Thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to present to the committee today.
My name is Veena Verma. I'm a lawyer at a labour law firm, but I'm making a joint submission on behalf of four organizations. I'm here today with Jennifer de Vries, the program coordinator of the refugee and migration section at KAIROS, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.
KAIROS is an umbrella organization bringing together churches and religious organizations to deliberate on issues of common concern and advocate for social change. KAIROS works with partners who advocate on behalf of each group of migrant workers, whom we will be discussing today. We ask that you please note that today's submission is a joint submission with the FCJ Refugee Centre, United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, and the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada.
I'd like to note that we do have individuals from those organizations here, During the question and answer period, if you have specific questions relating to the live-in caregivers or undocumented workers, we'll bring them forward to the microphone to answer those questions.
This submission has also been endorsed by Action Canada for Population and Development, as well as the Coalition d'Appui aux Travailleuses et Travailleurs Migrants. Our submission is focused on workers' mobility and seasonal workers, who we understand are part of your mandate in looking at employability issues in Canada. Specifically, we're focused on three groups.
The first groups is seasonal agricultural workers. Those are the Mexican and Caribbean workers who are coming to Canada under the seasonal agricultural workers program. But it also is increasingly including agricultural workers who are coming under the low-skilled worker pilot project, who are coming from other developing countries.
The second group of migrant workers is domestic workers who are also coming under a temporary work program called the live-in caregiver program. These workers, predominantly women from the south, perform work in child care, care for the elderly, care for people with disabilities, and housekeeping.
The third group of migrant workers is non-status persons. They include those who may have initially arrived in Canada under one of the temporary programs and then decided to stay on in Canada, those who have come to Canada as survivors of human trafficking, torture, or rape, or those who have come into Canada for family reunification purposes, only to realize that it's almost impossible to obtain status within Canada.
In June 2006 there was a two-day conference called the National Migrant Justice Gathering, which was held at York University. It brought over a hundred migrants and migrant justice advocates who shared their experiences and identified common concerns relating to these three groups. Our submission today flows from many of the findings that came out of that conference.
While migrant and undocumented persons may work in different sectors of the Canadian economy, they do share common experiences and can certainly be characterized as vulnerable. The common link that brings these three groups together deals with their status. Their status is temporary or illegal while working in Canada.
Migrants and non-status persons, a largely racialized group, often flee poverty at home, only to find themselves in precarious living and working conditions in Canada. We suggest this can be explained by two reasons. The first is restrictions on labour mobility when they're in Canada. The second is their limited ability or their inability to gain any access to citizenship.
Live-in caregivers and seasonal agricultural workers, for example, in terms of the restrictions on their labour mobility, are tied to a single employer while they're in Canada and they must live on the employer's property. Some of the agricultural workers under the program, which has been in existence for forty years, have been coming to and returning to Canada for up to twenty years, working for anywhere from four to eight months per year in Canada, with absolutely no accrued citizenship rights.
Barriers to citizenship for migrant workers and non-status persons basically mean they are limited in their effective participation in the political process. They cannot vote or otherwise influence Canadian authorities to address concerns relating to their employment while they're in Canada.
These three groups face common problems of exploitation at work, poor accommodation, limited access to social services, low wages, long hours without adequate rest or overtime pay, and verbal and physical abuse. In some cases, migrant workers are receiving wages that are lower than Canadians doing the same work. These conditions are endured by migrant workers and non-status persons because of fear of reprisal for complaining, which includes deportation and repatriation.
Having temporary status or non-status, coupled with the inability to move in the labour market while in Canada, means that these workers are extremely vulnerable to arbitrary employer decisions and that enforcement mechanisms are not used. There are no appeal processes should an employer make arbitrary or illegal decisions and decide, for example, to repatriate a worker.
HRSDC requires a labour market opinion to be provided when a temporary work permit is approved. They have to consider several factors. I want to highlight two of them.
One factor is whether hiring a temporary worker addresses a labour shortage. Labour shortages in industries such as agriculture, child care, or elder care are in large part a result of poor working conditions and low wages in these sectors, as opposed to a shortage of low-skilled workers in Canada. Historically, during periods of high unemployment there have been endemic shortages that can persist in these sectors.
Another factor that the HRSDC labour opinion requires before approving a temporary worker is—and this is important for us—whether the wages and working conditions offered are sufficient to attract Canadian citizens or permanent residents to, and retain them in, that work.
We believe that this factor is too often overlooked. In essence, the Canadian government has adopted a policy of bringing in cheap foreign labour to perform the work that Canadians do not want to do, rather than addressing poor and unsafe working conditions in certain sectors.
In the case of the live-in caregiver program, we believe temporary foreign workers are being used to privatize the public demand for universal child care and other health care needs of Canadians. It must be recognized that these workers are providing valuable services within Canada's labour market by taking care of children and elderly people, as well as by harvesting crops for domestic consumption and international trade.
We have ten recommendations in our written submission, but I want to highlight four this morning.
First, priority should be given to allowing foreign workers to have access to permanent status programs, as opposed to temporary worker programs. If there is a labour shortage, bring them in as permanent residents in the same way that skilled workers are brought in. If temporary workers are used to fill labour shortages, they should have full access to enforcement mechanisms in Canada and opportunities to apply for permanent residency.
Second, implement a regularization program that would allow a moratorium on deportation of non-status workers who have come forward to have their status regularized, at least until the case has been reviewed. Any regularization program would necessarily include security screening, as required for any permanent resident under the Immigration Act.
Third, we recommend providing a transparent and impartial appeal process and a dispute- resolution mechanism that would be available to workers before there is any decision to repatriate or deport them.
Finally, create a review mechanism to ensure that foreign temporary worker programs are not being used to respond to labour shortages that are the result of poor and illegal working conditions. There should be regular reviews devoted to how working conditions and wages can be a improved in certain sectors.
Thank you.