Human Resources Committee on Nov. 7th, 2013

[Alexis Conrad]

The process itself and the tools that the department uses to assess the labour market impact of a temporary foreign worker coming to the country, and whether Canadians are available who could and should be available to do the work, won't change. It's a transition from a very, very heavily paper-based process, in which we literally get millions of pieces of paper a year in our processing office, to allow us to offer the service online—and all aspects of the service.

For employers who provide the complete application and have gone through the necessary steps to try to find Canadians to do a job, whether it's the ski patrol or another occupation, if they can prove that they've gone through those steps and our labour market information demonstrates that there is a shortage of workers, they should in theory get faster service. That's the advantage.

In some occupations where they're seasonal or where things move very quickly, then this is an efficiency gain that I think will reap immediate dividends. But nothing about this change will change in any respect the tools and the process that we put employers through to verify that a foreign worker can come into Canada to work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you for that.

Now we move back to Madam Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really want to say how much we appreciate the fact that you've come here to answer our questions. I also think that with some of the questions we have, it would almost have been better to have had the minister here as well, in order to get responses to some of them. I don't mean to put you in an awkward situation. I know that you will tell us what you can say and what you cannot.

For me, I'm sitting here, and we have two hours with you, or an hour and 45 minutes, which we really appreciate—it's great to have you here—to talk about some technical changes that are not that huge. You can only keep asking questions in so many different ways. After I've heard the last three people, it has sort of narrowed it.

So let me get it right. We're having a name change. Nothing is changing in the structure or in the workings therein. We don't know the full cost yet.

But the mandate and programs are not changing per se, so I want to move on the temporary foreign worker program next—I don't know which one of you is going to take that one—by way of its move to eliminate the physical signature in exchange for an electronic form. I know I'm hearing that we're going to put all these checks and balances in place, but sometimes, Mr. Chair, I wouldn't mind having somebody here to explain to us what those checks and balances are that are going to be different from what we already do, to ensure that the same kind of breach doesn't happen that happened last year, which was very disconcerting for many Canadians.

Until this summer, I actually had the privilege of being a critic for immigration. This whole file of the temporary foreign workers has been close and dear to my heart. I'm not a stranger to the workings of it. In my perception, there are many flaws with the program.

Don't get me wrong. We're not saying that the program should be eliminated. We have never said that. We do support a temporary foreign worker program that is there to meet the genuine needs in a skills shortage where no Canadian is available. With that understanding and knowing that there are many flaws, it seems to me that there's a lot more to be fixed in this program than getting an electronic signature and just the bureaucracy of it all.

Labour market opinions are the tools that underpin the entire program. We know that unless somebody has an LMO in their hand, they can't go out and get a temporary foreign worker. If the government does not get the LMOs right, the whole program suffers; last spring, it was with the banks, and before that it was with HD Mining. I could sit here and give you millions of cases, but I'm not going to.

The unemployment and job vacancy numbers across Canada indicate that there are more people out of work than there are jobs and that positive LMOs continue to be issued. So the key question remains: how can we know that LMOs are being administered competently so as to provide Canada's unemployed with access to work? I don't see an electronic signature being able to do the enforcement, which is where we're at.

What does digital enforcement of the TFW program look like? What safeguards exist? Will there be both monitoring and reporting so that we know the program is not subject to the old abuses?

I suppose that I could think of about six or seven amendments to the LMO area that are not before us, but what I do see once again is electronic signatures. It's a new digital age; I'm not opposed to that per se. But once again it seems that we're just rearranging the chairs on the deck instead of dealing with the substantive issue of how we prevent abuse of this program when we know that this abuse exists. There is nothing in here about enforcement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Do any of you wish to respond to that? You have about 10 seconds. I'll give you some latitude.

[Alexis Conrad]

These amendments are strictly about transitioning the program from a very paper-based system to online. That's the scope of what they are. I'm not going to say that it's otherwise.

I will say, though, that as far as program integrity and compliance go, when an employer is registered on an online system, when they have an account and use the same account over and over again, and they fill in the information and don't have to send in a form that they've filled out which is then taken by an official who inputs it into the system, it does reduce the chance of error, and it does allow us to....

Employers will send in slightly different names. In the system, when they input a different name every time, we have to go through it and verify that every one is the same company.

This program has the advantage of having the same set of credentials and the same information for the same employer every time, which I'm not going to oversell but which I think is an important part in helping us to ensure that employers are who they say they are and that we know everything about them and their usage of our program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

Now we'll move on to Mr. Shory.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming here and answering our questions, because you are here to help us by answering the questions. I'll try to keep my commentary as short as I can and will put forward the questions.

