Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 9th, 2008

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I had a question for Mr. Busby, who is a policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute. Our committee has heard evidence since last week and there have been at least 20 or so hearings to date. It seems clear that temporary workers are not the magic solution. A number of witnesses criticized the exploitation of those people and talked about cases of abuse in the area of housing. We talked about potentially granting them citizenship. That's an issue.

Today we're hearing from people representing an economic institute that should provide us with an economic focus to assist us in resolving the situation. That may differ from other solutions considered. The solutions you're suggesting concern occupational training and labour mobility. I sincerely think that those solutions have already been implemented; they're not new. That's being done on a permanent basis and it hasn't solved the problem. That's why we resort to temporary workers.

Don't you think that Canada has a responsibility for economic fairness in the country. There's currently a degree of hyperactivity in one region, and that has resulted in an increase in the value of our dollar. This is causing problems in other regions, like the Quebec region, where we export a great deal. The turnover of a lot of medium-size businesses is declining because of this drop in exports, which in turn is due to the increase in our dollar, which in turn is caused by the situation prevailing in the west.

I would have liked you to make some economic recommendations to solve the problem. We're discussing temporary workers, but we won't find the solution that way. Don't you think the federal government should compensate those regions that are suffering as a result of other regions?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Make it a short response, please.

[Colin Busby]

Sure.

You're saying the only other appropriate action here is for the federal government to intervene in the monetary policy, and that's not something I would recommend. If that were the only other potential action to modify the problem being caused for manufacturers because of the exchange rate, I wouldn't recommend it.

These are market signals. The demands for western Canada's resources aren't necessarily coming from within the country; they're coming from our trade links with other countries. These are signals that are beyond our control, and our policy at the federal level risks doing further damage if there's monetary policy intervention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi, you had a point of clarification for the witness.

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

Hedging to assist small business can be done by an agency of the government, because we have a terrible problem with small manufacturers being done in by the wild fluctuation in the dollar.

Professor Goldring, I really agree with your point on the “Don't ask, don't tell” policy. I wish the parliamentary secretary were here. He'd love to hear that.

On the other situation, where a young woman was sexually assaulted, she came out of the shadows to report it and then the bureaucracy was going to deport her. But because of the actions of a number of ministers in the Conservative government--and I don't praise the Conservatives often, but I will in this case--we were able to stop that.

That is very important, because from a public policy perspective we don't want hundreds of thousands of people with precarious status not reporting crimes; that would be terrible. It also underlines the need for political decision-making rather than bureaucratic. The bureaucrats were the ones who made the decision to deport her, but because of political interference they saw the public policy goal and did the right thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That's a good point.

Thank you for being here today and being witnesses at our meeting. We'll be making some good recommendations based on what you've told us. Thank you very much.

I now want to welcome Silvia Bendo executive director, from the Construction Recruitment External Workers Services, and the Building Industry and Land Development Association. As individuals we have Jenna Hennebry, assistant professor, departments of communications studies and sociology, Wilfred Laurier University; and Joyce Reynolds, executive VP, government affairs, from the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association.

Welcome to all of you.

Maybe we can begin with your opening statement, Ms. Bendo, Ms. Hennebry or Ms. Reynolds--whoever wishes to go first. If you have opening statements you want to make, feel free.

[Silvia Bendo, Executive Director, Construction Recruitment External Workers Services (CREWS) and Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD)]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. My name is Silvia Bendo. I'm the executive director of CREWS, Construction Recruitment External Workers Services.

CREWS is a service offered through the Building Industry and Land Development Association, formerly known as the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association and the Urban Development Institute. With more than 1,500 members, BILD is the voice of the residential land development, home building, and professional renovation industry in the Greater Toronto Area. We are proudly affiliated with the Ontario and the Canadian Home Builders' Association.

I am pleased to be afforded the opportunity to present the residential construction industry's views with respect to temporary foreign workers and undocumented workers. Both BILD and CREWS have had some hands-on experience with the temporary foreign worker program through our involvement with the construction industry memorandum of understanding between the GTHBA and the federal government.

CREWS was established in 2001 to assist employers with their labour supply needs by facilitating the foreign worker application process. Although the MOU formally ended in September 2007, CREWS is continuing to operate to support our members' needs by again helping them with their application processing.

In addition, we continue to support any and all efforts to increase the supply of skilled labour in our industry, including training and apprenticeship programs. Unfortunately, this does not meet all our industry's needs. With an aging workforce in several of the trades and in management positions, our industry requires action on all fronts to assure a healthy and stable supply of labour.

