Human Resources Committee on May 9th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I call the meeting to order.

I'd like to share two pieces of information I just got on my BlackBerry. Saskatchewan had the lowest unemployment rate in the country and is the only provincial government boasting a surplus in fiscal 2012–13. That’s good news. Our economy is doing very well in Saskatchewan.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I wonder where you're from, Ed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I'd also like to acknowledge Olivia Chow, who has been on the immigration committee for a good long time. It's good to have you here.

We have with us officials from the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development and also from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

You will present, of course, and then we'll have an opportunity for rounds of questioning from each of the parties. If at some point you need to interject and want me to rule on an issue, let me know.

With that, we'll start with Mr. Vermaeten.

[Frank Vermaeten, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We welcome the opportunity to convey to the committee how the measures in the budget implementation bill will strengthen the temporary foreign worker program so that it makes an even stronger contribution to the Canadian labour market and the economy.

The key purpose of the temporary foreign worker program is to fill acute labour shortages. It's a comparatively small program—temporary foreign workers in Canada make up under 2% of Canada's workforce of 19 million or so—but it's also an essential program as Canada continues to face skills and labour shortages in many sectors and regions.

The government takes very seriously the important concerns raised recently with respect to the program. It has never been acceptable under the program's rules for employers to choose a foreign worker over a Canadian worker. Employers can only hire a temporary foreign worker when no qualified Canadians or permanent residents are available. Every job opportunity counts, especially for those Canadians who are unemployed and seeking work.

Last year, the government initiated a review of the program to better align it with labour market needs, in part by ensuring that more employers look to the domestic labour force before hiring temporary foreign workers and that Canadians are not displaced. This core objective is deeply rooted in the government's vision, and in HRSDC's mission: all Canadians should have equal access to opportunities to realize their full potential, so that they can live rewarding and productive lives.

In recent years, the government has undertaken important changes to the temporary foreign worker program. For example, in April 2011, amendments to the immigration and refugee protection regulations were made to provide a more rigorous assessment of the genuineness of a job offer as well as the authority for HRSDC to conduct employer compliance reviews for returning employers.

In June 2011, section 91 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was amended to require paid representatives used by employers to assist with the labour market opinion process to be authorized. These representatives must be members in good standing of a Canadian provincial or territorial society or students-at-law under their supervision, or the Chambre des notaires du Québec, or a paralegal in the province of Ontario's law society, or a member in good standing of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council. Another change was the amendments to the immigration and refugee protection regulations that are now being developed to enhance worker protection and strengthen employer compliance following budget 2012 legislative changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The legislative amendments contained in budget 2013 will further strengthen the temporary foreign worker program. Specifically, proposed subsections 30(1.4) to 30(1.6) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, IRPA, will strengthen the government's authority to revoke work permits and allow the government to suspend, revoke, and refuse to process labour market opinions. The specific conditions outlining when those authorities would be used are proposed to be included in ministerial instructions that would be issued later.

Another change is that section 89 of IRPA will provide an exemption from the User Fees Act in respect to fees for work permits and labour market opinions. These exemptions would allow the government to quickly enact these fees through amendments to the immigration and refugee protection regulations.

Finally, another change is that proposed subsection 89.1(1) of IRPA will provide the authority to establish regulations for a privilege fee in respect of work permits and for this privilege fee to be exempted from the application of the User Fees Act.

Those are the three changes.

Proposed subsection 89.1(2) of IRPA would also exempt other service fees for temporary resident visas, work permits, study permits, and extensions to temporary resident status in Canada from the application of the User Fees Act.

I would be remiss not to also briefly note that the government has announced a range of other measures which, while not directly tied to the budget implementation bill, form part of the government's April 29, 2013 announcement on changes to the temporary foreign worker program. Specifically, these are: removing the existing wage flexibility, effective immediately on April 29, 2013; suspending temporarily the accelerated labour market opinion process, or ALMO for short, effective April 29, 2013; and adding questions to employer applications to ensure that the program is not used to facilitate outsourcing of Canadian jobs; ensuring that employers who rely on temporary foreign worker programs have a firm plan in place to transition to a Canadian workforce; and proposing regulatory changes to stipulate that English and French be the only languages that can be identified as a job requirement for a labour market opinion. The only exceptions will be where a non-official language is a demonstrable requirement for the job, such as for tour guides, translators, performers, as well as primary agricultural occupations.

