Mr. Chair and members of the committee, good afternoon.
My name is Dr. Ethel Tungohan. I am an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at York University. With me today is Ericson De Leon, who is currently a caregiver.
I am here today to talk to you about how the recent changes to the temporary foreign worker program and the caregiver program make workers vulnerable. Thus far we haven't talked about the needs of caregivers, so I'd like the committee to pay attention to the needs of this very vulnerable group.
Over the last seven years, I have conducted interviews with 103 caregiver activists in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver; 55 focus groups of current and former caregivers in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal; and 25 focus groups with temporary foreign workers across Alberta. My research partners and I have also conducted surveys of over 600 former caregivers across the country. In these studies, I have found that, first, tying work permits to employers inherently makes workers vulnerable to abuse. This is because these arrangements magnify the power discrepancy between workers and employers. In many cases employers force workers into compliance by threatening to terminate their contracts, which means that workers risk not only losing their jobs but also losing the ability to stay in Canada.
Second, measures to curb abuse, such as workplace inspections and the creation of a temporary foreign worker tip line to report abuse have failed. You can have the biggest fines and the strictest enforcement, but if the end result is that workers are out of jobs and have to leave the country because their employers are banned from hiring foreign workers, workers are not likely to report abuse.
Third, the proposal to make regulated companies hire caregivers directly does not address the immense power discrepancy between workers and employers that I just highlighted. In this scenario workers are still tied to a single employer and work permit with the same power discrepancy. In fact, this proposal may even exacerbate the abuse facing caregivers because caregivers will have to navigate two power relationships: one with the family they are working for and one with their agents. Agents also have a profit motive and may not prioritize workers' well-being. Also, because most provinces do not have clear policies regulating agencies, caregivers are made vulnerable.
Fourth, in cases where there's a technical pathway to permanent residency, as in the case of the caregiver program, workers have found the process to be cumbersome, confusing, and inhumane. For example, immigration officials require caregivers to demonstrate that they will not stay in the country after they finish their contracts, but caregivers do have the right to apply for permanent residency and must at the same time demonstrate their ability to integrate into Canada. These demands are inconsistent and contradictory.
Our studies also reveal a pattern of officials using medical inadmissibility as a blanket reason to deny permanent residency applications. Immigration officers are denying applications without fully considering the specificities of each case. These barriers create undue stress and hardship on caregivers and their families due to family separation. Caregiver advocates indicate that there are 38,000 caregivers waiting to be reunited with their families. In 2016, processing time for peer applications for caregivers is 49 months. This backlog has to be addressed.
To illustrate the human impact of these issues, I would now like to invite my colleague, Ericson De Leon, to tell his story.