Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good afternoon. As the chair said, my name is Gil McGowan. I'm president of the Alberta Federation of Labour. As you probably know, the AFL is the largest union organization in Alberta. Unions affiliated with our federation represent about 140,000 workers across the province in

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With all due respect, I have to question the premise of your question. You began by saying that the demand for this program came from employers, and therefore we must expand the program. That's the starting point of our concern and our argument. Over the last two years especiall

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The temporary foreign worker program is a federal program, which is jointly administered by the Department of Immigration and—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm saying the federal government, more than any other level of government, is responsible for the program and that more than any level of government it has dropped the ball in terms of making sure this program works.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The provincial level of government, and to their credit, our province has actually stepped up to the plate in the last couple of months—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  But the federal government is responsible for issuing the labour market opinions through HRSDC, and you're responsible for issuing the work permits through Immigration. One of the things we're saying is that the federal government has put in place no mechanisms, no enforcement, t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The wages for temporary foreign workers are clearly outlined in the labour market opinion. And what we're finding—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  By the federal level. What we're finding—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The wages are set in the labour market opinion for the workers we're talking about. One of our points is that—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With due respect, I disagree. We have addressed these issues with the provincial level of government, and we've addressed them very vigorously. We want to take this opportunity to talk about that portion of the responsibility that falls in the federal realm. What I'm trying to

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, they are not, sir. No, they are not, and they're being ignored. We've got employers who have promised in their LMOs to pay $24 an hour, and when the workers get here they're paid $12 or something. The problem is that there's no federal mechanism in place, there are no inspec

Citizenship and Immigration committee  A major, and we think significant, change is the use to which the program is being put by employers. When this program was first established more than 40 years ago, it was clear that the temporary foreign worker program should only be used as a stopgap measure and as a tool of la

Citizenship and Immigration committee  But there are all sorts of problems.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Probably because of the way the program was initially organized, and also, frankly, it's an effort to control the workers. They want to know where they are. That's speculation, but the practice and the result is that employers are able to exercise undue influence on the workers

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With all due respect, these transactions are not always happening in other countries. They're often being charged here in Alberta or in other provinces; we just don't know about it. One of the big problems is that the brokers themselves are largely unregulated. As a result of the