Thank you for the invitation to participate in these hearings. Unfortunately, we received the invitation last Thursday, so we didn't have an opportunity to present any briefs, but if the committee wishes we will be glad to comply if we have time.

With me is Consuelo Rubio. She is going to speak too. She is well known to migrant workers. Actually it was through her legal challenge that they are now receiving parental benefits through EI.

My community legal clinic specializes in worker compensation law, so my submission will refer to that particular area concerning migrant workers.

Our involvement began in about 2006 with Justicia. We started to visit different farms in southwestern Ontario during the summer, with the intention of explaining and giving workshops to workers about their rights under workers' compensation legislation. We visited different farms during the day when we were allowed--at night we were not. We went to malls, and improvised workshops in parking lots and church basements. So what we say will reflect that experience.

We also had a series of meetings with senior management at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to get some changes in policy that affect migrant workers. We had some meetings with the Mexican consulate, because we are Spanish-speaking, in order to get some sort of help from them specific to migrant workers.

You more or less know from other depositions what the situation is with migrant workers. We agree with all of them. We feel that the main recommendation is to allow them to apply to become Canadian citizens, because that alone will prevent many of the problems they are facing now.

We have a number of recommendations that I would like to read into the record, based on our experience with migrant workers. First is to stop the unilateral repatriation and deportation of migrant workers for medical reasons, as Chris mentioned, especially when those medical reasons stem from accidents or illnesses related to their work.

Injured migrant workers are entitled to benefits and services from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, and those benefits and services, in addition to financial assistance, include regular medical attention and necessary treatment for as long as the doctors feel that those workers cannot return to work. If the contract ends in December, many of these workers are sent back to Mexico, in this case, where they don't get medical attention. Medical attention is geared to income there, so if you don't have money, you don't get any. Here they have medical attention.

We feel it's the federal government's obligation, because these people are working here and get injured here, so the least we can do is to make every possible effort to cure them before we send them back. For that reason, allow for extension of contracts when migrant workers are injured at work. This would permit the board to continue providing benefits and services, including any appropriate rehabilitation they would give to any Canadian worker.

Furthermore, if the worker is left with a permanent impairment, because they are not here and cannot be assessed by doctors they either lose the money they deserve and would get here, or it's years before the board can do something about it.

Another recommendation is to create mechanisms to guarantee the return of migrant workers injured at work if they can perform light-duty labour. That's an important thing, because many workers get injured here, are sent back, and are never recalled. People who are injured here are not allowed any extra benefits that they would be allowed if they could return, because the board has a policy in legislation based on that.

Lastly, the federal government should ensure that migrant workers receive information in their own language regarding their rights and responsibilities in a neutral, uncomplicated, and uncompromised manner. This task is currently left to foreign consulates, which, in addition to the country of entry, or perhaps because of it, provide information that is quite minimal and incomplete.

For example, this is the little pamphlet that the Mexican workers get from the embassy. There was nothing in 2006 indicating they could apply for workers' compensation benefits if they have an injury at work. We had a meeting with them, and the pamphlet for 2007 had a little thing saying that there is a WCB possibility. It is the responsibility of the federal government to inform the workers about their rights. This is not enough.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Consuelo Rubio is next.

[Consuela Rubio, Community Legal Worker, Centre for Spanish Speaking People, Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario]

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Bonjour.

I'll be very quick, because I don't think I have a lot of time here.

I've worked for the Centre for Spanish Speaking People for the past 30 years. I want to express its opposition to the creation and expansion of any more guest worker or temporary worker programs. The reason is based on our experience working with the predecessor programs that are in place right now: the temporary farm workers; the seasonal farm workers program; and the domestic program, the live-in caregivers program.

Although those workers are in guest worker programs, in our experience that is something of a misnomer. They should be called ghost workers programs. The reason why I say that is because once those people come into Canada, they become legal non-entities. They don't appear anywhere. There are a number of exceptions in the labour laws of Ontario and other provinces, for instance, where farm workers are not covered. Even in those areas where they are, enforcement of those rights, and protection under the act, is practically impossible.

