House of Commons Hansard #76 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was employers.

Topics

Rt. Hon. Herb GrayOral Questions

3:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Hear, hear!

Rt. Hon. Herb GrayOral Questions

3:10 p.m.

Niagara Falls Ontario

Conservative

Rob Nicholson ConservativeMinister of National Defence

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to say a few words about our late departed friend and colleague, the Right Honourable Herb Gray. I remember hearing about him for the first time as a student at Queen's University in the political studies department, around 1972. He came out with the Gray report. This sparked a huge debate within university circles, and I am sure across the country, about the whole question of foreign investment in the country. Indeed, the Foreign Investment Review Agency owes its origins to that report that came out in 1972.

When I became a member of Parliament in 1984, it was an honour for me to sit across the aisle from him. I soon learned that he was greatly respected by members on all sides of the House, and rightly so. He served with great dignity and politeness. My colleagues tell me he was affectionately known as the “Gray Fog”. That being said, he had considerable skill in question period. I remember when I returned in 2004, my colleague, the Hon. Jay Hill, said exactly that, that Herb had a way of calming down issues that, believe it or not, some opposition members wanted to strike up and have a little more publicity with.

In fact, our Minister of Industry has said, “He caught every fastball we threw with his bare hand and smiled—first to our frustration, then to our rhetorical astonishment and respect”. That was his recollection of it. It would not be an overstatement to say that in his own quiet way he was one of the most effective parliamentarians of his generation.

Herb Gray served in the House for almost 40 years. That is a remarkable feat for anyone who has participated in public office in our country. Only Sir Wilfrid Laurier and one other 19th century MP has served longer in the House. Again, he made good use of that. As the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, he had a number of portfolios, including of course solicitor general, deputy prime minister, and of course I remember him for almost a year as leader of the opposition.

It is true to say that Herb Gray was a House of Commons man. Above all, however, he was a great Canadian, a man fully committed to our country and despite the sometimes intense partisan character of this chamber, he remained at all times a man of honour.

One of our country's great governors general, John Buchan, had this to say about the life we lead here: “Public life is regarded as the crown of a career... Politics is still the greatest and the most honorable adventure”.

For almost 40 years, Herb Gray embodied those words. His life and career were indeed an honourable adventure. Therefore, on behalf of the Prime Minister, the government and all the members of the Conservative Party, I extend our condolences to Sharon and their entire family.

Rt. Hon. Herb GrayOral Questions

3:15 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Mr. Speaker, it was with great sadness that we all learned of the passing of a tremendous parliamentarian and Canadian last week, the Right Honourable Herb Gray.

It has been my great honour to represent the same seat that he held for nearly 40 years. During his time here, my region enjoyed the great privilege of being represented in this place by a man of dignity, character and depth.

Mr. Gray was one of a kind and served with a specific flair that could be described as understated, but nevertheless he commanded respect.

The uniqueness of his career manifested concretely in many ways. He was the first Jewish cabinet minister in Canadian history. His nearly 40 years of service in the federal legislature makes him one of the longest serving MPs ever. He is among only a handful of Canadians who did not serve as prime minister to be afforded the honorific of Right Honourable.

What is truly remarkable about his career is that he had the unquestioned respect of his colleagues across party lines. As a parliamentarian one of Mr. Gray's most defining attributes was his insistence to put his community at the centre of his work. Whether it was on the auto file, a critical industry in Windsor, or on development of our waterfront, Mr. Gray was there all the time. Even after he chose to leave electoral politics, he continued to remain engaged in the significant issues impacting our region, working to protect the Great Lakes as the Chair of the International Joint Commission.

Mr. Gray was a man of great intellect with an incredible and distinctive ability to engage his colleagues in the House. His performances in question period are legendary and affectionately earned him the nickname the "Gray Fog", an homage to his ability to reframe and rebuke opposition remarks and questions. I think he may be credited with inventing the term, “I reject the premise of the member's question”, a line we continue hear in this place on a regular basis.

In Windsor, the Herb Gray legacy will live on for generations. We are already taking specific steps to tangibly commemorate his legacy with public art and infrastructure bearing his name, but his impact can be felt at a more personal level when we consider the number of citizens he impacted in the community. Whether it was inspiring people or constituents he assisted, he leaves behind an indelible mark in the social fabric of my community. With that, I want to thank all of his staff and volunteers for their service.

To the family, his wife Sharon and children Jonathon and Elizabeth, along with the member for Windsor—Tecumseh and the New Democrats, and on behalf of this entire House, I want to offer my sincerest condolences and thank you for sharing Mr. Gray with us.

As well, to friends and extended family of the Right Honourable Herb Gray, I want to thank you for supporting his tremendous service to the community we shared and the country we love.

Obviously, I am very nervous doing this. It is out of genuine respect for a man that our community loved and misses.

