Finance Committee on May 31st, 2012

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Will those costs be reimbursed?

[Lorne Waldman]

None of those costs is ever going to be reimbursed, just the application fee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Mai.

We'll go to Ms. Truppe, please, for a five-minute round.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As you are aware, we've been talking about our commitment to building a fast and flexible economic immigration system that focuses on finding people with the skills and experience required to meet Canada's economic needs. The previous government left a huge backlog, and it took applicants up to eight years. Some are still waiting.

I'd like to ask Mr. Grady first, and then Mr. Kurland, if you can explain how the federal skilled worker program backlog has become a major roadblock to Canada's ability to respond to our rapidly changing markets.

[Patrick Grady]

Yes. The problem is that you have these applicants who were accepted, and they were accepted under the old criteria. These are no longer the criteria you would want to use to pick the workers who are most suitable for the types of employment currently being offered. There are annual absorption issues. Because of the size of the backlog, you haven't been able to bring them in on a timely basis. So the workers, the immigrants, are employed in their own countries for much longer periods of time. Studies have shown that overseas work experience is totally discounted in the Canadian labour market. These workers in the queue would have been evaluated under criteria that are no longer considered appropriate, and they would be much older than they were when they were considered appropriate for coming to Canada. You would expect that they would significantly underperform immigrants who are selected today based on more appropriate criteria.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Right. Thank you.

[Richard Kurland]

There has been a paradigm shift in skilled worker selection. Don't forget that today, the provinces do the heavy lifting. More than 50% of today's skilled workers are selected by the provinces. After all, section 95 of the Constitution Act equally shares jurisdiction federally and provincially in the spheres of agriculture and immigration. So there is wiggle room in this situation of having a backlog of 284,000 applications.

It is possible to give people the freedom of choice. Why not have a 2,000 to 3,000 target per year available to backlog people? Let them stay in for 20 or 30 years, if that's their desire, but process 2,000 to 3,000 a year. The ones who have it should find another way to Canada, such as temporary status or another skilled worker category. But you can dodge the balloon in its entirety by not dumping the entire backlog. Give those people the right to choose to sit for 20 or 25 years, if that's their choice, or to take back their money and find other options.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Lee, why is it important to ensure that CMHC's commercial activities are managed in a manner that promotes the stability of the financial system? What are the risks to the Canadian taxpayers if we're not diligent on that account and we delay such action?

[Prof. Ian Lee]

The biggest risk is that right now, the liability of the Government of Canada for CMHC is just under $600 billion, which is about one-third of Canada's GDP. That's an enormous amount of money, and that's an enormous liability. I'm not suggesting that it's going to fructify. But there's no need for a government agency to be doing this when we have one of the strongest institutional financial sectors in the world. And it's not just the banks. Everybody focuses on the banks, which are extraordinarily well managed. People don't realize that we have outstanding competencies in the insurance sector, and I'm talking about casualty, life, and property.

Here we are with these outstanding companies, all regulated by OSFI. Yet we're hamstringing them and tying their hands behind their backs to give a competitive advantage to a government agency that once had a valuable function...[Technical difficulty—Editor] But today the markets have matured, and we can diversify and distribute the risk by making sure that we have a competitive private mortgage insurance market, as we do for property insurance, casualty insurance, and so forth.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Kurland, very quickly, could you elaborate on the problems associated with economic immigration programs, such as the foreign skilled worker program prior to 2008, that accept immigrants who don't have skills?

[Richard Kurland]

Yes, sure.

There was no cap. Until we capped intake, we were taking in more files in a year than we could process in a year. Inevitably, the bathtub overflowed. And why no cap? It is because it's politically kissing the third rail of politics in the 416, 905, and 604 areas, the marginal swing constituencies.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

On a point of order, Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Kurland mentioned 2,000 to 3,000 in the queue. Did he mean 200,000 to 300,000?

[Richard Kurland]

Yes, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

It's not a point of order, but I'll take it as a point of information.

Ms. Glover, please.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome the witnesses again. I find the conversation fascinating.

I'm going to actually concentrate a little bit of effort on clearing up, again, the record.

Ms. Dubois, I'm a bit concerned. Here's why. I'm a mom of five kids. I tell my kids all the time, only speak to what you know. It's been concerning for me, because I believe you have a bright future ahead of you, but you've come here today saying that the bill is too long, that it's not enough time to study it appropriately, and yet when we ask you questions about what you compare it to, we don't seem to get an answer. When you say it's too long, what did you compare it to in the past?

[Roxanne Dubois]

When being asked to appear in front of the committee, I was certainly asked to look at this budget. I'm—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

No, just tell me what you compared it to in the past? When you say it's too long, you have to have compared it to something.

[Roxanne Dubois]

Definitely, and we do work with various partners—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

What did you compare it to?

[Roxanne Dubois]

We compared it to, obviously, previous budgets.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Okay. So if you compared it to previous budgets, then you would know that in fact over the last 20 years this is the longest period of time spent on a budget, and it is not the longest budget. You know that, right?

[Roxanne Dubois]

I would again bring up the environmental assessment section, for example—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Hold on a second. I want you to show people that you actually know what you're saying is true, because as Mr. Caron prompts you, you again agree with what he says, which doesn't take into....

I'll give you an example. On the 2009 budget, for example, when he prompted you about it, saying there are only these little things in it, well, there were a whole lot more things in it, but you quickly agreed with his statement, which was incorrect. The proof is in the pudding. That bill is 552 pages, so longer than this one. That bill was studied for 11.5 hours. This one will be studied for 60 hours, the longest period of time in 20 years that a BIA has been studied. The 2010 bill included things similar to today's: the Canada Labour Code, EI, the National Energy Board, the Bank Act, environmental assessments. In 2009, it included EI, small business changes, wage earner....

I say this because I would encourage you not to be coached. When we ask you a question and you try to change direction without having studied what you're actually speaking to, it doesn't appear neutral. That's all I'm saying. I believe you have the best intentions, but it's clear you did not look at the past budgets, you didn't look at their length, you didn't look at the number of hours they've been studied. In fact, the proof is that you're actually wrong.

I do want to answer a couple of questions about Manitoba.

Mr. Grady, we were talking about the Manitoba example. I'm from the city of Winnipeg, and from the province of Manitoba, so immigration has been invaluable in my part of the world. In fact, Art DeFehr from Palliser depends greatly on immigration to make sure that his business runs. Not only Art, but there are a number of other organizations. Graham Starmer from the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce also says it's been truly valuable. In Manitoba, we do have some problems provincially with the fact that we have more public servant jobs per capita than anywhere else. That's not a way to provide jobs. I have people coming into my office crying who are immigrants and can't find jobs. The 14% unemployment rate of immigrants is really a bother.

So I would ask, do you not believe the government is on the right track if we believe in bringing immigrants here because we need to fill jobs, etc., and we actually focus and target our efforts on those who are at least skilled, to lower that unemployment rate, to fill those jobs that Art in Palliser has that he can't fill otherwise, because he's tried with Canadians? Don't you believe this is the right way to go?

[Patrick Grady]

There's an issue with respect to filling jobs. If you're just trying to fill jobs, then it doesn't matter what types of jobs—good jobs, bad jobs, service jobs, manufacturing jobs, resource jobs. I think you also have to specify exactly what types of jobs. You want good, high-paying jobs, professional, if possible, manufacturing, if possible. They're much better jobs.