Human Resources Committee on May 30th, 2016

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

It's good to see you too.

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

I would like to talk about unemployment in Alberta. We all know that there are a lot of problems with the crisis in the oil business. We all know that Fort McMurray is up north and High River is in the south of the province. How can we explain to people that we have to hire people from outside of Canada when there are a lot of people who are losing their jobs in your own province?

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

I'm not going to diminish the optics of it, because the optics seem at first glance to be so odd. You have, in the case of Alberta, a dramatic crash in oil and gas, and that is a key part of the provincial economy, so you have a rising provincial unemployment rate. At the same time, however, there are opportunities in the province, but they simply are not near where the pool of unemployed workers is. They are in rural parts of the province. It's very much a case of finding a way to explain to Canadians that in Canada there is increasingly a divide between a pattern of increasing urbanization on the one hand and opportunities on the rural side on the other hand. The unemployment situation in urban Canada cannot be translated to what's happening in the rural parts of the province. It's as simple as that.

Maybe I didn't explain it very well, but there are basically two worlds out there in some sense.

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

You can understand though that when we look at this from other parts of Canada, we're seeing people losing their jobs and we're looking for opportunities there. It's not very easy for us to explain that we have to hire people from outside when there are plenty of people who are losing their jobs.

[Casey Vander Ploeg]

Maybe it's a little bit simpler than that to some extent. Here I would refer more to what's going on in meat-packing facilities. It is simply work that many Canadians will not do or do not want to do. You can lead that horse to water, but I'm not strong enough to pull his neck down to make him drink. That's part of the challenge too.

To some extent, I think the Canadian economy has always had that element to it. In my personal experience, my father came here after World War II to hoe beets in a field, yet my father was an electrician in the Netherlands and he ran a crew in one of the most important coal mines in the country. He gave it all up to do this work as his way into Canada. We've had these challenges. I think there will be more and more pressure with an aging demographic too.

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

Thank you for sharing your personal experience. I do respect that. Don't get me wrong, as I want to be very clear. You're talking about a skilled job and that people need to have some ability to do it. I could have some problems, in that all of the ridings near me are not as big as the one in High River. I have some boucheries in Quebec. I visit them usually, and it's not an easy task. I have a lot of respect for the people who work there. It's not for everybody; I recognize that.

Madame Paglingayen, I was very touched by your experience and thank you so much for sharing it with us. Here in the 21st century in Canada, a very generous country, a very modern country, how can we explain that we have to live like a servant?

[Pinky Paglingayen]

I don't even know how to say it. Before coming here, I heard that Canada was very welcoming, that worker strikes are expected, that we would have better opportunities here, but it didn't happen. We have to work our way to get permanent residency here, to be respected as a worker, and then in the end, so many of us, even for some of us who are already permanent residents, abuses at work still happen because we choose to stay in caregiving jobs.

I don't know how to explain it, even though I've been teaching the history of caregiving in Canada. They were given permanent resident status upon arrival until they changed their country of origin, and then it became temporary and a lot of things just happened. I was so amazed because regardless of where we're from, we're still human, we're still people who have these feelings of caring for other people and yet they devalue the skill we have. It's not very easy, taking care of somebody who is not related to you, and yet we are giving our energy, our emotions, to take care of these people.

Believe it or not, when I was caring for this elderly person, it was only for two months and I felt so much compassion for this person that when she passed away, nobody could talk to me because I was crying; that's how much I loved this person. I felt I was considered a family member.

Yet in my previous employment I was treated like a nobody. Can you imagine staying all hours, being awakened at two o'clock in the morning just to have your employer ask you to massage her. I don't know...I was just so scared at that time. I couldn't even call my friends to tell them what was happening to me because in front of my friends I always put on a brave front so they would not think this was happening to me at that time because they had been complaining a lot too.

It's very difficult...I don't understand, I just don't understand. The fact that most of us are professionals back home, even have a degree in physiotherapy and even went back to school here...anywhere you go it's still the same. If they saw another Filipino at the store, they would ask if we were looking for a job, a learning job. It's something that is...I don't know, that's just how they see us. It's because of the status that we have here. Even my cousin who arrived here as a professional, even a caregiver would be asked if they wanted to work for them. Yet if they knew.... I think most of us knew that the need for caregivers is not temporary, but a permanent need of Canadian families.

Yet, I don't know, I just don't know. We're treated like this and if anything has to be changed, this will give us a better or a fair chance to be treated with respect as caregivers. Because without our job as a caregiver...it's not just that we love our job, we have this skill that we can provide to families.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

On that very passionate note, unfortunately, I have to wrap up this hour.

Thank you all for being here today, especially you, Ms. Paglingayen.

[Pinky Paglingayen]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

It's our pleasure. I thing I echo the sentiments of everyone here when I say I really do appreciate your courage and bravery for being here today and telling us your story.

Thank you.