Within the temporary foreign worker program, one of the recommendations I would suggest is that the process for transferring foreign workers from one employer to another within Canada be streamlined. Currently the paperwork takes, at best, two months to process. During this time, workers can be left unemployed, and employers are prevented from using the skills and experience of these foreign workers.

Traditionally, the objective of the temporary foreign worker program was to meet temporary labour demands in the country. The reality is that most temporary foreign workers within our jurisdiction see the temporary foreign worker program as a stepping stone to permanent residency, although they don't even qualify for that. But that's another topic.

With respect to undocumented workers, we all know that they are here, and the plight of these workers must be addressed. Some of the undocumented workers have been lucky enough to regularize their status through the temporary foreign worker program. However, there are still many more out there who are discouraged from pursuing this route because they are not from visa-exempt countries or because of negative decisions from similarly positioned people at their visa posts abroad.

To ensure some fairness in our system, a regularization initiative needs to be devised that will ensure that our skill and labour supply remains in Canada. An inland regularization program that would result in the issuance of a temporary work permit for a period of at least two years could be one solution. During this time, these foreign nationals could then pursue permanent residency.

It should be noted, too, that many of our members are not knowingly employing undocumented workers. Our builder members secure their labour through labour agreements and through trade contractor agreements. The contractors, in turn, hire subcontractors to meet their labour needs.

The undocumented worker is sometimes a failed refugee claimant who, in the eyes of the employer, is suddenly deported.

I thank you for your attention. Overall, we request that this committee support immigration initiatives that will address the labour supply needs of the residential construction industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Hennebry.

[Jenna L. Hennebry, Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for inviting me here today.

Let me start by saying that what I plan to say to you today is based on my extensive research on this topic for the last six years. This includes interviews with migrant workers, growers, other employers, members of the foreign worker program, as well as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and others. I began publishing based on this material, and some of it you can find: I have a report with the Public Health Agency of Canada, and publication forthcoming in the journal, Canadian Studies in Population.

I recently received funding from the Public Health Agency to do a quantitative survey of migrant workers' health issues, as well as received some support through CERIS, the Ontario Metropolis Centre's immigration research group.

I know there are a number of areas worth pointing out with respect to this, but in the interests of time, I want to focus on some of the most prevalent issues. I've grouped them into five areas, and I'm going to concentrate on the last three.

First, I want to point to the vulnerability or potential vulnerability of foreign workers under this system, both in terms of the foreign worker program, but also the other programs like the seasonal agricultural worker program, and health and safety issues, regulations, monitoring and statistics, workplace cohesion, and I'll make some comments about immigration policy.

With respect to the vulnerability of foreign workers, I think it's important—and I'm sure others have already started to point this out—to recognize that because foreign workers are tied to the employers contractually and typically do not have open work permits, they are tied to their employer. The bilateral agreements in place—for example, in the seasonal agricultural worker program—with sending countries like Mexico have allowed for direct protection from the workers' country of citizenship. However, the recent program initiatives and the expansion of the foreign worker program do not operate through these bilateral agreements.

I'm also concerned about third party recruiters and employment agencies, who have played a significant role for employers in locating workers and setting up contracts. These groups are not regulated, particularly in Ontario. They are regulated in Manitoba, and I would urge Ontario and other provinces to adopt a similar framework.

Foreign workers are not eligible for most settlement services, because those are geared towards permanent migrants, and if they have many needs, they're not being addressed. This causes problems for funding and also for estimating the kinds of services these areas can provide.

With regard to health and safety, a number of things have emerged here. Let me just say that with the expansion into the NOC C and D categories of the low-skill pilot program, we have increased foreign workers not just in agriculture, but also in other areas of the economy, as we've seen in construction and manufacturing. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board's annual report for 2006 estimated that most of these sectors are where the higher rates of workplace injury are taking place. There are some statistics in your notes with respect to this.

The other point I want to make is with respect to monitoring and evaluation, and inadequate guidelines, regulations and provisions, not just for workers but also for employers, who are finding they are struggling to handle a changing workforce and set of relationships with different employees.

With respect to community health, through my work with the Public Health Agency of Canada, I know they are very concerned about the potential dissemination of health problems. I would argue that poor health and safety on farms, and among the more than 20,000 agricultural foreign workers we have, may translate into higher risks for Canadian food production and Canadian food. It's also good that we show this for those involved in other areas of the food sector in different sectors of the economy.

