Human Resources Committee on May 28th, 2015

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

We invest in initiatives that generate results for Canadians. I'll give you an example. You mentioned foreign credential recognition. We just announced funding for the Medical Council to eliminate one of its evaluating exams and put its regime for accrediting foreign trained doctors online. That will permit applicants for immigration to this country to begin, and in many cases complete, their accreditation to become a medical doctor before they even arrive in Canada, so they will be eligible to immediately start a residency, or maybe even go into a full practice when they get here.

This is a revolutionary concept completely different from the approach of the previous government, which was just to allow people to come here and then give them the heartbreaking news upon arrival that they would not be allowed to work in the profession for which they spent a decade of their lives training.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Minister, I can tell you—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

These are real results, but that's the point. Here's the distinction: we funded that not so we could put $6 million out the door, but so we could get results for our health care system, our job market, and newcomers. The purpose here is to deliver a result, not just to spend money.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

That's not what the debate is about. It is about delivering results, and it's about providing the programs where they're needed.

I can tell you that probably in every riding, particularly my riding, youth unemployment is a serious issue. There are all kinds of organizations that could have used the youth employment program funds for summer jobs, but the allocations, whatever they are...and yet we find out there's $40 million that has been unspent.

It's not a matter of shovelling money out the door. It's a matter of using the dollars for what they were intended, particularly when there's such a high need. I feel there's a huge gap in terms of the explanation here, and it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to Canadians.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Most Canadians would say that when you come in under budget, you have succeeded. Most Canadians would say that you focus—

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

By being 31% under budget?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

—on achieving results rather than just pushing money out the door.

I know you say that you have people who need jobs in your riding. I have no doubt of that. We all do. The number one source of new jobs is actually small business. We've just announced we're reducing small business taxes from 11% to 9%.

I raise this because you cannot reduce taxes for anyone if you're spending too much. Every day I see opposition MPs stand up in the House of Commons and demand more spending on every program imaginable, money that we don't have, often for things we don't need. That will drive up taxes on everybody, especially our job creators. That's the last thing people looking for jobs in your riding and mine need to hear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you very much.

Minister, that brings us close to the time that I had asked for, which is a complete hour. I'm wondering, just before we part—we do have a couple of minutes—whether you have any further comments to close out the two minutes we have left.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Yes. This is my first time addressing this committee. It is a daunting task to assume leadership of a department this large and with this much responsibility. I want to say a very heartfelt thank you to the public servants both at CMHC and ESDC. Also, they're not here, but I want to thank those at the National Capital Commission and at PCO, for which I'm also responsible, who have done an extraordinary amount of work to help me get through this very difficult transition to a very big portfolio. We have some exceptional public servants in this country. I think all of you and all of us are very well served, regardless of our partisan affiliations, by them. I just hope that everyone appreciates the work these fine people do. I applaud them for their efforts. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you for that, Minister.

Now I'll just allude to one comment you made during your initial presentation. You referred to me as the Speaker. I'll take that as a true compliment of perhaps what might be down the road.

Thank you for taking the time to be with us. I concur on your evaluation of the officials you brought along with you. We will have the officials stay for the second hour.

We'll just take a quick recess while the minister leaves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Welcome back to the second hour of today's consideration of the main estimates 2015-16.

We have with us for the second hour the departmental officials. I introduced several of them with the minister. I'll introduce two who have joined us: Benoît Long, the senior assistant deputy minister of the process and payment services branch, Service Canada; and Brian Naish, the chief financial officer.

We'll start this half of the meeting with any of the officials here who wish to make comments and we'll give you five to seven minutes, depending on how many of you would like to speak. If you do not care to speak, that's totally understood as well, and we'll move right into questioning.

Do any of you wish to make comments before we begin the afternoon session?

[Ian Shugart]

No, I think we're in the committee's hands, Chair.

I may take the liberty, from time to time, as we get into the different areas, to invite other colleagues from the department to come forward and converse with officials. We actually have a number of new colleagues in the department whom committee members will not have met before. As that occurs, I'll take the liberty of introducing them, if I may.

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Thank you, Mr. Shugart. I appreciate that.

Let's move right into our rounds of questioning. I'll keep the same order as we had in the first hour, unless members wish to change that.

We'll start with Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you to all the officials for being here.

I want to turn to the temporary foreign worker program. That's on page 65 of the report on plans and priorities. I have a number of questions.

I want to focus first on the live-in caregiver program. As I'm sure you know, the live-in caregiver program is a very important program for Canadian families and businesses. It's an important source of caregivers for families for their children, for aging parents—particularly those with dementia and other disabilities—and for people with disabilities.

