International Trade Committee on April 19th, 2016

[Gil McGowan]

Yes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

All right, good. I'm glad you said it. Maybe you can just address that.

[Gil McGowan]

Without a doubt.

I was trying to be diplomatic.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Don't be diplomatic.

[Gil McGowan]

I don't think there's any good reason why temporary foreign workers should be brought into the country to work in regions of the country where we have high rates of unemployment.

I know one of the reasons the Liberal government has now agreed to a review of the temporary foreign worker program is that they're being pressured by employers. Fish plants in the Maritimes say they can't find workers. I say bunk.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'm glad you brought that up, because there seemed to be a disconnect.

[Gil McGowan]

Yes, I was trying to be diplomatic.

When there are high levels of unemployment and an employer's still not able to attract people to fill those jobs, then instead of looking for government to introduce programs that will allow them essentially to defy the economic laws of gravity, the employers should pay more. They should make the jobs more attractive. If there's a problem with public transit, they should get buses and vans to take people from population centres to the fish plants, or they should consider moving the fish plants closer to a population centre where they could find some workers.

I think it's an illegitimate use of government power to allow businesses to operate when their business model is flawed. In this case, I think the business model is flawed, if they're saying they can only operate when they can only pay people $10 an hour, or the business model is flawed if they set up in a jurisdiction where there is no natural pool of labour. Move the fish plant.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You're being consistent now, and I appreciate that. It was just that region.

I'm going to push it a little further. What would you term a high level of unemployment?

[Gil McGowan]

There's a debate among labour economists on what would constitute full employment. Some say 4%. Some say it's lower. Certainly, as it stands in Canada right now, we are not at full employment, even in areas of the country that traditionally have had the most robust labour markets. You're in Alberta. The number of unemployed people in this province has literally doubled in the last year.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

It has now.

We've established what you think should be the case in Atlantic Canada.

Let's talk about my region. We have a number of foreign workers as well. We have the farm workers program. Would you say that should be scrapped as well? We're at about 7.2%.

[Gil McGowan]

The farm workers program is an example of what can happen over long periods of time in eroding the quality of jobs.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Do you think it should be scrapped?

[Gil McGowan]

I think we should take a look at it.

There was a time in Canada when Canadians filled agricultural jobs. I think of Stompin' Tom Connors, who was famous for singing and stomping, but before that he was—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

He worked in agriculture.

[Gil McGowan]

—an itinerant agricultural worker, and he made a living at it. Because we made it so easy for agricultural employers to get access to cheap and exploitable workers from places like Mexico, we transformed what had been an occupation that provided a living wage for Canadians into an occupation that paid so little that no Canadians wanted to do it. If we continue down this road of relying on foreign workers to supplement our market, we're going to transform many more occupations in the occupational pyramid into jobs that Canadians don't want.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Your time is up, Mr. Van Kesteren.

We're going to move to Mr. Dhaliwal for five minutes, sir.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Mr. McGowan, I personally see immigration policy not only as a social justice policy, but as an economic policy as well. If we look at history, Canada was built by immigrants, people from different backgrounds. I'm one of them.

When you talk about the TPP, it is my understanding that labour mobility will only be in technology and trades, but not the way Mr. Van Kesteren was saying it would. When it comes to farm labour, the hospitality industry, things like that would not be affected. In your view, would those be affected as well?

[Gil McGowan]

In order to illustrate our point about the large number of occupations and job categories that would be affected by the TPP, we attached to our legal opinion one of the annexes from the agreement. Basically, there is an annex related to labour mobility for every TPP signatory partner.

The example we attached was the annex that outlines the kinds of workers that employers would be allowed to use the agreement to bring workers into the country under. This is the one between Canada and Chile. It basically mentions all health, education, and social services occupations, and all the NOC B technicians—machinists, mining and quarrying workers, oil drilling services workers, manufacturing workers, textile workers—just about every construction trade you can think of. The point is that this is a lot bigger than you have been led to believe. These are not narrowly defined categories. In fact, it's quite the opposite. We think that if this is ratified, it will open the floodgates, allowing employers to bring workers into the country under a vast number of occupational categories—more than you have been led to believe.