With respect to the Canadian health care system, we have an already overburdened health care system and there's insufficient funding and training to address the myriad health care needs of temporary migrant populations, particularly in the long run.

With respect to regulation and monitoring statistics, this is something that really concerns me, because there's insufficient monitoring of the foreign worker program at a federal level, at provincial levels, and at municipal levels. There's very little direct government involvement. There's no independent body charged with monitoring and evaluating the program. Only in the seasonal agricultural worker program do we have a group, called FARMS, and that group represents mostly the interests of growers and farmers.

It's difficult to obtain quantitative data and statistics on abuse, complaints, return migrants, contract violations, lengths of stay, refugee and permanent residency applicants, rates of attrition, numbers of workers who go AWOL, or overstay work permits. I feel it's a really difficult situation to be in for either a researcher or a service-level or health care practitioner in terms of trying to estimate the kinds of service demands that temporary populations will put on our social and health systems.

With respect to workplace cohesion, there are a number of issues. The lack of information, language training, and cross-cultural sensitivity training for both employers and workers can lead to conditions that are ripe for racism, discrimination, and violence.

I would like to end on a few reflections with respect to the Canadian immigration policy. First of all, I think a foreign worker program encourages a more hierarchical system, one that's based on country of origin, particularly for the seasonal agricultural worker program, where employers basically select their workers based on their country of origin.

I also think that with respect to status transitioning, using the provincial nominee program in conjunction with the temporary foreign worker program is good on the one hand, because it's a channel for permanent status and it allows workers to get a regular status and get access to settlement services. This is working in Brandon, Manitoba, where approximately 538 Maple Leaf Foods employees have applied for permanent status through their provincial nominee program. Most of them are receiving it. However, this still is binding migrants to employers, so I'd be hesitant to use that as the only avenue for permanent residency for that group.

With respect to the private interests that I see driving policy here, I was just at the Metropolis Conference in Halifax. It was contended there that the farm worker program is not expanding, it is employer-driven. This is what keeps being said. What concerns me is that this means there's no cap on foreign workers, and it means we have an employer-driven immigration system, putting nation building in the hands of the private sector--not to mention the role of the third party recruiters in this process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Hennebry.

To the new people who've come in, if you require a translation device--some of our members will be speaking French a little bit later on--just raise your hand and we'll have somebody bring it down to you.

Ms. Reynolds, you have seven minutes.

[Joyce Reynolds, Executive Vice-President, Government Affairs, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The labour shortage is the number one issue facing Canada's $58 billion, one-million-employee food service industry, so I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today about the temporary foreign worker program. Canada's labour shortage is a long-term demographic trend that is challenging all developed countries and industries. The outlook for the food service industry is particularly serious. Over the next 10 years, Canada's food service industry will need to add 190,000 new workers. Youth between the ages of 15 and 24 account for 44% of all food service workers in Canada today, yet between now and 2025, the number of youth in Canada will decrease by 345,000.

There are restaurant operators in western Canada, where the labour shortage is already a crisis, who would have been forced to close their doors if not for the temporary foreign worker program.

I want to say that improvements to the temporary foreign worker program over the last couple of years have been very welcome, but challenges remain.

Prevailing wage rates--and the methodology used to set them--is a pressing issue for my industry. Our members are frustrated by their inability to access the temporary foreign worker program due to artificially high wage rate demands. Service Canada officials dismiss the Statistics Canada wage rate data and other comprehensive third party compensation surveys, and in each region within each province, different and arbitrary methodologies are used to determine prevailing wage rates.

Prevailing wage rates are often significantly higher than the wages food service employers pay to their experienced domestic employees. There have been ongoing meetings between CRFA, HRDSC, and Service Canada officials about inaccurate data sources, lack of transparency, and lack of consistency in the prevailing wage-setting process. HRDSC officials acknowledge that there are problems and are currently undertaking a comprehensive review.

Our recommendations to this committee are, first, to accelerate the process of developing new methodology and criteria for determining prevailing wage rates that better reflect actual industry wages and, second, to ensure that the underlying policy on determining prevailing wage rates is market rate neutral and does not have the effect of putting upward pressure on wage rates.

I next want to touch on the importance on ensuring the long-term integrity of the temporary foreign worker program.