Rt. Hon. Herb GrayOral Questions

3:20 p.m.

Bloc

Louis Plamondon Bloc Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Québécois would like to pay tribute to the memory of the former deputy prime minister and solicitor general, the hon. Herb Gray, who passed away last Monday. I had the honour of serving with him in the House for 18 years. He was a formidable parliamentarian who was always well prepared, respectful of his opponents and extremely hard-working.

The former member for Windsor West sat continuously in the House for 39 years, 6 months and 29 days. He holds the record for being the longest-serving MP in the House since Confederation. When he left, I jokingly told him that one day I would beat his record, and I have every intention of keeping that promise, inspired by his exemplary work in the House. He served as minister of 11 different departments. He was also leader of the official opposition and leader of the government.

In short, Mr. Gray dedicated his life to serving his fellow citizens. Even after he retired from political life, he continued his public commitment, serving with the International Joint Commission and as chancellor of Carleton University.

On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I extend our condolences to his family and loved ones, and I would like to take this opportunity to say that, regardless of our political affiliations in the House, we will all remember him as a great politician.

Rt. Hon. Herb GrayOral Questions

3:20 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to rise in the House today to also say a few words in tribute to Herb Gray.

I had the great honour of knowing and working with Herb Gray before I was in politics, in the political sense, at all. Herb Gray, as deputy prime minister, played a key role that many members here may not know in saving the Kyoto protocol when George Bush first became president of the United States.

In the fall of 2000, the negotiations in The Hague broke down. The U.S. elections were still hanging in the balance and no one knew who would be the U.S. administration. As those negotiations broke down, they were resumed in the summer of 2001.

The minister of environment of the day, David Anderson, had fallen and was unable to attend due to a serious injury. It was a sign of the priority of the issue and that which the government of the day regarded the issue that no less than the deputy prime minister went to The Hague to negotiate on behalf of Canada.

For Herb Gray's efforts, and they were extraordinary, the organization with which I worked at the time, the Sierra Club Canada, gave him our highest award for someone in public life who served the environment. The award, by the way, Mr. Speaker, is in the name of your predecessor, John Fraser. It was the John Fraser Award for Environmental Achievement.

We had a splendid dinner honouring Herb Gray. He delivered a witty and sage address. After he left Parliament in 2002 and went on to become the Canadian Commissioner to the International Joint Commission, which is another environmental post, I often went to visit him in his offices to discuss the Great Lakes.

He never failed to take me to this wall and say “I had so many honours for my work in public life, but I want you to notice this, Elizabeth, I have only got two of my awards that I brought with me to this office”: the citation “Right Honourable Herb Gray”, such a rare citation to anyone who has not served as a Prime Minister of Canada, and the original print from Robert Bateman with the award, the John Fraser Award for Environmental Achievement to Herb Gray. He said, “I am prouder of this and for what I did on climate change than almost anything else in public life, because my grandchildren thanked me for it”.

I will miss Herb Gray. He served his country but, in case any members did not know, he also served this planet.

Rt. Hon. Herb GrayOral Questions

3:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I invite all members to rise and observe a moment of silence in memory of Herb Gray.

[A moment of silence observed]

Remarks by Minister of State for Democratic ReformPrivilegeOral Questions

3:25 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, although I do not wish to delay the business of the House, I would like to revisit the issue raised yesterday in the House by the Minister of State for Democratic Reform in response to the question of privilege I raised on April 10.

I raised that question of privilege based on the fact that the minister made misleading statements in the House. He said that there were multiple reports on the Elections Canada website of people using their voter information cards to vote multiple times.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister responded to that question of privilege in the House, and I must say, I was troubled by his response, which was nothing more than an attempt to confuse the Canadian public even further on this issue, without offering any kind of real response.

The minister of state decided to respond to my question of privilege by citing seven cases of people voting supposedly multiple times that led to compliance agreements in the 2011 election. I would argue that citing 7 cases of approximately 15 million voters is quite a weak argument to begin with. It gets worse.

Only two of the cases cited by the minister were actually associated with voter information cards. What the minister did not mention was that these two cases were from the TV show Infoman. As we have said many times, these two examples cannot be used as the sole justification for banning the use of voter information cards, since they were taken from a comedy show. Furthermore, the problem is that the minister claims there are many cases, although he can only cite two, which were taken from Infoman.

The minister himself stated that although the voters in question tried to vote a second time by using their voter information card, they were not able to vote. In fact, in both cases, the voters in question were told that they could not use their voter information card because their address had been crossed from the list and transferred to the second polling station they had tried to vote at.

In addition, I would like to point to the fact that only three examples used by the minister even refer to the 2011 election. Two of the examples he used were from 2006 and two were from 2004.

I also noticed that the minister avoided mentioning the names of the voters involved after his first three examples, without saying that the remaining four anonymous cases were not valid. This does raise some questions.

