Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're entirely right. I'll try to be brief. Ultimately, for tens of years now, the federal government's official excuse has been that this matter is a provincial jurisdiction. When asked the question, the provincial immigration departments don't even know what temporary workers

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Exactly. It's new even in Quebec. There has been consultation. I spoke to a number of public servants who weren't even aware that the situation of these workers was different from that of immigrants. And yet Quebec has full jurisdiction in this field. Like all the other provinces

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The answer is more or less no. The United States and Europe, where there are millions of unskilled migrant workers, focus on Africa, Eastern Europe and Mexico. It's a completely different dynamic: that of undocumented workers. There are 13 million undocumented workers in the Unit

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On the one hand, there's all the documentation on abuses, which, I would say, occur increasingly, among other things, because there are now 20,000 domestic workers in Canada, compared to a few thousand at the time. The number of agricultural workers has also grown exponentially.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You touched on a lot of aspects, including the matter of the arrival of the women from the Caribbean, then of Caribbean men a little later for agriculture. At the time, Canada opened its doors to black immigration under pressure from the United Kingdom, to set an example for othe

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, there are approximately 160,000. Of those 160,000, only 60,000 have servile status. All the others have open or semi-open permits.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There are approximately 250,000 of those a year. Of that number, only 50,000 were chosen because they were workers.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That number never changed between 1997 and 2007. We bring in 50,000 workers, who are selected for their qualifications. We bring in three times as many each year on temporary status.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In fact, there is one—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Some sociologists and anthropologists have been trying to document the abuses for 50 years. It never really worked. However, there is now a critical mass of abuses. That is why the journalists and unions are getting involved. The NGOs are also beginning to take an interest in the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  According to the slavery convention, that obligation places these persons in a situation equivalent to slavery.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The workers recruited under the Live-in Caregiver Program and the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program are also required to live at the homes of their employers. In Canada, domestic workers without permits who work for foreign employers are also required to live with those employ

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Two obligations must be removed for agricultural and domestic workers: the obligation to work for a single employer and the obligation to sleep at the employer's home. Why? No one will say it too loudly, but, according to a number of sociological studies done on domestic workers,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Approximately 70% of employers want someone who sleeps at their home. So this meets an employer need, but especially a need for an asymmetrical power relationship. Employers want to be able to ask someone, 24 hours a day, to take care of a baby that cries, for example, at three o