Thank you for the invitation to appear. I probably don't need the full five minutes, but I'll make a few comments on the proposed changes, and I'll be happy to follow up during the question-and-answer period with more detail.
I'd like to start by talking about the regulations regarding the establishment of a system of administrative monetary penalties for the contravention of conditions applicable to employers hiring foreign workers. I see this as a very good change. As everyone knows from the media coverage, there is a lot of concern about potential abuses by some employers. I think it may well just be a very small minority of employers.
The concern I have, which others share, is that temporary foreign workers often value the jobs they're receiving in Canada a great deal. It may be that the incomes they're earning are significantly higher than what they would get in their home country. That creates a sort of power imbalance in that some employers may see this and realize they have the potential to extract some concessions from the original contractual arrangement.
How could that happen in practice? Well, we've seen examples of alleged cases of this in the news, but the kind of thing you could imagine is forcing temporary foreign workers to work unpaid hours, perhaps receiving an effectively lower wage than what they were promised, or perhaps forcing them to live in and pay for rental accommodation at above market rates.
In general, I'm supportive of temporary foreign worker programs. I think they work better at the more highly skilled end of the job distribution. I'm less supportive of them for low-wage jobs.
If we are going to do it, we have to be realistic that there are enforcement problems. Maybe it's only 1% or 2% of employers. It's hard to know, but I think we need a mechanism to punish employers who do this, and this seems like a move in the right direction.
My other comment is on the movement towards electronic filing of applications. I certainly support the government's movement in that direction. On the immigration front, as a country we've suffered when trying to attract highly skilled workers because of the long waiting periods that immigrants have often faced. So I think this is a movement in the right direction. It does improve our competitive position sort of vis-à-vis the other major immigrant-receiving countries, like Australia and New Zealand, which have had faster processing times.
In terms of the termination of certain applications for permanent residence, with respect to a decision as to whether or not the selection criteria are met not being made before February 11, 2014, I'm generally supportive of measures that speed up the processing of applications. I see this as part of the government's approach in this area.
With regard to the investor entrepreneurial programs, I'm generally not supportive of this type of selection. I probably should have said this at the beginning, but my background is as an academic economist. I do research primarily on immigrant selection and to a lesser extent on temporary foreign workers.