I believe the minister's response to my question of privilege was nothing more than an attempt to confuse Canadians with a quite long-winded statement, citing very few cases, some of which were already well known and which did not address the issue at hand. Even if the two cases from Infoman, where people tried and failed to use voter information cards to vote, are counted, that does not count as regular reports, which, to bring back my original point, is what the minister claimed in the House. I believe the minister might have known that his confusion tactics might not work, which was why he offered us a second argument yesterday, which in my opinion is as flawed as the first.

The minister claimed in his response that in his original statement he was making two separate points: (a) that there were regular reports of people receiving multiple cards; and (b) that there were regular reports of people voting multiple times. Thus, every case of people voting more than once would count as evidence of his original statement, but that is clearly not the case.

What the minister originally said in the House was, “There are regular reports of people receiving multiple cards and using them to vote multiple times”.

It is blatantly obvious, as evidenced by the use of the word “them” in the second clause of this statement, that the minister was not making two separate points. The question the minister was asked when he made this statement was specifically about voter information cards. He clearly claimed in response that there were regular reports of people using voter information cards to vote multiple times.

Yesterday the Minister of State for Democratic Reform attempted to confuse the public and to throw mud on this whole issue instead of apologizing for what clearly appears to be misleading comments to the House. Canadians and the parliamentarians representing them deserve to be told the truth, especially by ministers and especially by the minister responsible for modifying Canada's electoral law.

Mr. Speaker, we look forward to your ruling on this matter. I thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Minister of State for Democratic Reform.

Remarks by Minister of State for Democratic ReformPrivilegeOral Questions

3:30 p.m.

York—Simcoe Ontario

Conservative

Peter Van Loan ConservativeLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. This started as a question of privilege raised by my friend suggesting that the Minister of State for Democratic Reform had misled the House by citing that there were such cases and there was no basis to that. The Minister of State for Democratic Reform provided seven such examples that are publicly available on the Elections Canada website, without even going beyond that to what other cases may exist and be reported by people individually or in the media over the years; but just those.

Now his response is that it was only a very few cases. Before it was that there were none. Now it is only a very few. Then he wants to debate the merits of it, and then he wants to debate the grammar of the Minister of State for Democratic Reform in so doing and to try to parse words. Clearly, we have gone far away from the question of privilege about misleading the House and we are entirely, 100%, foursquare in arguing the merits of the issue that is before the House in the legislation. All his comments could be best put in the category of debate, and they have no business being a question of privilege on misleading the House, and his points today make that abundantly clear.

Remarks by Minister of State for Democratic ReformPrivilegeOral Questions

3:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I thank both members for their contributions at this point, and I can assure the House that I will come back with a ruling in due course.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:30 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, we have never heard “Infoman” mentioned in the House of Commons so much as in the last week. This is because of the Conservative Party's electoral “deform”.

I am very proud to rise in the House today to speak to the NDP motion moved by my colleague from Newton—North Delta concerning the use of the temporary foreign worker program. In my opinion, the motion is perfectly reasonable and very clearly represents the concerns of the unemployed workers of this country.

We should keep in mind that 1.4 million people are looking for work in Canada. That is a huge number. These people are shocked to see that, all too often, the hiring of temporary foreign workers prevents them from getting jobs. It is a very serious concern.

The Conservative Party has shown blatant inaction in this matter. For years, the Conservatives have let the numbers skyrocket and have closed their eyes to requests that were unjustified and unjustifiable, even to their own eyes, depriving Quebeckers and Canadians of good jobs.

This is why the NDP motion calls for a moratorium on the stream for lower-skilled occupations, but, above all, calls on the auditor general to conduct an urgent audit of the whole program. The whole program must be reviewed.

The Minister of Employment may be surprised to hear me say this, and I can see him coming a mile away, but the temporary foreign worker program is necessary. We are not questioning the existence of the program, because it is part of what makes our economy tick.

I represent a Montreal riding, but I come from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. I remember summers in my youth when I spent many hours under a burning sun picking strawberries and raspberries so that I could afford to buy myself certain things.

Today, not enough people from the region are helping the farmers by doing jobs like that. We need people from outside to give us a hand during the summer. Clearly, farmers could not do without these workers. That is also true in other sectors.

Let us not forget that the purpose of this program is to fill gaps in our labour market, to address labour shortages or labour training needs. We must be careful to ensure that bringing in a temporary foreign worker will never prevent a Canadian or Quebecker from getting work.

The Conservatives' inaction has caused the dramatic situations we have seen in the media all because they quite simply washed their hands of the whole thing. Maybe they were just as happy to bring in cheap labour to put downward pressure on wages. They were so intent on getting cheap labour that budget 2012 provided for employers to pay temporary foreign workers 15% less for the same jobs and the same work. If that is not downward pressure on wages, then I do not know what is. This caused such an uproar that the Conservatives had to withdraw this measure, which fortunately was never applied.