CRFA supports increased monitoring and compliance mechanisms for this program, and better communications between provincial governments and the federal government in this regard. We support the recommendation in the Federal Labour Standards Review Commission report to deny access to the temporary foreign worker program to employers who repeatedly or systematically violate provincial labour standards or the terms of their employment agreement. There has to be due process, of course, but the program is too important to let a few bad employers unfairly tarnish it.

CRFA also supports recent actions by provincial governments to regulate immigration representatives or consultants or recruiters to prevent the exploitation of workers. We would welcome more federal government involvement in this area as well.

I want to refute the notion that temporary foreign workers are not free to find work, and I also want to express concerns about the ease with which employers can hire temporary foreign workers brought to Canada by other employers without having to share in the significant recruitment and return airfare costs. Employers bringing in lower-skilled workers to Canada--i.e., NOC codes C and D--are required to pay for return airfare. In addition, they pay recruitment fees in the range of $2,000 to $3,000 per employee. They provide training, orientation to Canada, on-ground transportation, accommodation, and in many cases home furnishings, TV sets, boots, winter clothing, and so on.

A second employer can get a temporary foreign worker permit for the same worker and avoid the recruitment and start-up costs. There's no way to ensure the responsibility for return airfare and recruitment costs is transferred to the second employer if the worker leaves before the end of the contracted period.

As a result, CRFA's recommendations are to continue efforts to educate employers and temporary foreign workers about their rights and responsibilities under the temporary foreign worker program, to invest in additional monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to protect workers and the integrity of the program, and to ensure that the cost of initial airfare and recruitment for lower-skilled temporary foreign workers is transferred to the second employer and the third employer and the fourth employer on a pro-rated basis if a temporary foreign worker moves from one employer to another during his or her permit period in Canada.

Our operators are also concerned about the high percentage of application rejections for LMOs in some regions compared to others, inconsistencies in how the program is administered, and anomalies in how the occupations-under-pressure lists are developed--in particular the omission of cooks, since this is the most in-demand food service occupation.

CRFA recommends that government provide appropriate training, transparent guidelines, and incentives to foreign worker staff to reflect modernized objectives and to ensure consistent application of regulations; in conjunction with industry, re-evaluate the methodology and criteria used to establish occupation-under-pressure lists and E-LMO eligibility lists, particularly with regard to cooks; and allocate the necessary resources to regional Service Canada offices for the efficient processing of labour market opinions and temporary foreign worker applications.

I'd also like to speak about Canada's immigration system in relation to the temporary foreign worker program. We believe the immigration system needs to be overhauled and that the philosophy and culture of immigration policy has to change. The competition among developed countries for workers has already begun, and Canada needs to better establish itself as a country of choice.

Our immigration laws were established when labour market conditions were very different, and these laws need to be updated to reflect the new reality of labour shortage both in Canada and globally. Our current system is biased against low-skilled and semi-skilled workers, and there is no bridge between temporary foreign workers and permanent residency for low-skilled workers.

We were pleased to see a new immigration class established for temporary foreign workers who want to apply for permanent residence status without having to leave Canada. However, this new immigration stream is available only to workers in NOC codes A, B and O, and therefore not applicable to the majority of foreign workers in the food service industry.

Our recommendations are to revise the point system to better match labour market needs and to expand the Canadian-experience class of immigration to include NOC codes C and D so that Canadian job experience acquired by lower-skilled temporary foreign workers is recognized and will be weighted in their application for permanent residency.

To conclude, I want to emphasize that the labour shortage is the greatest single issue facing operators in the food service industry. It is not unique to our industry or country. It is not simply a skill shortage, it's a people shortage that is crippling our efforts to attract skilled, semi-skilled, and low-skilled workers. We need a long-term vision in Canada for attracting workers.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Reynolds.

Thank you to all of you for your good presentations. Now we'll have some interaction with our committee members.

I'll go first of all to Mr. St-Cyr.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all for coming to appear before us today.

Ms. Hennebry, you talked about vulnerability in your presentation, saying that work permits for foreign workers were closed. You said that, in some cases, there were bilateral agreements between countries. You didn't have a lot of time to develop that idea.

Could you explain to us the nature of those bilateral agreements, and tell us what their consequences are for workers?

[Jenna L. Hennebry]

With respect to the bilateral agreements, as far as I understand, the first memoranda of understanding were in 1964, and later on we had bilateral agreements with Mexico, with the organization of Caribbean states, and more recently with Guatemala. These are mostly focused on agriculture, to bring workers from particular countries into agriculture. They are agreements that were formed between those countries.