On your point about immigration, this goes back to my point about control. I didn't like the temporary foreign worker program as it was constituted under the Harper government, and I didn't like it as it was constituted under the last Liberal government, but at least elected legislators, people who are accountable to Canadians, ran the program. It was yours and if there were a problem, you could fix it. If the public were concerned about it, you could respond to those concerns.

What I am saying is that if you pass this agreement, you will hand over that ability to control the movement of temporary workers in and out of the country. You will hand that over to an agreement that is entrenched and will be difficult to fix, and you will hand it over to some faceless panel.

I'd rather have people like you, who have to respond to people like me and to your constituents, with the real authority, rather than vest authority in an international agreement.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

That tells me that you will be okay if we amended that. If we ratify the agreement and this clause is amended so that the TPP countries don't take the control of this, but control stays with the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship—

[Gil McGowan]

I would encourage the Liberal government to refuse to ratify this agreement and demand that it be renegotiated. If there is an agreement among other signatory nations to engage in renegotiation, open the doors, let the sunlight in, let civil society in, and perhaps you'll come up with an agreement that doesn't create so many problems for ordinary Canadians.

The final point I'll make on immigration is that with the temporary foreign worker program, one of our big concerns is that we're not pathways to citizenship. That's not the way we build our country.

We used to have a social compact with immigrants: “You come here. You work hard. You set down roots. You become part of the community. And in exchange for your hard work, you get the right of citizenship.” That social contract was broken under previous incarnations of the temporary foreign worker program.

With the TPP provisions for labour mobility, there will be no ability to build bridges from these workers who were brought into the country under TPP. You won't be able to build bridges to real citizenship.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dhaliwal, your time is up. I know you were itching for another question, but the last five minutes is for the Conservatives.

We have Mr. Ritz up, for five minutes.

Go ahead, sir.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presentations today. The great thing about and the strength of a democracy is that we can all have our say and try to hammer out something that's better at the end of the day.

Ms. Azocar, on your concerns about buying, we've had those same concerns as a government for years, as did the Chrétien government before that and the Paul Martin government. Health care is a provincial issue, and they're very territorial. I haven't been privy to some of the meetings; I've been privy to some of the discussions with provinces like mine in Saskatchewan about why they won't entertain bulk buy. We all know, when you go to Costco, you get a better deal than if you buy one item, as an example, so why won't they entertain that? For some reason, their own little territories seem to be more important for them than saving a few dollars on bulk buying. I think that's the way to go in the end.

The same thing happens every time we talk about a national pharmacare program: we hit the wall. Every province says yes, but they want flexibility too. As soon as you have that, you don't have a national program.

Have you got a road map or an idea of how you can bring a confederation of provinces and territories to agree? The meeting has been going on for the 20 years that I've been involved in federal politics with really no outcome so you can say, “Eureka”. If you've got an idea, I'd be happy to hear it.

[Sandra Azocar]

I think it goes back to having real federal leadership to begin with. I see negotiations around a national pharmacare program, the same type of negotiations that we had when we brought in medicare. Not all the provinces were happy about it; not all the provinces saw a need for it. They were quite happy with what they had in their little area, but I think when you're talking about the national good, you should be able to sit down and come up with some kind of national agreement that will benefit the majority of Canadians with the same intent as medicare did.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I don't disagree with the end result, but the problem is always in the mechanics of it and how you get there. We have a confederation that means, yes, you have federal leadership, but it's not a dictatorship; we're not a benevolent dictator.

Do you go with willing partners? Is that the way you start? Medicare started in Saskatchewan and then gradually.... Do you start with willing partners and then branch out from that after you show success? How do you get the thin edge of the wedge to start the process?

[Sandra Azocar]

I think it all depends, again, on the ability of the leadership to come together and come to some joint agreement around a very important issue.

When you have 91% of Canadians saying that they want this national pharmacare program, then the politicians need to be responsive to that want and need.