The second point I want to make today has to do with how temporary foreign workers are treated. We have to understand the situation they are in. The NDP thinks that we should better protect temporary foreign workers. If we really need these people, then we should make them Canadian citizens. Then they would have rights. As things stand, far too often these people are exploited and forced to pay for room and board. Some even end up in substandard or dangerous working situations.

They almost never complain because that often causes them to be sent back to their country of origin and to lose their pay, which affects them and their families. We must ensure that these workers can organize, have rights and defend themselves. That is essential if we want to ensure respect for these people who deserve to work in safe conditions and receive a decent income, even though they are not yet Canadian citizens.

I am thinking about domestic workers who are hired as nannies or housekeepers and do not have the right to change employers during their time here. That leads to cases of serious abuse, harassment and molestation. The victim knows full well that she cannot change employers. If she decides to do so, her contract will be terminated and she will have to go home. I have often met with people from the Filipino domestic workers' association in Montreal. They have educated me about their reality. We need to keep this in mind when we are talking about the temporary foreign worker program.

Some of the numbers are quite revealing. The number of people who have come here through this program increased considerably while the Liberals were in power. However, it has risen exponentially under the Conservatives.

Between 2002 and 2012, the number of temporary immigrant workers in Canada more than tripled, increasing from approximately 100,000 to nearly 340,000. I doubt that labour market needs tripled between 2002 and 2012.

It is really astounding. Since the Conservatives came to power, the number of immigrants who come as temporary workers has surpassed the number of economic immigrants who settle as permanent residents. We are bringing in more cheap labour, people who often take jobs away from Quebeckers and Canadians, instead of making people Canadian citizens when they apply as economic immigrants. The system is completely unbalanced.

Under the Conservatives' reign, we have far too often seen labour market opinions get rubber-stamped. Anything and everything is given the green light. No one checks to make sure that there really is a shortage in a given place or region or that there really is a need for foreign temporary workers, without whom the work would not get done.

I spoke about the agriculture sector earlier, but we are now seeing that the hotel and restaurant sector is starting to use the program, as is the banking sector. I was in British Columbia a few months ago. I met with people from a stage technicians union. They, too, had a problem because it was cheaper to hire the American stage technicians who were coming to work in Vancouver. Canadian workers were not being hired. This is a problem even in the arts and culture sector.

During the first year under the Conservative watch, in 2006, the number of temporary foreign workers in lower-skilled job categories, at places like Tim Hortons and McDonald's, doubled over 2005. The following year, between 2006 and 2007, that number went up by 419%. In just one year, there was a jump of 419% in all lower-skilled occupations. Is there really no one in Canada, in Hamilton or Rimouski, who can serve coffee and doughnuts or sell fries and Big Macs at McDonald's?

That is the question we have to ask ourselves. That is the question my colleague from British Columbia is asking us and the House through this motion. The Conservatives keep saying that they are going to take action and that this is unacceptable, but the cases are multiplying. There are more and more cases.

Of all Canadian industries, the hotel and restaurant sector is the one with the highest number of labour market opinions. That is the authorization employers have to request from the department. In 2012, there were 44,740 positive labour market opinions, which is an increase of 926% over 2006. The consequences are very real.

Let me just give the example of Sandy Nelson. She worked in a restaurant in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. She was a waitress for 28 years in that restaurant. She provided her services to the employer without ever being reprimanded or disciplined. She was a model worker who dedicated her entire career to the clients of the restaurant. Last week, we found out that she was replaced by a temporary foreign worker, even though she was there and doing her job.

We have seen several examples in the mining sector, in British Columbia and Alberta. According to a study by the C.D. Howe Institute, if the temporary foreign worker program were not abused to such an extent in Alberta and British Columbia, the unemployment rate would drop by 4%. That is unbelievable.

I congratulate my colleague for this motion. I hope that all parliamentarians will stand up in the House to support Quebec and Canadian workers.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:40 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would provide a fairly precise answer to a question I think many might be somewhat concerned about. We have recognized the valuable role that a well-functioning temporary worker program could actually play, in terms of contributing to Canada's prosperity. Nowhere is that more important that in an area such as agricultural community.

Would the member give a clear indication whether the moratorium the NDP is referring to in the motion would, in any way, have an impact upon the agricultural community and if so, in what way?

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:40 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to have to once again contradict the Minister of Employment and Social Development.

I would first like to point out that the NDP believes that this program is necessary and that it should be kept. However, Canadian workers and temporary foreign workers who come to help us out as needed should not suffer because of the program. A moratorium would allow us to keep what we have. Accordingly, farmers who already have temporary foreign workers and who need them will continue to get them. There is no reason to worry.

The NDP is acting responsibly and the moratorium will address current needs. However, at the same time, we will ask the auditor general to conduct a thorough audit of the entire program because this government is incapable of managing it.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:45 p.m.

