Thank you.
Mr. Chair and committee members, my name is David Manicom and I am the associate deputy minister for strategic and program policy at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
The Immigration Act and regulations set out the framework under which foreign nationals are authorized to work in Canada. The act establishes when work permits or labour market impact assessments are required. Immigration officers, however, issue all work permits under both streams, except those issued by CBSA officials, which are primarily to U.S. nationals crossing the land border.
These immigration officers assess if the applicant has met the eligibility requirements, is qualified to perform the work and genuinely intends to do so, and is admissible to Canada with regard to health and security risks.
My department is responsible for the design of the international mobility program, which, as my colleague has said, is a collection of programs that authorize foreign nationals to work temporarily in Canada without requiring a labour market test, for a variety of economic, social and cultural reasons.
The international mobility program is made up of many components. I'll mention a couple of the largest ones.
Our single largest program is international experience Canada, under which young Canadians are given the opportunity to travel and work abroad in countries with which Canada has negotiated bilateral agreements. These agreements provide the same opportunities for young Canadians and are often called youth mobility programs. In 2015 close to 50,000 work permits were issued to international experience Canada participants.
The second example is the post-graduation work permit program, which gives open work permits to international students who have completed their degrees but who wish to remain in Canada to work for a period of up to three years to reinforce their learning or often to transition to permanent resident status in Canada.
As the number of international students in Canada has grown, so has the number of work permits. Nearly 35,000 were issued in 2015. At any given time, roughly one in four holders of a valid work permit in Canada is a post-grad. This program provides opportunities for students to qualify for permanent residence in Canada and is a major attraction in bringing foreign students to our schools, which generates $8 billion worth of economic activity in this country each year.
Canada also provides open work permits to the spouses of skilled temporary workers. Doing so helps many companies recruit the best and the brightest if their spouses can come here and work.
Job-specific but labour market impact assessment-exempt work permits are provided for intercompany transfers as well as to support commitments to labour mobility under free trade agreements such as NAFTA.
Finally, there are a very large number of labour market test exemptions for special sectors. These include entertainers, professional athletes, medical researchers, religious workers, and so forth.
In all, nearly 180,000 unique work permits were authorized under the international mobility program in 2015. As Mr. Thompson mentioned, this represents about two-thirds or more of all temporary foreign workers coming into the country.
In providing these opportunities for foreign nationals to work temporarily in Canada, the international mobility program helps attract skilled workers and international students to Canada. It secures opportunities for Canadians to work abroad in various countries and creates a pool of potential permanent residents to Canada. Work permits issued under the international mobility program do not target specific labour market shortages. They address broader economic and cultural interests. The international mobility program has experienced strong growth in the last few years. It has gone from a rough equivalency with the temporary foreign worker program in 2009 to more than double that program's activity level in 2015. Much of the growth has occurred in those streams where an actual job offer is not required, such as post-graduation work permits and the international experience program. As my colleague, Mr. Thompson, has pointed out, foreign nationals with valid work permits still represent a very small percentage of the 19 million strong Canadian workforce.
Several pathways exist for temporary residents to apply to stay in Canada as economic permanent residents. We often see references to the desirability of such programs. In fact, they already exist in large number. These include the Canadian experience class, the federal skilled worker program, and the various provincial nominee programs across Canada.
Transitions from temporary to permanent status have increased fivefold since 2005. International mobility program participants accounted for the majority of these. About 30,000 principal applicants in immigration applications who became permanent residents were here as temporary foreign workers last year, so while it is true that not every person who would like to stay in Canada is eligible to do so, temporary resident programs provide an important source of permanent residents for Canada.
In issuing work permits to foreign nationals, the government has an obligation to protect these foreign workers from exploitation once they have been approved to work here. That is why, along with Employment and Social Development Canada, my department has recently implemented reforms to ensure greater compliance by employers of foreign workers with applicable employment standards and requirements. Employers have always been obligated to abide by provincial/territorial legislation, but these reforms give the federal government a greater role in inspecting employers of foreign nationals, and imposing sanctions of our own in cases of non-compliance.
In conclusion, there are important links between Canada's immigration program and the temporary foreign worker program that this committee is reviewing.
As I mentioned, temporary foreign workers are an important source of permanent residents. Many of these people need employment as part of their integration into Canadian society. We would certainly like Canadian employers, who might otherwise be inclined to pursue a temporary foreign worker, to consider all of these new Canadians for difficult-to-fill positions. An excellent example of this approach is an initiative spearheaded by the New Canadians' Centre of Excellence that is placing 125 Syrian refugees into agricultural jobs in the Leamington, Ontario, area, with strong community support for their accommodation and orientation. We believe this approach benefits the employer, the recent immigrants, and Canada in general.
As I said, temporary work permit holders provide Canada with residents of impressively varied skill levels who become permanent residents.
I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to appear before its members. On behalf of my department, we look forward to reading your report and receiving your recommendations as they pertain to us.
I would be pleased to address any questions committee members might have.
Thank you very much.