Human Resources Committee on May 30th, 2016

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I guess my follow-up to that is that you don't see the temporary foreign workers program as resulting in a suppression of wages in cases in which, if those wages were perhaps a little higher, Canadian workers would accept those jobs.

[Paul Thompson]

I would hesitate to say that there's no wage.... I think it's a valid question. It's a difficult one to answer, and I don't have a definitive response, unfortunately.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

But you don't have any evidence that this is in fact the case, then; you have no evidence of it.

[Paul Thompson]

I would say it's a concern of the department, which is why we set this prevailing wage, to make sure that a fair wage is set, but it's an open question. Wages are set at the margin, and it would be an interesting question for some more definitive economic analysis of what the overall impact of wage suppression is.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Okay.

I think this is to you, Mr. Thompson, but if I'm wrong, it's to whomever is best suited to answer.

What formal procedures are there for consulting with provincial and regional governments about the TFW program, and do you believe that local and provincial governments have the power to regulate the program or at least have a say in the total numbers?

[Paul Thompson]

There's quite a bit of activity with provinces and territories. I have regular conversations with my counterparts on the labour market side, both with respect to sharing data on the use of the program so that we can orient training programs to maximize jobs for Canadians and also working with them on validating the needs for temporary foreign workers and determining the priorities for a given jurisdiction. We have an agreement whereby provinces can identify priority occupations to which we apply a 10-day processing standard. If a province had a certain project or set of occupations that was critical to the economy, we would reach agreements on speed of processing. That's another example.

A third example of collaboration would be information sharing agreements that we're in the process of establishing with provinces to share information with labour ministries on compliance information, so that if a given employer had a history of non-compliance with provincial labour law, we would more readily get that information and use it in the administration of the program.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

I have some people coming to my office who are having problems achieving permanent resident status. Some migrants are refused and have to apply multiple times. What are the obstacles facing migrants when applying for permanent resident status?

Ms. Welbourne, are you the...?

[Maia Welbourne]

Without knowing the particulars of what stream or programs they're seeking to achieve permanent residence through, it's difficult for me to comment, but for foreign workers in particular there are several streams available, whether it's the federal skilled worker program or the Canadian experience class, which is based on an individual's having at least one year of skilled work experience, or others.

There's a range of requirements to be met. Again, without knowing the specifics of what the issues are with the programs....

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

You haven't heard of a problem, generally, whereby people are becoming frustrated at attaining permanent residency; not specifically, but just generally, as a....

[Maia Welbourne]

Again it comes down to there being a limited number of spaces every year in the levels plan, and there is essentially competition for those spaces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ruimy, please.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Thompson, in 2014 the previous government announced that ESDC would no longer process LMIA applications in accommodation, food services, and retail trade in economic regions with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher.

My first question on that is, what sort of outcomes did we see because of this measure?

[Paul Thompson]

The rationale behind that measure was that these were areas of the program that were fairly heavily used and that were in generally low-skilled areas in which, in labour markets with above a 6% unemployment rate, there's an expectation that there will be more Canadians available for those jobs, so that measure was put in place.

It's a hard and fast rule on the processing side, so the employers essentially were compelled to find Canadian workers as a result of that measure. There's no more processing done in these areas and so no temporary foreign workers. It's a refusal to process the application right at the front end of the process.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

We heard in previous testimony about Whistler, for instance, where they have a lower unemployment rate and severe challenges in finding workers to employ. How does that factor into this? We have heard testimony throughout about different regions that are lower than the 6%. They're claiming that they're struggling.

[Paul Thompson]

I'm trying to remember whether the economic region that Whistler is in is above or below the 6%.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

It's below the 6%.

[Paul Thompson]

Below the 6%? They're not subject to the refusal to process.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

They're below, right?

[A voice]

They're above.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I'm sorry. They're above.

[Paul Thompson]

Okay. So they are subject to the refusal to process.

I do know that in the Whistler case, which I'm familiar with, they made particular use of the international mobility program. The actual use of what's now called the temporary foreign worker program was surprisingly small, but use was very significant in the international mobility program, including the international experience Canada program. I think that at some point that program was misunderstood by some stakeholders as actually being the TFW program, where the refusal-to-process rule was in play. They were historic users of the international mobility program and they continue to be.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Do you think this is an effective way to encourage domestic hiring?

[Paul Thompson]

Having the international mobility...?

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Here's the thing. We talk about the TFWs. Again, we're not hiring locals. We're giving jobs to people outside the country.

There are cases of both, which we can find throughout all of the testimonies we've been hearing, but I guess the question comes back to how we can continue to hire local people. We've heard that you can put an ad in The Globe and Mail and if nobody answers it, great, you can go get an LMIA. Here's where I'm trying to get an understanding: by limiting it to an employment rate, is that an effective way to hire domestic people?

[Paul Thompson]

In and of itself, I would say it's insufficient. There has to be a suite of other measures put in place. We're working with employers across the country to get more access to labour market information.

Our national job bank is one such vehicle to promote job vacancies across the country. Any jobseeker anywhere in Canada can see a job posted in Whistler in the job bank or on other job boards, so that's one avenue.

I also mentioned the work we're doing with provinces and territories. We are working with British Columbia to orient their programming to meet some of these needs.

I would also say our youth employment strategy and our expanding indigenous labour market programs also show a lot of promise for meeting some of the needs.

The international mobility program or the TFW rules, I would agree, are only part of the solution. These other measures would be essential to get Canadian take-up of these jobs.