Calgary Southeast Alberta

Conservative

Jason Kenney ConservativeMinister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism

Mr. Speaker, it is rather humorous to see that the member for the official opposition did not know how to answer the question about the implications of his party's motion. Let me explain it to him.

It calls for a moratorium on the stream for lower-skilled occupations. The reasonable question from the member for Winnipeg North was whether this applies to agriculture, and the answer is, yes.

The answer is that the NDP's policy would put a moratorium on the admission of workers from abroad coming to work in our agricultural industry, including both the seasonal agricultural workers program and the general agricultural workers stream, both of which are considered elements of the low-skilled streams in the TFWP. This would have the impact of, essentially, shutting down thousands of farms around Canada just as they are going into the agricultural season. The economic impact of that would be truly devastating in many parts of rural Canada.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the minister would have more credibility if he were able to show us that he can tell the difference between the cancellation of the program and a moratorium. He is not making that distinction. Well, that is fine. We are nevertheless asking him to vote in favour of this motion.

It is even more ironic given that he has completely suspended access of the food services industry to the temporary foreign worker program. Perhaps he favours farmers and could not care less about restaurant owners.

He could have much more credibility. In fact, he boasted about the fact that he was given a blacklist of poor employers that use the temporary foreign worker program and it took him three years to write down the name of just one business that was abusing the program.

I do not believe that the Conservative party, or this government, has any credibility when it comes to protecting Canadian workers.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Laurin Liu NDP Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Conservative government has really mismanaged this issue. However, the NDP has a number of proposals to help workers access the job market.

Can my colleague comment on how the NDP would help Canadians access the job market? For example, can he talk about our proposal to create a tax credit for training young workers?

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question, and I will give her a very good answer.

Actually, everything that has to do with training workers, with apprenticeship, is part of the solutions that the NDP has put forward, especially for young people whose unemployment rate is much higher than the Canadian average.

The NDP has also proposed a job creation tax credit for the small and medium-sized businesses that drive the economy in so many of our communities.

Instead of bringing in people from other countries, such as foreign pilots in the air transportation industry, we need to invest in and train our own workers so that we do not have to bring people in from other countries. We need to train our fellow citizens so they can be qualified for the jobs that are available, and most importantly, we need to create new jobs.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

3:45 p.m.

Calgary Southeast Alberta

Conservative

Jason Kenney ConservativeMinister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

Let me begin by defining terms because I find that there is fairly widespread confusion about what actually constitutes what we call the temporary foreign worker program. To be honest, I think it is a misnomer. When most people hear the words “temporary foreign worker program”, they tend, immediately and quite logically, to associate it with efforts by employers to apply to bring in workers from abroad at various skill levels. They particularly tend to associate it with low-skilled positions. However, we need to understand that, in fact, only 38% of the so-called temporary foreign workers who are admitted to Canada each year are attached to a labour market opinion.

Let me explain for folks who may not understand what a labour market opinion, or LMO, is. This is the process that the government has long established, administered by Service Canada, to ensure that employers inviting someone to work from abroad have first made every reasonable effort to hire and recruit Canadians to do the work and that the employers have demonstrated to Service Canada that no Canadians are available or willing to do the work at what is called the prevailing regional wage rate. They have to satisfy various requirements with respect to advertising that have actually been lengthened due to one of our reforms last year. They have to advertise the position for eight weeks in various media at the prevailing regional wage rate.

Let me be clear about that point, too. There is an urban legend that the temporary foreign worker program actually constitutes a systematic undercutting of Canadian wage rates when that is not true. In fact, employers cannot get permission through LMOs to invite workers from abroad unless, for eight weeks, they have advertised that position at the median wage for that occupational category in their regions. The median wage, by definition, means being paid more than about half the people in that particular occupation in that community because when an employer goes to hire, say, Canadians at a restaurant or any other business, they are typically starting at a starting wage and they will work up the pay grade with the passage of time. We do not allow employers applying for foreign workers to pay the starting wage or the minimum wage, per se, but, rather, the median wage in that occupational category, which is typically more than what many Canadians are getting paid even in the same workplace. Those are some of the safeguards that currently exist.

If an employer can demonstrate that it advertised a position at that wage rate for eight weeks and made every reasonable effort to recruit Canadians, but did not receive any applications from qualified people willing to work, then Service Canada will, in principle, approve a labour market opinion and permit that employer to recruit someone from abroad to fill what apparently is a skills shortage in that occupation in that community.

As I said, we have tightened up the rules around, for example, acquiring a longer period of employment. We ask more questions of the employers now to ensure that they really have made an effort to recruit from within Canada. We now charge employers a cost recovery fee of $275 for that labour market opinion application and starting shortly, we are going to initiate the obligation for applicants for labour market opinions to file what we are calling a transition plan to demonstrate to us how they plan to increase the percentage of workers on their site who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents and reduce their dependence or reliance on the temporary foreign worker program.