Mr. Chair, these proposals complement changes made in 2011 and 2012 and will strengthen and improve the temporary foreign worker program to support our economic recovery. In particular, they will provide the tools needed to provide greater assurances that employers hire Canadians before hiring temporary foreign workers.

As highlighted in budget 2013, the Canadian economy continues to grow and create jobs, but it is also still fragile. The proposals before you today will help to ensure that Canadians have access to every job opportunity, while still allowing employers with genuine needs to fill positions when Canadians are not available.

My colleagues David Manicom and Alexis Conrad from HRSDC would be very happy to answer any questions. We also have some other experts in the background, and we may call upon them if you ask us a very difficult question.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

There may be a difficult question. We'll see.

We'll start the first round with Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thank you.

The Auditor General's report a few years ago said that there was no evaluation of the temporary foreign worker program and that it may or may not be displacing existing Canadian jobs.

The department, in a memo a year ago, told the minister that some of the temporary foreign workers were, in fact, displacing Canadian workers. We're talking about 300,000-plus temporary foreign workers in Canada right now. I know your departments, both the CIC and Human Resources, do not do much enforcement because you see it as a provincial responsibility, that the Labour Code is really enforced by the province. That's why I don't believe you do any of the enforcement to make sure the working conditions or what's happening out in the field are what they say is happening, whether there's a plan or not. The acceleration, before this minor change, means you get to advertise for one day, and the next day you can get your LMO approved. Also, there are loopholes which I will describe shortly.

I have three questions. You can answer them together.

First, you knew a year ago that temporary foreign workers were displacing Canadians. Why didn't you act then? Why didn't the minister act at that time?

Second, if the acceleration means you can get the LMO very quickly, why aren't you cancelling it outright? Why are you suspending this practice? Why don't you just cancel the whole acceleration piece?

Third, given that both departments see this as a provincial responsibility, how do you plan to enforce this so-called plan that these employers would, in fact, be training Canadians?

Let me give you one concrete example.

Foreign pilots are, in fact, taking away a lot of jobs from Canadian pilots. Canadian pilots are saying that Sunwing, Air Transat, and Can Air are hiring temporary foreign workers, claiming that there aren't any pilots in Canada. They have a different type of plane and refuse to train Canadian pilots. As a result, a lot of Canadian pilots are now moving abroad in order to find jobs. That is causing great turmoil among the Canadian pilots. Because of this loophole, some of these airlines are able to hire foreign pilots as these foreign pilots already had the ability to fly those planes.

How do you plan to enforce the training? How do you plan to enforce that employers are, in fact, following employment guidelines and not paying the foreign workers lower wages and violating labour laws?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Go ahead and answer them in the order you would like.

[Frank Vermaeten]

Let me start, and I'll also turn to my colleagues.

The temporary foreign worker program is one that has evolved over time and plays an important role in the Canadian economy. In any economy, there will always be shortages. There will never be a perfect match between the domestic labour supply and what's needed. The temporary foreign worker program can play a very important role, and I think it has played a very important role.

Clearly there are some issues with it. That's why the government launched a review over a year ago. This is continuing. Changes have been announced, and more will be made.

I will say that the government has been very concerned about making sure Canadians are able to connect with employers. It's done a range of things that go well beyond what's happening in the temporary foreign worker program, for example, the whole connecting Canadians agenda of providing more labour market information, the changes to the EI program, providing funding for a range of training, including the Canada job grant announced in the last budget.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Sir, my question was about enforcement.

[Frank Vermaeten]

Well, you asked a series of questions, and then you moved on and were talking about the accelerated labour market opinion program.

