Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 7th, 2023

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Yes, we do stress—and it is important to remind people—that a temporary work opportunity in Canada is not a guarantee for permanent residence or, by extension, citizenship, but there are opportunities.

It's, for example, why there is a bit of confusion when we talk about our levels plan, which we have fixed at 465,000 for this year, 485,000 for the next and then 500,000 for the next. Thirty-five per cent of those are people who are already here. I would say that about 100,000 plus or so come from one or two of these streams. They qualify under any of our public policies dealing with a pathway to permanent residence as part of people's experience here.

As we are looking at some of the reforms to public policy, it's important to say, as I've said publicly, that Canada is to some extent addicted to temporary foreign work. It does create perverse incentives—no need in denying that. One of the ways to make sure we don't continue on a bit of a vicious cycle is to offer people who have the expertise, talent and desire to stay in Canada—and not everyone wants to stay here—the opportunity to do so.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

On the seasonal agricultural worker program, you talked earlier about the “bad apples”. What do you think are the obligations of the employers in terms of housing when they're hiring under the agriculture stream? Also, in addressing this “bad apple” situation that we're talking about, what are the already outlined obligations of the employer?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

The obligations of the employer are very similar to what any regular employer of Canadians or Canadian permanent residents would have. I think that because of the temporary nature aspect of things, in a sense, sometimes people are bound to a particular situation, and given sometimes as well their own socio-economic condition in their own home countries. They feel beholden and sometimes are unable or unwilling to speak up if something bad happens, even something small, for fear of being sent back without being paid.

That leads to a lot of people not exercising their rights and therefore having no ability to enforce their rights. It varies depending on the program, but as I mentioned in my opening remarks, there is an obligation to bring people here and to pay for that and to return them. There is an obligation to house them in good living conditions.

Also, I think there are new and stronger protections to make sure employers know that they're not able to recover and charge recruitment fees, and for making sure that labourers have information on their rights and access to health care as well, all as part of the context of mandatory employment agreements. Those are more robust elements that will help safeguard the integrity of the system.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

The UN special rapporteur, in his recommendations, did mention creating “a clear pathway” for residency for temporary foreign workers. What kind of work is IRCC doing right now to ensure that is one of the recommendations that is respected?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I'm looking at a number of options.

Again, with what I mentioned to your colleague from the Conservative Party, we are currently looking at a number of options to make sure that in the temporary foreign worker space—whether it's in the construction space where we need more people and they have to come from abroad as we cannot generate that domestically entirely—there is a pathway to permanent residence, for example, and then, by extension, Canadian citizenship.

I'm really eager to look at the report of this committee and that of the Senate to see what other recommendations come out, because, again, we're not dogmatic about things. If there's something that makes sense, we're willing to explore it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, honourable member.

We'll go to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for six minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again for being here, Minister. It's a pleasure to have you.

I want to revisit what the UN special rapporteur said. It is significant, after all. You were questioned about it, and in response to a Conservative member's question, you tried to skirt the issue. You said that you didn't know what the descendants of former slaves would think of that characterization. The UN special rapporteur referred to contemporary forms of slavery, and that's exactly what this is. It has nothing to do with what happened in the past. You don't need a Ph.D. in nuclear physics to understand what is meant by contemporary forms of slavery.

Do you see nothing wrong with the UN special rapporteur describing practices in Canada as contemporary forms of slavery? If you think it's okay, do you agree with what he said?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Let me be clear, and I believe I said this earlier. I don't necessarily agree with what he said.

My focus is on the facts behind his statements and his conclusion. The UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery is certainly entitled to his opinion. I'm not trying to demonize or diminish him in any way by disagreeing with what he said, but I want to look at the facts behind his conclusion. If anything at all even smelled of contemporary slavery, it would be deeply concerning to me.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

For your information, Minister, I'm going to read out a definition of contemporary slavery: work exacted from a person who is being coerced, physically threatened, dehumanized or deprived of their freedom of movement. We've seen media reports of people who came to Canada on a visitor visa and had their passport taken away from them. They were told that, if they didn't work, they wouldn't get their work permit. For every case of abuse we hear about, there are probably 20 more we will never know about, because people are scared to say anything. Obviously, they don't want to jeopardize their family's financial situation.

You can disagree with what the UN special rapporteur said, but I think the practice of issuing closed work permits creates a breeding ground for this kind of abuse.

I don't know everything and I don't have all the answers. That's precisely why the Bloc Québécois proposed this study to the committee in the first place. I'd like to know what you think. There's no right or wrong answer.

All we know is that the status quo can't go on if a UN special rapporteur says Canada's practices resemble contemporary slavery. Do you agree with me?

It's a straightforward question. Should we keep doing what we're doing and not change anything?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

It disturbs me tremendously. Obviously, the status quo can't go on, especially for the people who were the subject of the study. As I told the Conservative member, however, I don't think doing away with closed permits will help us get where we need to be.

A lot of farmers take great pride in their work, and they are exemplary employers. I don't want to make all employers out to be villains, but clearly, there is somewhat of a breeding ground for abuse. We have to take a reasoned and reasonable approach, and put measures in place that will truly stamp out the issues flagged by the UN special rapporteur.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

We agree on that, then. This isn't a partisan debate.