As a result of those reforms that we have already implemented, we have seen a 30% reduction in the number of applications for LMOs in the low-skilled stream and a 20% reduction overall. We also, of course, suspended the accelerated labour market opinion process, which means the processing times are much longer. Many immigration practitioners, lawyers, and employers will complain bitterly about the length of time it takes to approve an LMO, which is evidence of the kind of rigour that I believe Service Canada is applying to these applications.

It is important, however, to recognize that what I just referred to alludes to the labour market opinion stream, which is really what most of us call the temporary foreign worker program. Just as a matter of interest, about 35% of the foreign nationals coming in through labour market opinion work permits are higher skilled; 26% are general lower-skilled workers and that would tend to include most of the people we are talking about, for example, in the service, restaurant, and accommodation industries; 8% come into the live-in caregiver program, so-called nannies; and 31% come through the seasonal agricultural worker program. I should point that some of the 26% of LMO linked foreign workers who are in the general low-skilled stream are going to farms as well in what we call the general agricultural stream.

It is important to break these down because among the higher-skilled stream there are a lot of people in professions, scientific occupations, and technical positions and trades. It is quite shocking for most people to learn that four of the five source countries for the so-called temporary foreign worker program are the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and France, all highly developed and wealthy countries. The plurality of occupations in this element of the program are high skilled.

I know that does not accord with most people's common understanding of the program. They tend to think it is primarily people from the developing world coming into low-skilled positions and there is a lot of that. But in fact, the lion's share of so-called temporary foreign workers who are basically foreign nationals coming here on work permits, are people coming from developed countries. Germany is in the top 10 as well. In the top 10 source countries, I believe 6 or 7 are highly developed G20 or G7 countries.

For example, a university professor, let us say a scientist, who is on an exchange with a Canadian university is a temporary foreign worker. A lawyer from New York who is moving to Toronto for six months to work on a complex deal is a temporary foreign worker. This is entirely normal. I do not think it is terribly contentious. This kind of labour mobility we have facilitated has always existed, so that is just to put some context here.

Now what about the other 62%? That is nearly two-thirds of what we call the flow or population of temporary foreign workers, do not come in with a labour market opinion. They come in typically through reciprocal agreements that we have to facilitate normal conventional mobility of people around the world. Let us not get trapped in a kind of parochialism or unintentional xenophobia in this debate. Let us remember we are a trading country and exporting country. We do not just export goods. We also export services and that means exporting Canadians who work around the world.

There are something like 2.3 million Canadian citizens living more or less long-term abroad and hundreds of thousands of them are living on work permits in foreign countries, typically making very good incomes. For every Canadian who is a professor at Oxford, or a financial manager in Hong Kong, or who is perhaps an executive at a high tech company in the Silicon Valley, every one of those Canadians, unless they have obtained citizenship in that country, is working on a work permit. All of that would shut down, all of those hundreds of thousands of Canadians working around the world making typically very good incomes and helping in the export of Canadian services, they would all have to come home if we were to shut down the reciprocal agreements we have that facilitate labour mobility around the world.

In that 62% of this program, we are talking about 133,000 entries in 2012, 29,000 were coming in under free trade agreements and agreements we have with provinces and territories that can exempt certain categories of foreign workers.

When we signed NAFTA in 1993, it included a labour mobility provision. Various occupations were given a certain quota of trilateral visas, so a Canadian lawyer who does a lot of work in Mexico and the States or an American physician who for some reason has a practice in all three countries can get a trilateral NAFTA visa to go to Mexico, to the United States, and to Canada. To be honest, I have never heard a complaint about this arrangement. This a normal, conventional part of facilitating high-skilled labour mobility.

However, the single biggest chunk of this is actually in what we call International Experience Canada, a program based on a number of bilateral reciprocal agreements we have with other jurisdictions, primarily visa-exempt countries that we consider low risk from an immigration integrity point of view. About 59,000 people, or basically a quarter of the total population of the so-called temporary foreign workers, came into Canada under that stream.

I hear some people—not many, but some—saying, “What are you doing by allowing these foreigners to come in and take jobs from our young people?” The point is that these are reciprocal programs, so right now there are thousands of young Canadians between the ages of 18 and 35 working in Australia. Tens of thousands altogether are working in countries like Australia, New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom, and around the world. If we were to freeze or suspend or shut down this International Experience Canada program, all of those nice young Canadians' reciprocal agreements would be shut down and they would have to get on a plane and come back here to Canada. I really do not think that in 2014, with a global economy that is increasingly sophisticated, we would want that to happen.

By the way, I would argue that there is an advantage to us as a country in having a limited, reasonable number of bright young people from around the world coming here and getting to know Canada, working here for a few months and becoming interested in and attached to this country. A small number of them might go on to become permanent residents, and that is great. All of them probably will have a future connection to Canada, which would likely be to our commercial and economic advantage. That is a quarter of the whole population of temporary foreign workers.