As an example, Alberto mentioned that I had represented the first farm worker to ever obtain employment insurance benefits in Canada, and that was parental and pregnancy benefits. Farm workers--even though they pay into the plan--are not entitled to regular benefits once they become unemployed and go home.

I am an obstinate person, and I think that is why we got the benefits. I don't think that's an understatement. In fact, the HRDC office--even though those workers were entitled to those benefits--still treated them as non-existent by the very nature of their temporary status in Canada.

Another example is that even though farm workers pay under our pension plan, they are not entitled to old age security. Even though many of them have been coming to Canada for over twenty years, they're not considered residents of Canada, but merely present. You see people who have devoted their working lives to Canada, and yet they go home and they get a meager retirement pension with no old age security for them.

With respect to the mandate of the committee, this is lateral, but I think it's important to point out injustices whenever you have an opportunity to do so.

I thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

These are very good presentations, I must say.

Mr. Telegdi, you have seven minutes.

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

You mentioned a couple of issues that the committee had made recommendations on, one of them being the moratorium on deportation of undocumented workers. The other one was having the immigration appeal division implemented. That's something this committee, over the years, has spent a lot of time talking about and has made motions on. Obviously, it got ignored by the powers that be--be the ministers at the time Liberal or Conservative.

One of the arguments used in the past about implementing the immigration appeal division was that the backlog was too high--once they dealt with the backlog, they would implement it.

A couple of years ago the backlog was under control and was at its lowest number. This past year, because of the failure of the minister to appoint a full complement of IRB members--missing something like one-third--the backlogs went to a record level, and they're growing.

We've created a crisis at the Immigration and Refugee Board. As much as the committee jumps up and down about it and makes noises, we manage to get ignored by the ministers. But I dare say that in most cases it's the bureaucracy, because the ministers really don't know how to run the department. They rely too heavily on the bureaucracy.

The changes proposed in Bill C-50 will give almost absolute control to the bureaucracy. When you give the minister power, let's not kid ourselves, it's not the minister who's going to do it, it's the bureaucrats. So we have the bureaucrats having created a crisis with undocumented workers by changing the point system and having the various ministers go along with it. Now we have the same situation applying to the backlog of refugees. Of course, Bill C-50 would ultimately finalize their control.

My question, my challenge to you is that you're really going to have to go forth in your community--and it has to happen across the country--and expose this plan around Bill C-50 . We need to have big debates, and people need to be made aware. I don't want to see this turn into immigrant bashing, which is what I sense coming from this government. We have to have the debate across Canada. Ultimately, if I had my way, we'd bring down the government over it. But first of all we need to have that debate.

My challenge to you is to make people in your community as aware as you possibly can. If we don't do that, like I said, we're giving de facto control to the bureaucracy.

Are there any comments?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Whoever wishes to comment, just jump in.

[Consuelo Rubio]

I have a quick comment with respect to the backlog.

I was surprised to hear that in the last year Canada issued, with incredible speed, over 130,000 work authorizations for temporary workers. Yet we're unable to process members of the family class with the same celerity.

My comment to the committee is that the government has its priorities wrong. Family reunification has been a pillar of our immigration policies throughout the years I've lived in Canada. As a person living in this country, I'm concerned about this shift.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Very good.

Is there anyone else who wants to comment on Mr. Telegdi's question?

Mr. Ramsaroop.

[Chris Ramsaroop]

Thank you.

My challenge back to this committee is that excluded in this discussion are those temporary workers, right? We're talking about backlogs, but we also have to talk about repatriation and deportation of these migrant agricultural workers, live-in caregivers, and other temporary workers.

When we're hearing these cases and bringing them forward to you, we think it's imperative that you take a stand, that you basically take up our challenge of making sure that there's justice for these workers and that they're treated with the humanity and respect they deserve.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Ramsaroop.