I will say that it is not correct that this is a rubber-stamp process. The accelerated labour market opinion was a more efficient way to process. It had the exact same requirements as the regular process in terms of the range of things that employers need to do, including the advertising period. It wasn't a shorter advertising period.

The only difference was, do you provide the paperwork up front and is it all paper-based, or when you have employers who have a strong track record, do they attest to having done that, which can be verified after, through the compliance review?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

So on that note, the acceleration—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

The time is up, but there were a number of questions that you might want to fully respond to, so if you want to finish your response with regard to that, go ahead.

[Frank Vermaeten]

Yes. Let me just add a few more things. Sorry, but I was speaking a little fast so that I could get in the full answer.

It's true that it was a faster way to process, but the rigour is certainly there. It's just different. It works through an attestation model, much like how we fill out our tax forms. You provide the information to Revenue Canada, the CRA, but not all of it, and they may come back to you and ask for additional information.

That's the process. It has been relatively successful, or we think quite successful, but there is heightened awareness of concerns on temporary foreign worker programs, so we put in place a temporary suspension. We will examine it and make sure it has all the rigour that's required. I would expect there may be changes to it if needed, but it certainly was in no way trying to water down the requirements of employers. They were exactly the same.

May I very quickly turn to my colleagues on enforcement?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Sure.

[Alexis Conrad, Director General, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

I'll start.

I know we're short on time, but I wanted to talk a bit about the compliance we do. I'd like to kind of correct the record, in the sense that we do hundreds and hundreds of employer compliance reviews every year. We have a very sophisticated system by which we go back to employers. We've been doing this for years, and over the last months and years, we've been putting in place more and more compliance tools.

We do work closely with the provinces in the areas they are responsible for in terms of regulating workplace safety and those kinds of issues, but we talk to employers all the time. We work through problems that we find, and we find employers to be very receptive. We do literally hundreds of them a month on things like wages, occupations, and those things. So it's a joint venture in terms of jurisdiction, but we are extremely active on the compliance front.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much.

I know that Ms. Chow also had a question about foreign worker pilots and some other stuff, but perhaps she will get to it in the next round.

We'll now start with Mr. Butt.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

It's important to note at the outset that the temporary foreign worker program is a very important program and in most sectors works extremely well and fits that acute labour shortage need.

It's also important to note that when it was brought to our attention that there were some problems within the program, the Prime Minister and the minister acted swiftly to address them, and obviously have now brought forward, through the budget implementation bill, specific legislative changes that will significantly improve the program and make sure the proper safeguards are there.

Gentlemen, perhaps you could highlight again why these specific legislative changes are necessary, and why the legislative route and the specific amendments are being proposed. Also, how will that improve the program to ensure that it is absolutely doing what it's intended to do, which is to fill that very specific labour shortage gap in a temporary timeframe? Why are these legislative changes necessary?

[Frank Vermaeten]

Maybe I could start.

I think it's important to understand that these legislative changes are part of a bigger framework to try to make the temporary foreign worker program more effective. We want to bring in those TFWs when they're needed, when Canadians are clearly not willing and able to do that kind of work. As you said, it does play a really important role. A large series of initiatives were announced on April 29, which make the program more effective at separating when there is a true need and when there is doubt, or when we have concerns about whether there's a true need for workers.

So the specific elements in the budget implementation bill give us some additional tools and help level the playing field. When I say additional tools, I'm referring particularly to the ability to revoke work permits and allow the government to suspend, revoke, and refuse processing a labour market opinion. This gives us a tool to correct the situation when we have an employer who has not provided the correct information, for example, or we find out later that the information isn't correct.

It also gives us that flexibility when new information becomes available. Even though questions were genuinely and honestly answered at time A, at time B conditions changed. For example, a large layoff occurs, and as a result, the labour market conditions have changed and now there may be a surplus of labour. That gives the government the ability to revoke or suspend LMO processing. That's a great tool. It has some of those abilities now, but this really strengthens that, and will help protect workers. It will help protect the Canadian economy.