I make this point and set this context because the entire debate, perhaps understandably, has a tendency to focus just on a relatively small number of problematic cases. I will turn my attention to that aspect, because we do not want to ignore the problematic issues that may exist in the program. That is why we have been working on tightening up the program and reforming it. It is why we reduced the number of LMO applications. It is why we have been working on a package that I intend to announce in the next few weeks as a further tightening of the program. It is because we want to ensure that on the one hand we facilitate legitimate conventional global labour mobility and address real skills gaps that may exist in certain regions in Canada, but that on the other hand we prevent any distortions of the Canadian labour market and any abuse of the program.

That is the objective. I hope that in this debate we can identify some common principles. I would advocate that the principle be that we are an open, confident trading country, not one characterized by xenophobia and parochialism. We want to facilitate legitimate movement of people; obviously we do not want to do it in a way that ends up distorting our labour market or displacing Canadians, but we do want to open up those opportunities for Canadians to work around the world. That is exactly what we are trying to do.

One of the issues that has come up here in the debate was a suggestion that we increase pathways to permanent residency for foreign nationals who are here on work permits. I have happy news for the House: we have already done exactly that. In fact, we have increased by several hundred per cent the number of so-called temporary foreign workers who are now obtaining permanent residency in Canada.

We did this as a government primarily by massively expanding, by about eightfold, something called the provincial nominee programs. These are programs we have with nine provinces. Quebec, of course, has its own immigration selection process. The nine provinces outside of Quebec collectively get to select about 45,000 permanent residents. The vast majority of those 45,000 permanent residents are actually already in Canada on a work permit, so they have demonstrated that they are good workers and they are filling the skills gap. If they want to stay in Canada and the employer likes them and wants to carry them on, they apply for permanent residency.

We also created something called the Canadian experience class, which should have been done a long time ago. We opened this program in 2008, and now we get about 12,000 or 15,000 permanent residents a year through that program. These are higher-skilled foreign workers and foreign students who have done at least 12 years of work in Canada, and they can now get permanent residency.

In addition to that, the live-in caregiver program is a pathway to permanent residency. As well, a growing number of foreign nationals on work permits in Canada apply for other immigration programs, so altogether about 60,000 people who are here on work permits become permanent residents.

This is perhaps a bit of a news flash to some people, because the number used to be about 5,000 a decade ago. There has been a huge growth. That is a positive thing. People can come to see if they like Canada and see if they can get through the winter. If they are working gainfully and enjoy the country and then want to stay and settle and maybe even invite their families over, if they qualify for one of these streams, they can do so.

The point is, however, that not every temporary resident on a work permit wants to stay permanently. The biggest stream is the youth mobility program, which is made up mostly of those Aussies and Kiwis who come and work at our ski hills in Whistler and whatnot. They work part time. They may coach skiing or they may work in the service industry at one of our ski resorts. They are on a walkabout in their gap year, and most of them really do not want to stay permanently in a cold country like Canada. They want to get back to the Gold Coast. Let us not be so presumptuous as to assume that every one of these particularly higher-skilled people from developed countries who constitute the plurality of participants in the program actually wants to stay.

Finally, let me address the very legitimate concern that the NDP raises today about abuse and distortions in the labour market.

First, this is a complex issue. The aggregate labour market information is very clear. We are not facing and do not have a general labour shortage in Canada, but there is enormous data to suggest that there are skills gaps in certain sectors and regions. If we live in Toronto or Montreal, maybe that just does not have the ring of truth to it, but I would invite those people to go and talk to employers in, for example, the fast-growing communities of much of western Canada, which are at full employment and where young people can find high-paying jobs without any difficulty at all, leaving a lot of the essentially lower-paying positions in the service industry without adequate staff. That is also true in the agricultural sector.

I get this everywhere I go. I get it from the St. John's Board of Trade. I get it from the employers in Labrador. I get it from parts of northern Quebec where the mining is. I get it from the computer programming industry in Montreal. I get it from the information technology industry in the Kitchener-Waterloo corridor. I get it from the food processing industry in many parts of the country, and not just for the food service industry but also for skilled trades in certain areas, such as northern Alberta. Every major business group in the country says this is an issue. We cannot ignore it. We do not want to go into denial.

That said, if and when we see abuses, we are taking and will take serious action. The blacklist is now up and running. We have added employers to it that cannot use that program in the future. I have put those really abusive employers on notice that I intend to refer evidence of fraud in their LMO applications to the CBSA for criminal investigations.

We were concerned with the growing number of reports of abuse, particularly in the food services sector. I think the vast majority of employers there are honest people who want to abide by the rules, but I do think there has been some slippage. It is hard to put a precise figure on it, but it is enough to be very concerning, which is why I announced a moratorium last week on the temporary foreign worker program in the food services sector pending the outcome of our review.