[Pinky Paglingayen]

Thanks. You're welcome.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

To the committee, we'll be breaking very briefly to bring in the next panel. We will be suspending for no more than three or four minutes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Could we come back together, please?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair—and thank you for the time—I saw an article in last weekend's Globe and Mail, about a Ms. Teta Bayan who wasn't able to appear before us in committee. I felt compelled by her story. I would just propose out of the goodwill of this committee that we would allow her to appear in the stead of the one of the government witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

She has actually been invited back already. She is going to be appearing on Wednesday.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I was pretty sure. I just wanted to double-check. I really do appreciate the offer. That's great.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

That's perfect. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I would like to introduce our new panel. We have with us, by video conference, from the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, Vincent Wong.

Welcome.

[Vincent Wong, Staff Lawyer, Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic]

Thanks for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We have from Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Rory McAlpine, here in studio, so to speak. Welcome, sir.

Hopefully soon we will have Hubert Bolduc and Martin Goulet from Montréal International.

For the sake of time, we're going to start with the presentations; hopefully we'll see Montreal back on the screen shortly.

I think first we're going to go to Mr. McAlpine from Maple Leaf Foods.

If you would, please share your opening statement of seven minutes.

[Rory McAlpine, Senior Vice-President, Government and Industry Relations, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My thanks to the committee for inviting me to appear today.

I've shared with you a presentation document that I hope you've had a chance to look at. I'm not going to go through it, but I want to start first with talking about two people.

The first person I want to mention is Elsy Barahona. She's from El Salvador. She started at the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brandon, Manitoba in November 2005 and she was approved under the provincial nomination program in September 2006. She obtained her permanent residency in April 2008.

She came from El Salvador and progressed from being a meat cutter. She is now a production supervisor. She's still working at the plant and she is raising a family in Brandon. In fact, she has been so successful that we took her back to El Salvador on a recruitment trip in 2012.

Another wonderful individual whom I spoke to a couple of days ago is Liliam Acosta from Honduras. She was hired in December 2012. She received her provincial nomination in Manitoba in 2013 and her permanent residency in 2015. She too was hired as a meat cutter at our Brandon pork plant. She's now an administrator in our international recruitment office.

The best part I like in this story is that she just married a former Ukrainian temporary foreign worker. If that's not building diversity, I'm not sure what is. Later this year she will take her new husband to meet her family in El Salvador, and then early next year she will go to Ukraine to meet his family. When I asked her what I should say to the committee, her response was, tell them I'm so grateful.

I believe there are hundreds of stories such as these in our production floors at our plants in western Canada. The point is that Maple Leaf Foods is investing in nation building, not through just the expenditures to build physical capital, but also those to build human capital. When you add that to what we're trying to do in improving our impact upon natural capital, I think you've achieved the essence of sustainability.

In fact, since we began using the temporary foreign worker program in 2002, we have hired 2,487 temporary foreign workers, and 80% of those individuals are now permanent residents of Canada. We bring in foreign workers to our company to be part of this investment in Canada and we actively support their settlement and nurture their attachment to Canada.

Finally, we support them so that they can in turn become part of building the future for the company, their new community, and the country.

I will simply mention some of the issues we face in the program's design, then will mention the program administration, and finally will say a couple of words about where I see the opportunity for Canada in the future.

In terms of the design of the program, recognizing that labour shortages exist across all skill levels, we need to treat skilled, semi-skilled, and low-skilled workers the same, ending the arbitrary wage thresholds, discriminatory NOC classifications, and the biased definitions of what we consider to be a good economic immigrant.

The one year maximum for duration of stay should be increased to at least two years.

Remove the “four in” and “four out” cumulative maximum duration and allow open work permits for spouses.

Third, we recommend that a successfully established low-skilled worker should be given the opportunity to apply for permanent residency on a fast-track basis, for example, by express entry. As with refugees, why not tie the CLB for language requirements to citizenship, not to permanent residency, which is a major hurdle for these individuals.

Finally, while it's not particularly the issue for Maple Leaf, given that we have completed our major recruitments and expansion, particularly in Brandon, we think it would be appropriate to adjust the 30%, 20%, and 10% declining maximum caps, particularly in rural areas where there is a demonstrable and sustained shortage of workers or when the company is expanding its capacity and creating incremental positions. Ideally, let's ease the $1,000 per position LMIA fee and institute an LMIA appeal mechanism so that there is an opportunity to challenge unfavourable decisions.

Program administration is an issue of coordinating between government agencies and the embassies abroad. ESDC and IRCC should play a more active role in coordinating between employers, foreign governments, and Canadian embassies to identify credible recruiters and facilitate the selection of reliable workers. There should be greater consistency in the administration of the program across provinces.

We would suggest, particularly for the agrifood industry, that we create a special office for the industry to ensure that the staff are knowledgeable, that they can manage timely LMIA processing, which, as previous witnesses have said, is a major issue, and ensure consistent treatment of applications.

We would suggest, based on one master approval, that ESDC should allow foreign workers to move between a company's plants to accommodate seasonal changes in production, challenges with respect to contract negotiations, and so on.