Mr. Lyn.

[André Lyn]

I have a quick question about the backlog. Why can't the motion that was passed about having the moratorium on deportations be effective at the same time they're clearing the backlog? What's the bureaucratic humbug in doing both simultaneously?

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

I'll give you a guess. What I found with the bureaucracy over the years is that the deputy ministers aren't out there to protect their ministers; the deputy ministers are out there to protect their previous bad decisions. We have that with the undocumented workers, because that obviously is the result of changing the point system in 2002 that they thought that was going to be the panacea to solving the backlog.

What they're proposing now, since they have proven themselves consistently to be very bad decision-makers, is that we give them more power, which doesn't get questioned, which doesn't become transparent, and they certainly don't become accountable.

I'm just throwing that reality out to you, having been on the committee for ten years and having watched various ministers come and go. It's not just the Conservative ministers. We had a slew of Liberal ministers who did not know what they were doing. And the committee pointed out to them very clearly that they were going down the wrong path, and they still went down the wrong path, and now we have a real mess.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Mr. St-Cyr.

You all have your translating units here.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Maybe they understand French.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Maybe they understand French and they won't need any translation.

Mr. St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be splitting my time with my colleague Mr. Carrier.

My question is for the people from the Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario.

Mr. Lalli, you said in your presentation that the federal government had a responsibility to workers. A number of witnesses have told us that it was not easy to get the federal government and the province on the same page, that the two governments were playing ping-pong.

Because most powers relating to employment—labour standards, occupational safety and training, for example—, are provincial, would it not be more efficient to transfer all of the administration, the selection and the process to be followed by temporary foreign workers, to the provinces? Rather than sharing those powers, the provinces would take over full responsibility for them.

[Alberto Lalli]

Yes, I think it would be a good idea if the provincial governments received the proper funds to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Carriere, you have four and a half minutes.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

I am going to continue on the same line as my colleague. We are here representing Quebec and we have the impression that there is relatively good compliance with labour standards there. We started our hearings in Vancouver, and we are gradually moving east, and we will get to Montreal on Thursday. The week after, we will be in Quebec City. We will be confirming this when we are there.

As Mr. Telegdi said earlier, I have not been on the Citizenship an Immigration Committee for 10 years. When I was first joined the committee, last fall, the Minister had just tabled her annual report. She said she had increased the number of temporary workers, particularly in Alberta, and this was what she was proudest of. I pointed out to her that there were other important problems in the area of immigration.

As members of Parliament, we have to deal with tragic immigration cases every day, some of which involve family reunification. Recently, at these hearings, I learned about the whole problem associated with the use of temporary workers. This is really not a good solution. We have been told about cases where there has been exploitation. The workers were not aware of their rights. The only people who have said that it would be good to increase the number of temporary workers were employers who need that workforce. This is supposedly to benefit the Canadian economy, except that we know very well that entrepreneurs are concerned with their own interests first.

Some people have said that treating people like this is practically shameful for our country. I really see that the solution is not to keep this kind of system, it is to improve our immigration system. We could maybe give preference to people who have been temporary workers for several years, process their applications, establish a special program to expedite it all.

All this government is proposing is to give the Minister discretion to make decisions for solving the backlog problem. Myself, I am very disappointed with what the government is doing. It has decided to include these provisions, which went through virtually unnoticed, in a bill about the budget, rather than submitting them to our committee so we could debate them. As a rule, we are the ones most capable of dealing with these issues.

Do you think that as responsible members of Parliament, each member of our committee, we should hold to our position, or let the government do what it wants despite the fact that it has a minority? Do you think we should let it do as it pleases, as if it had a majority, or that the problem is so serious that we should vote against that decision? This is where you get to state your opinion about this. If you follow Canadian politics, you know that the more time goes by, the harder it is for the opposition parties to reach a consensus so they can stand firm on positions.