This demonstrates how serious we are, and again I would invite constructive ideas from all members as to how we can strike the right balance to be an open country, benefit from the talents of others from around the world, and ensure reciprocal movement of Canadians, yet also avoid distortion of our labour market, displacement of Canadians, or abuse of the program.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC

Mr. Speaker, having heard the minister give us a history and explanation of the different types of temporary foreign worker programs, I want to let him know that I certainly understand the different streams. What I want to stipulate again is that our motion here does not cover the category known as the seasonal agricultural worker program. In no way was it meant to capture that program. At the same time, I heard the minister saying that recently he has heard of some egregious abuses of this program by some people.

I want to ask him a really simple question today about the LMOs that are given out by his department. Here we are in Victoria, where we have not just one but 26 fast food outlets that were granted LMOs in an area where the youth unemployment rate for entry level jobs is at 15%.

Having that information and having the information on HD Mining, RBC, and the ironworkers, is it not time for an independent audit? Then let us sit down together and build a program that will really serve all Canadians.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her thoughtful points and reasonable question. I agree with her observation about the situation that we learned about with the McDonald's franchises in Victoria. As I said publicly, I really have to question why there would be a demonstrable shortage of food service workers at that level in an urban area with a youth unemployment rate of 14%.

I could perhaps understand it in remote rural communities with super-hot labour markets and full employment where young people could easily get $30-an-hour jobs, but I am concerned about that situation. That is exactly why I put in place the moratorium on that sector. It is also why I called the presidency of McDonald's Canada to express my very grave concern about the practices that we learned of.

In terms of an audit, the whole program is partly based on audits. We do spot checks. Highly trained public servants go in and do spot checks. We now have new legislative authority, which I forgot to mention, that came into effect last December and allows Service Canada to go to work sites unannounced, pull up the paperwork, do the interviews, and dig down to see where there might be instances of abuse. It is my intention to add further to those audit powers of Service Canada.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the minister for one thing, which is giving a speech to give the impression that everything is just hunky-dory when in fact we are in the middle of a huge political mess, perhaps the biggest of his career.

With regard to the doubling of the temporary foreign workers, even the C.D. Howe Institute has said that it has added to joblessness. We have all of these revelations from McDonald's and others that it has been totally inappropriately administered. Yes, the minister is tightening that policy, but it is only in response to past loosening, which generated this huge growth.

When we impose a moratorium, it is a last resort. It is like a huge sledgehammer being brought down on everybody. The good apples and the bad apples both get hurt. Why did the minister not, over the past years, take a more surgical approach that would have weeded out the bad apples without allowing the system to get to this point of crisis, whereby so many legitimate, law-abiding businesses are also hurt by his sledgehammer approach?

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the premise of the question. It is a matter of objective fact that it was the previous Liberal government, in 2002, of which I believe he was a member, that introduced what is called the general low-skilled stream, which seems to be the subject of most of the criticism now. The administration of the program was so lax that the Liberals actually had what became known as the Liberal stripper program. Six hundred work permits a year were issued to exotic dancers. That was the Liberal idea of how to run the temporary foreign worker program—

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

4:10 p.m.

An hon. member

You supported it.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB

No, we shut it down, Mr. Speaker. We passed legislation and regulations. It is over. It is done.

In terms of the growth in the number of foreign nationals on work permits in Canada, let us look at the part that is being criticized most. The part that is being criticized most is the general low-skilled stream. That includes service workers, in most cases. In 2006, 6,500 people were admitted, and last year it was 20,000, so that is up by 14,000. That is significant, but it is not by the hundreds per cent.

Most of the growth was in areas like the free trade agreements, going from 16,000 people to 25,000; and reciprocal agreements, going from 34,000 people to 63,000. Reciprocal agreements allow Canadians to work abroad, and there are short-term visas that allow young people to come to Canada to learn about our country. Spouses and common-law partners doubled from 6,300 to 12,000. Those are university professors and lawyers. A high-skilled temporary foreign worker comes here, and she gets to ensure that her husband gets a work permit while he is in Canada. These are where we have seen the largest growth, in research and studies. The member for Markham—Unionville is an academic. I am sure he is pleased to know that the number of foreign researchers contributing at our universities has tripled from 4,000 to 11,000.

Let us look at this based on the facts and not on the myths.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyOral Questions

April 29th, 2014 / 4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB

Mr. Speaker, the minister has done an excellent job on a very difficult file.

I would like to ask the minister how he calculates the demand for temporary foreign workers, in light of our diverse economy and the growth in some sectors that are just booming, especially in the context of commodities and other specific types of manufacturing and so on. It seems positive that we have temporary foreign workers helping our economy grow while we are taking decisive action on those few employers that abuse the system.