Human Resources Committee on May 16th, 2016

[Jayson Hilchie]

Currently we're talking sometimes four or five months, and in an ideal world we could be talking weeks. That is what we used to have when we had the IT exemptions under the temporary foreign worker program.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Do you think just by erasing the actual regulation that it will be as fast as you wish it to be, that everything will work out?

[Jayson Hilchie]

I don't work for the government so I can't tell you that I can make that happen, but I can tell you that our experience when we did not have to fill out a labour market impact assessment the process was considerably more efficient than it is now. I can tell you that 99% of the complaints I receive from companies in our industry are completely related to the LMIA and its process.

I can't say whether or not it will happen in days, but it will improve it.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

How many people or businesses lost their opportunity in the last year because of this regulation?

[Jayson Hilchie]

Most of the companies in my industry are very secretive about their competitive advantages and the jobs they have available and those people they've lost or couldn't bring in.

Anecdotally I hear this all the time that companies are on the verge of losing the opportunity to bring in a worker for a position because they simply can't get the labour market impact assessment through, that there are jobs that are absolutely necessary for a project to happen and they are unable to bring those people in because we're unable to find them here in Canada.

In terms of giving you statistics I don't have them.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Hilchie.

For my next question I'll go to Madam Gina Bahiwal.

Madam Bahiwal, in the province of Quebec on the front page of Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québecthere was a very sad story about farm workers who were treated like slaves. The newspapers talked about a very minor group; usually, all the people are happy.

I would like to have your point of view on that. You talked about difficulties with government, but what is the relationship between the farm workers and those who employ them?

[Gina Bahiwal]

Well, regarding the employer and the—

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

—quality of the relationship.

[Gina Bahiwal]

In my experience, if you try to speak up, then you'll get fired. In my first employment here in Leamington, I was employed at one of the warehouses. I tried to speak up because of the recruitment fees that we paid. We paid more or less $6,000 in recruitment fees before coming to Canada and, because of the involvement of this recruiter, they did not give me an extension work permit, so I had to find another job.

When I moved to B.C. I tried to help this other worker with recruitment fees, because she was fired after three months. When she came to Canada she was fired. But in coming to Canada she had to pay $6,000 to $7,000, including airfare. We tried to get that one and we succeeded, but I ended up losing another job.

As for the employer-worker relationship, we are tied; we cannot speak up. Even if there are problems with the work, it's so hard for us to speak up because we are afraid of losing a job, and it's hard for us to get another job if we don't pay another recruiter.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you so much, Madam, for your very important testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Now we have Mr. Sangha, please.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, witnesses and everyone, for coming here today.

My first question is to Mr. Hilchie. You suggested that the labour market impact assessment system be removed totally. What is your suggestion in place of LMIA?

[Jayson Hilchie]

My recommendation is that it be removed for in-demand high-skilled jobs only. I'm not recommending it be removed for everyone. I do realize there is a use for it in certain instances.

In terms of other options, you have a list of what our main issues are with the program. For us, without seeing the complete removal of the LMIA process for certain specific designated occupations, what we need to see is a better processing system in terms of the actual application process for this. Right now, it's not suitable for us to be able to continue to efficiently make those hires.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Do you have any suggestion for that?

[Jayson Hilchie]

Well, we've been making suggestions for the last five years to the previous government and this government in regard to ways that we think this program can be improved. We actually were supporters of the increased fee because we thought it was going to reduce the number of applications.

Our members and our industry are not complaining about the fee today. We were prepared to pay that extra fee if it was going to result in increased efficiency of application. We haven't seen that. We thought the removal of the low-wage stream would free up capacity at Service Canada and we haven't seen that. The recommendations we've been trying to make, we were actually supportive of those changes two years ago.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Is there any special suggestion you wanted to make in place of LMIA?

[Jayson Hilchie]

What I'd like to suggest is the system that happens in the United Kingdom with the tier 2, high-skilled visa, which is a designated occupation list of jobs, and those people are exempt.

If we had proper labour market information in this country, we would be able to determine which jobs are actually in demand and which are having shortages.

Right now my industry is calculated underneath a number of national occupational codes which simply aren't relevant or not encompassing enough of all the various occupations that now exist. It's very difficult for us when we have meetings with government to quantify the actual labour market situation.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

You are talking about NOC, national occupational classification. What changes do you suggest to bring in that national occupational classification?

[Jayson Hilchie]

Currently we're trying to work with the government in order to renew those and to create new occupations. Our industry was involved in a project with ICTC four years ago, the Information and Communications Technology Council, on a project that was funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada to develop 10 new job profiles for the digital media industry.

We spent a lot of time in our industry consulting on those and making sure that they were appropriate for us. They were supposed to be sent to ESDC and turned into NOC codes. To this day they haven't been.

Currently we're renewing our conversations with ESDC about trying to turn those into NOC codes.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

My next question is to Mr. Sidhu. Mr. Sidhu, you told us that during peak seasons your company does not get enough seasonal workers from March to September. Their applications are refused. What are the reasons for the refusals?

[Jatinder Sidhu]

The reason for refusal is simply the prevailing wage rate. For example, I am in the business of building hot tubs, and when I need to find workers I need to pay them in accordance to the local market, but at the same time I also have to make sure that my wage is not over $20 or $25, so that I'm still within the cost efficiency of my program, and at the same time I'm still competitive.

I can't compare myself to a bread manufacturer down the road who is paying $5 less or $5 more. I can only pay what I can afford.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

If you can't compete with the labour market, how can you expect to get the temporary foreign workers with less pay? A short answer, please.

[Jatinder Sidhu]

Because at the end of the day what we pay is not the final wage. You have to take the base plus the benefits plus the cost of bringing in these workers. By the time you calculate that amount, it's $4 to $5 more than a fully loaded wage rate we pay to a Canadian worker.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Gina, you said during your deposition that four years is the maximum period. You want that to be decreased for the live-in caregiver category. What period do you suggest it should be?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Very quickly, please. A 10-second answer, please.