My comment about not being able to move employers was that, yes, it can happen, but it has to be employer-driven and permission has to be given from employers. There are differences between the management of the seasonal agricultural worker program and the way in which the foreign worker program deals with that kind of process. I just wanted to raise that as one way of showing the differences between the two programs.

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

Having heard the testimony of a number of individuals on this point, I have no trouble believing that the fact that work permits are closed puts workers in a situation of great vulnerability. These permits are assigned to particular employers, with little opportunity for the workers to change employers. In some cases, it's even impossible. I would agree to the idea of allowing workers to change employers, as we allow Canadian residents to do. That said, employers often tell us—and I believe Ms. Reynolds has done that—that they have to pay for worker transportation and recruitment. I think we could make the opportunity to change employers subject to the condition that the new employer compensate the first employer.

Do you find that suitable?

[Jenna L. Hennebry]

That is a reasonable recommendation. If one employer is paying the initial fees and the second employer is able to pick up that worker, then there needs to be some fair way of assessing that.

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

In your presentation, you talked, in particular, about Maple Leaf Foods, a company that operates in the meat industry. That company employs a number of foreign workers who come to work in Ontario, if I understand correctly.

In their presentation in Moose Jaw, if I remember correctly, representatives of Maple Leaf Foods even told us that the company had been denied the possibility of hiring foreign workers in Quebec because the wages offered them were not high enough. I answered them that, in Quebec, the meat industry has laid off large numbers of workers. It doesn't seem very realistic to claim that there's a labour shortage when you lay off massive numbers of workers and close down plants.

Instead I think that's a way to get cheap labour, not to offset a genuine shortage.

Is that also the case in Ontario? Is there a labour shortage in the meat industry in Ontario? Is it your impression that that employer, like others—I don't want to criticize that employer in particular—is using this program to get cheap labour, not to meet a shortage?

[Jenna L. Hennebry]

My point in bringing up the situation with Maple Leaf Foods in Manitoba was to talk instead about the options available to foreign workers once they are here. I was trying to point to the fact that of all the farm workers who came here, at Maple Leaf Foods all of them wanted to apply for provincial nominee status and wanted to have permanent residency, and almost all of them were given it. I wanted to point out that temporary migration is never temporary. Workers want to stay, whether it is undocumented or otherwise, quite often. It depends on the sector and it depends on where they're from. I think that's important to realize--there is variability.

I wanted to say that it was one channel by which there was an option for permanent status, but I don't think it's the best, and that is for a whole host of reasons. One has to do with the undercutting of labour costs and undercutting of Canadian workers. That is a real problem. They're being used to push wage rates down, and that's an issue. In terms of estimating labour market demand, there is a whole host of problems there, not to mention the process of getting a labour market opinion and how that seems to be. I would agree with Joyce, as well, that there are some inconsistencies with regard to how that's being determined. We need more systematic study on the long-term labour shortages in those areas, before we just simply insert temporary workers that we can use to undercut the costs and keep businesses afloat that maybe should rethink their business model.

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

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have 15 or 20 seconds, but it's okay. We have plenty of time.

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

I simply want to add that, when you study labour needs, it seems to me you have to take wages into account. If an industry is offering inadequate wages and poor working conditions, it will find no one to meet its needs, except perhaps foreign workers who would have even tougher conditions in their country.

How can we determine whether there is a genuine labour shortage in a certain field? Is it only a matter of poor working conditions? Then we could solve the problem by improving working conditions.

[Jenna L. Hennebry]

The problem comes with trying to assess across the board in a sector if a labour shortage or working conditions is the main reason why you're having trouble attracting employees. There are a lot of factors that lead to trouble attracting employees in these sectors. Many of them are demographic--urbanization, education levels, fertility rates. There is a whole host of issues that go into interpreting that.

With respect to the foreign worker program, I see that this is being used to address those needs, and my concern would be to pay attention and regulate those areas, regulate the living and working conditions, in particular the working conditions for foreign workers in companies that have foreign workers, as compared with simply saying that we have to have a better way of assessing working conditions. My concern is that this would then lead to people just saying either that we either need to scrap it altogether or we can't use that meaningfully. I would like to see a more detailed evaluation of employers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi, do you want some time? You can have seven minutes.

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

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Professor Hennebry. I thought we might have seen you in Waterloo.

[Jenna L. Hennebry]

Thank you, but I was at Metropolis Conference in Halifax.