Let me also talk about the exemption of the User Fees Act. Right now employers are not charged for the labour market opinions and that creates a couple of problems. One is there's not much incentive to economize. What I mean by that is if they think there's a chance they might need a temporary foreign worker, they'll ask for a labour market opinion, even though they're not sure whether they'll need it. We're spending resources to process labour market opinions that are never filled with temporary foreign workers. That's going to reduce that kind of speculative type of request for a labour market opinion.

It also levels the playing field in terms of this being a true cost to bring in temporary foreign workers. The employer should bear that cost to make sure that this is the total cost of bringing in a temporary foreign worker, relative to what it costs to use a domestic worker.

Finally, it brings fairness for the taxpayer. Right now, this is subsidized by the taxpayers and by those getting the work permits. This corrects that inequity and the user fee exemption allows us to quickly put a proper user fee in place.

I'll turn to my colleague at CIC.

[David Manicom, Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

I think Frank has covered most issues. I'd like to add a couple that are more specific to CIC.

The revocation authorities will also apply to work permits, so if the temporary foreign worker has already entered Canada and the situation has changed or the issuance of the work permit was based on incorrect information, the individual's or group of individuals' authorization to work in Canada could be removed.

I'd also like to remind the committee, if you don't know from your materials, that a very large portion of temporary foreign workers come into Canada through labour market opinion exempt categories. Many of these are not particularly controversial. They include the ability of international students to work part-time off campus when they're going to university in Canada. Others are reciprocal in nature and Canadians have an advantage from them, as is the case with NAFTA. Far more Canadians take advantage of the NAFTA labour mobility provisions going south than the reverse. Nevertheless, government does want to take a close look at all the labour market opinion exemption categories, including ones such as intercompany transfers, to make sure they are serving Canada's national interest.

So over a slightly longer timeframe, that complex set of labour market opinion exemptions will be carefully reviewed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Did you have a...?

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Yes, I just wanted to comment on starting to charge a user fee. I think the employer has to have some skin in the game here. The employer has to put his or her money on the table, too, and not expect that your department is going to process the LMO at no cost to him or her. That's an important change. I think that's a welcome change. We're going to get some criticism from the business community, but I still think that at the end of the day, if the employer benefits by the use of temporary foreign workers, because that's what they require to get the job done, then they should have to pay a fee at least to allow us, as a government, to recover the costs of processing that.

How will that revenue assist you, as Ms. Chow was concerned about, in the compliance side? Is this going to provide some additional resources that will allow you, then, to make sure that on the compliance side we are ensuring that the employer is following the rules, etc.? Is that sort of part of the work plan, once the bill is passed and you set up your system to charge for fees in the future? Is that the general idea?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

We'll close with the response and move on.

[Frank Vermaeten]

The idea for a user fee is that we would be leveraging a user fee that reflects the true cost, all the costs associated with running the program with all the integrity and protection measures that are in place. In that respect, there'll be a matching. As part of establishing the user fee, there is a review going on in terms of all the costs that are required, and all the costs that will be incurred. So it does provide a matching of the revenues and the expenditures.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that.

We'll now move to Madam Boutin-Sweet.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I ask any questions, I would like to say publicly that the NDP is opposed to this bill in its present form. As part of the budget, the immigration and refugee protection legislation is being amended and so are about 50 other acts. That should be dealt with in a separate bill and in a completely separate study by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. In fact, in 2009, a one-year study was conducted by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. Proposals were made, but nothing or virtually nothing was done with them.

We are only going to look at seven sections from the act that deal with the underlying problems. We might make some recommendations to the Standing Committee on Finance, which is not even required to accept them. That is not very democratic.

I will ask the same questions as my colleague because I don't think we received an answer.

A year ago, the minister was told that some employers were abusing the system. On May 29, 2012, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development received a memo indicating that temporary foreign workers were coming to Alberta to work at food banks while hundreds of Albertans who had similar work experience were unemployed.

Why did it take one year and two departments to amend this section of the act and why were Canadian workers not informed by the government, which is supposed to protect them? They had to find out from the media.