Following up on the temporary foreign worker program, my first question will be about how these changes will affect the TFW or the TFWP. In making the process electronic, how will this impact the efficiency of the program? What can program users expect to see done differently under the new program?

[Alexis Conrad]

As we talked about a bit before, as far as the processing goes, what it does is reduce a step in the current process by which an employer sends in a labour market opinion application.

Someone has to literally take it off the fax machine, verify that it's complete, take the information, and manually input it into the foreign worker system. At that point, they can process the payment that's been sent with it. That's a fairly time-consuming process, and errors can happen along the way.

We obviously have systems to ensure that doesn't continue, but from an efficiency perspective, we think that reducing not just the paper but the amount of time that someone uses to actually take the information from paper and input it into an electronic system, multiplied by the tens of thousands of labour market opinion applications we get a year, is a significant efficiency saving. It's something that, as we've heard from employers and from anyone involved in this process, is a useful step, because we're essentially trying to cut out part of the process that is a large burden on us and slows down processing.

As far as the program goes, I think it's a boost. I think the part 6 amendments are consistent across the department and represent an important departmental approach in managing this business. From the foreign worker program side, I think it's a benefit. There are savings that are important for government and important for the users of our program, and that, effectively, from my perspective, has only an upside.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

So hopefully...is it right to assume that it will save some time as well, that it will shorten some time?

[Alexis Conrad]

It certainly does. It saves the time used when someone has to take paper off a fax machine or from the mailroom, verify that it's complete, and manually enter a lot of that information in the foreign worker system. Because the system, as it currently is set up and as we enhance it, won't let an employer submit an application unless it's actually complete.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. Sims talked about some abuse of the program, and I certainly agree with her that there have been a few—

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Let me get a recorder.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Oh, I forgot. It is being recorded.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

It's in the committee Hansard.

Certainly there have been a few issues, and our government has tightened some of the rules to ensure that the system operates on a level playing field for everyone. How do the proposed changes help us ensure that compliance in the program and that level playing field?

[Alexis Conrad]

As I said, from a simple perspective where there is reduced error, or we always have the same information from an employer, it's an important tool for compliance. We can actually make sure that all the information is consistent.

The large part of this effort is around the front-end processing and actually getting at and finding the efficiencies rather than something that's directly designed to increase compliance. But I think it does have some really important residual impact on our compliance.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

In response to Mr. Cuzner's question, you mentioned a saving of $8 million or $9 million. Are you referring to one program, the student loans program, or does it include the temporary foreign worker program as well?

[Atiq Rahman]

It's only with regard to the student loans program.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Approximately how much would be in both programs?

[Alexis Conrad]

At this point, we haven't actually quantified what the savings are. To be honest, from a processing perspective, a lot of the time the savings are in time and the number of applications we can process in a given year, or that one officer can, rather than a quantified savings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you.

The next questioner is Monsieur Boulerice.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Earlier, you said that, when it comes to the security of personal information, privacy protection and identity theft, you were looking at what was available and what the options were. Your answer led me to believe that you were shopping around and looking at what was on the market.

Are you looking at what tools and expertise are available in the federal public service, or are you rather shopping externally for new tools and software? If so, could you tell me how much that could cost?

[Atiq Rahman]

We are looking at the solutions that our department actually has in place, but we have not come to any conclusion. We are looking at what kinds of solutions are available in the marketplace. Right now we don't really have any particular solution in mind.

I should add that our program is delivered through a third party service provider in the private sector. Part of these initiatives will be implemented through them. It is possible, depending on how the systems work and interact, that we will be able to leverage the system that the Government of Canada already has in place. The service provider can tap into that system. If that works, that will be great.

But I'm not a technical person, so I can't add any more than that.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I like that approach. It's a good one.

You also said that the changes made could generate savings of $9 million to $10 million. That would be great. However, how did you come up with that figure? What assessment did you use?

[Atiq Rahman]

These are our preliminary estimates, based on tasks that we will no longer have to do.

For example, when students go to Canada Post and it verifies their identity, we have a contract with Canada Post for doing that, under which we pay them, I think, between $2 million to $3 million a year. At the same time, we will be eliminating much of the paper-based communications that we have right now, which cost us quite a bit of money, too.

Those are the things we will be able to eliminate, giving us that preliminary estimate of about $9 million to $10 million.