Since the changes to the LIC program, though, the statistics are, I guess in a word, startling. In December 2014 there was an 85% rejection rate for LIC applications from families across Canada. In January 2015 there was a 93% refusal rate. In February 2015 there was a 91% rejection rate. In March 2015 there was an 86% rejection rate.

I have families who run businesses coming to my office and saying they need caregivers to take care of their children so that they can actually devote their time to their business and so they can action into the workforce. They're telling me they have to pay $1,000 to the government; that's not refundable. They are told by the government that caregivers will be available. They cross every t, dot every i, and comply with every requirement of the program, and then their application is rejected.

They want me to ask you why there is such an appalling rejection rate of valid applications. They also want me to ask you if the government is really trying to kill the LIC program but just doesn't have the political courage to come out and say so.

[Ian Shugart]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask Paul Thompson, who is the ADM working most closely with Citizenship and Immigration on the temporary foreign worker program, to respond.

Paul, do you want to address that?

[Paul Thompson, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment, Department of Employment and Social Development]

I'll just make a couple of comments. First of all, we're still very much in a transition with respect to the caregiver program, implementing some very significant changes. I think the processing results we're seeing are very much a reflection of the transition and a pretty significant change in the eligibility parameters for the program. Those are still flowing through the system.

A lot of applications are being received that aren't consistent with the new program, such as some of the main elements no longer having this mandatory requirement that the caregiver be live-in. It's now a more broadly based caregiver program.

There are differences in the advertising requirements that are being introduced.

The wage policy has also changed significantly to reflect the prevailing wage.

These significant changes were introduced, and we're still in the process of seeing applicants adjusting to them. Also, we're hoping to get more completed applications that are fully aligned with the new program parameters.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Just to understand then, your answer as to why we have an average rejection rate of 90% of applications across the country from December to March is that the applications are flawed.

[Paul Thompson]

They're not in line with the new requirements of the program.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Well, I do have people coming to my office who are literate professionals and who have hired professionals, in many cases, to prepare their applications, and they're well aware of the new program requirements. They come to my office with flawless applications, and they're showing me simply indecipherable rejections that don't make sense to them. These are not just cases of flawed applications. They're getting solid, perfectly done applications rejected. Is there any answer to that, or are they wrong?

[Paul Thompson]

We are still just several months into the new policy framework for this, so I think we're confident we'll see a pretty significant change as these new program parameters take root, as there's more awareness among clients. We're pretty confident that we'll see those numbers change dramatically in the coming months.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Well, we'll be watching carefully, and we hope that's the case.

Again, under the temporary foreign worker program, can you explain the decision to create exemptions for temporary workers in Alberta in the face of the April 1 deadline, lift the hiring ban completely for Yellowknife, and relax rules for universities around transition plans? Why create rules if exemptions flow so freely?

[Ian Shugart]

This program, and frankly Chair and members of the committee, it has been a challenging issue of public policy to achieve the right kind of balance between a proven need and undue reliance on temporary foreign workers when the Canadian labour market can provide the workers.

In the case of universities, and I'm going to ask Paul to comment on the specific geographic locations, the essence of much of university recruitment is indeed to deliberately search for the best talent available in the world. The exemption was applied to the specific requirement in that high-skilled category of having detailed transition plans to a Canadian workforce.

We want to understand what is going on, what the trends are, be able to identify any inappropriate reliance on the TFW program, but it was because of the essential objectives of recruiting people from abroad that it made no sense in those particular cases to transition to a Canadian workforce. These institutions were deliberately blind as to the country of origin. They wanted the best experts, researchers, and scholars in those areas.

That explains the exemption and the approach in that regard with respect to the geographic areas where you sometimes have highly localized labour market conditions. We've done a lot of analysis on that, and Paul can comment.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I just—

[The Chair, Conservative, Phil McColeman]

Mr. Davies, you're way over on your time. I'm going to allow Mr. Thompson to respond, but there's no time for your intervention.

Mr. Thompson.

[Paul Thompson]

Just to speak to the other two examples as part of the policy changes announced by the government last June, there was a general prohibition on low-wage temporary foreign workers in certain occupations in the accommodation and food services sector and retail sector.

There was at the same time, as the deputy minister has noted, an opportunity to reflect specific economic circumstances in micro economies, places where there might be a severe labour market shortage in an otherwise area of higher unemployment.

That case was made by the Government of the Northwest Territories with respect to Yellowknife, and it was accepted as a legitimate exemption based on available labour market information.

The second example is with respect to the agreement with Alberta. A change was made to the entire program that any temporary foreign worker who has received a nomination for permanent residence doesn't get included in the cap that has been introduced for temporary foreign workers.

In the case of Alberta, there was a backlog in the processing of the provincial nominee program, so flexibility was extended for people who were in that backlog where there was an intent to nominate. It was an accommodation for this specific circumstance.