Giving everyone open permits does carry an element of risk for good employers, who invested a lot of money into bringing those workers here. Workers with open permits can quit if some business owner offers them a dollar more an hour, as soon as they get here.

There's a lot of talk about sector-specific permits. A lot of people in Quebec are talking about region-specific permits, which would be issued according to administrative regions in Quebec.

Is the department exploring those possibilities?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Yes, we are.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

I'm going to switch topics, Minister.

I was surprised to learn that, in your consultations on the immigration levels plan, only 6% of the respondents you surveyed were from Quebec. You consulted only organizations with a Canadian mandate. This is a quote from your report: “By virtue of the Canada–Québec Accord, IRCC only engages organizations that operate in Québec with a national mandate, as Québec is solely responsible for immigration planning in its own jurisdiction. As such, a smaller proportion of organizations were invited to participate in this year’s online survey.”

What I take from that is that organizations with a Quebec-only mandate that wanted to provide input were tossed aside.

Do I have that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

You have 40 seconds.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

They weren't tossed aside, but—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

They were denied the opportunity, were they not?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

The reason I'm smiling is that Quebec told us specifically that it didn't want us to consult those people. The minister told me personally that she preferred I not reach out directly to universities, which I didn't agree to, obviously. We have to be able to talk to who we want to talk to. The reality, however, is that, in order to adhere to the accord with Quebec, we had to limit our interactions with Quebec organizations.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

You're saying that Quebec is the reason why you didn't speak with those stakeholders.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

That's partly why.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Your time is over.

We'll go to Madam Kwan.

You have six minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The UN rapporteur actually said that Canada's temporary foreign worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery”. He called on the government to do better to protect workers' rights. He also offered that he was “deeply disturbed by the accounts of exploitation and abuse shared with [him] by migrant workers.” He got that information from the people on the ground with that direct experience.

One thing he highlighted was that “employer-specific work permit regimes...make migrant workers vulnerable to contemporary forms of slavery, [and] they cannot report abuses without fear of deportation.”

Those are his words.

In 2019, the immigration committee actually studied this issue. It issued a report on temporary foreign workers and non-status workers. It recommended that the government discontinue employer-specific work permits.

In 2016, the HUMA committee also did a study and made a report on the temporary foreign worker program. It found that employer-specific work permits “place migrant workers in a vulnerable position with negative implications for their physical and mental well-being.” It recommended that “immediate steps” be taken to eliminate employer-specific work permits.

In 2019, when it implemented the open work permit for vulnerable workers policy, Canada acknowledged that employer-specific work permits create a power imbalance that “favours the employer and can result in a migrant worker enduring situations of misconduct, abuse or other forms of employer retribution.”

We have seen numerous reports and recommendations to the government to take this action. Here we are in the immigration committee in 2023 studying this issue once again.

I think the evidence is there. If the minister talks to the migrant workers and the advocates from that community, he will hear from them that one thing that needs to be done is for the Canadian government to get rid of the closed work permits. Better still, they're calling on the government to give them landed status on arrival and regularize the workers who are here.

As a first step, would the minister actually bring forward the recommendation that has already come from multiple committees to minimize the abuse that migrant workers face, which is to give them an open work permit?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Again, without getting ahead of myself, I think it's safe to say that my colleague, Randy Boissonault, speaks with me. He does administer the program.

It's something that we are looking at and considering. I've mentioned to your colleagues that we're willing to revisit the conditions of the issuances of closed work permits and maybe even consider a more regionally natured one.

I do also want to stress that the nature of the work permit may create conditions that create a sentiment that people can't speak up. The abuse can exists independently, as well. We need to address that first and foremost.

There have been regulatory changes in the last few years, so I wouldn't say that nothing has happened, but clearly once these instances get documented again and again, we need to do something.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I have spoken with migrant workers who have been subject to this abuse. They feel that they can't speak up.

By the way, for some people, the abuse was so extensive that they couldn't stay in that employment anymore. Then they go to apply for open work permit and guess what. IRCC tells them they're not qualified because they left their employment.

We're saying to the migrant workers to stay there and continue to be abused while we process and investigate whether or not they're really being abused.

You can understand how impossible that is. If they lose that employment, people are without any resources. They are here alone. What are they supposed to do?

The current programs, no matter what the fix is, have not worked so far. We have been talking about this for decades now. I've been here for eight years. Prior to this, studies were done. Now you're saying that the government is looking at it again. How many decades does a person have to wait for the government to do the right thing?

I'm simply saying to the government that the time to act is now. It's not time to say that we'll this study some more because we have done this over and over again at different committees through different decades.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

I don't really disagree with you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

The other thing I want to get to is this. In 2021, the temporary foreign workers numbers jumped to 770,000. That is a staggering number. We're bringing in more temporary foreign workers than we're bringing in those with permanent resident status.

When you do that, the minister knows—and I know you know—that when we deprive people of their status and their full rights, they're subject to exploitation.

Would the minister agree with the sentiment and the principle that if you're good enough to work here, you're good enough to stay? If a person comes to Canada, wants to work and if they want to stay, shouldn't they be given the opportunity to have landed status on arrival?