Finally, be very, very tough on program abuse but support the efforts of trusted, especially unionized, employers with a good track record. I would particularly urge you to consider carefully the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council's workforce action plan, and I know they will be a witness at the committee later this week.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I think the point is that there is a big opportunity for our country. Modernize Canadian labour and workforce development policies that better match and move Canadians to jobs, and modernizing immigration policies that award permanency to skilled and unskilled newcomers can help mitigate rural depopulation, restore viability to rural communities, and restore the growth and competitiveness of many rural businesses, including livestock production and meat manufacturing, and it can move us away from reliance on the temporary foreign worker program.

In conclusion, I want to read a one-sentence statement that actually comes from a memorandum of understanding that was signed between UFCW Canada, Cargill Ltd., Olymel, HyLife Foods, and Maple Leaf Foods at the time the last round of program changes were being introduced by the previous government in May 2014.

The statement is simply this:

The temporary foreign worker program has never been a coherent, strategic, or reasonable alternative to what the Canadian economy requires, an immigration regime allowing individuals with a variety of skill sets to become permanent residents and eventually citizens of Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We go over to Mr. Wong from the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.

Welcome, Mr. Wong. You have seven minutes for your opening remarks, please.

[Vincent Wong]

I thank the chair and the committee members for giving me an opportunity to speak here with you today.

My name is Vincent Wong. I'm a staff lawyer at the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. We're a not-for profit community legal clinic that serves low income, non-English speaking members of the Chinese and Southeast Asian community in the GTA.

Many of our clients are temporary foreign workers, many of them are in occupations that are considered low-skilled, and all these clients have language barriers to understanding and enforcing their rights. We want to make sure that these workers have their voices heard here today.

Before I go into specific recommendations I want to take a step back and look at what's happening with our temporary foreign workers program on a macro level.

Canada is and historically always has been a nation of immigrants. In recent years the government has created through its immigration policies soaring numbers of temporary residents. For example, between 1995 and 2014 we have seen an increase of 277% in temporary foreign workers, a 303% increase in international students, and a 335% increase in international mobility program participants. If we sum up these categories, that's almost a million temporary residents, not including visitors, in 2014.

Yet at the same time that these temporary resident numbers are soaring, we have not seen corresponding increases in permanent resident approvals. Over the same period of time there was only a 22% increase in permanent resident approvals, which were at 260,000 a year in 2014.

What these numbers suggest is that Canada is moving away from a permanent residency model of immigration and increasingly relying on temporary foreign labour without allowing for corresponding permanent status for newcomers.

Now, systemic abuse and exploitation among temporary foreign workers—and I don't say that all employers are engaged in it, but it is a systemic problem, and it is well documented.... We support the other groups who have come before this committee, particularly those with lived experience, to highlight some of these tough issues.

In the end, the reason there continues to be exploitation is power imbalances that arise from precarious temporary employment status. These problems cannot be resolved in the long run without resolving the underlying cause.

The government can do things to mitigate some of the worst of these abuses, but a shift back towards a permanent residency model of immigration to respond to labour market demands is in our opinion the only way to resolve the problems in the long run. To that extent I agree with Mr. McAlpine.

We therefore have six recommendations for the committee.

The first is a shift from a complaint-driven model of program enforcement to a more proactive enforcement model. Canada is already doing things to shift in that direction, but the biggest reason, aside from the fear of firing and deportation, that this is necessary is that limited time durations for work permits make a complaints process completely ineffective.

For example, a foreign worker may have their visa expire well before any employment complaint goes through due process and is adjudicated upon, and certainly well before any collection happens. Employers know this and therefore know that they can wait it out.

The second recommendation is with respect to easing work permit restrictions, particularly those that tie an employee to one job or one specific employer. Again, the problem is that if an unscrupulous employer knows that the workers can be deported if laid off and that they are not allowed to find another job, they can use that leverage to violate employment health and safety laws with impunity.

We therefore recommend that either open work permits be issued or, in the alternative, that an occupational or sectoral work permit be issued to ease some of this potential for exploitation.

The third recommendation is to eliminate the “four in-four out” rule and to institute a regularization provision for the temporary foreign workers who have found themselves out of status solely because of the execution of that rule.

The fourth recommendation we have is to expand settlement and health services to migrant workers. As one of the most marginalized and exploited groups in our population, temporary foreign workers must be given access to crucial settlement services for newcomers, including language services and health services, in order to meaningfully realize and enforce their rights.

The fifth and probably the most important recommendation is to institute pathways for permanent residency for all those skilled migrant workers. There is of course already a precedent for this, which is the caregiver program, the only NOC skill level C or D occupation that currently has a pathway to permanent residency.

If Canada recognizes that the work of caregivers is important to society and therefore deserving of status, why do we shut out the other workers—the food workers, the janitors, the clerks, the farm workers? Are we saying that these workers are not deserving of the same type of respect?

We therefore recommend that even low-skilled workers have meaningful avenues to permanent residency.

The final recommendation we have is for the international mobility program, which is to ensure viable pathways for permanent residency for people on post-graduate work permits. The current express entry system, unfortunately, bars the vast majority of PGWP holders from immigrating to Canada, because they have to compete in the same pool as other express entry applicants.

Just to experiment, I crunched the numbers for my own self. The most recent score was 484 for the last express entry draw, and I determined that somebody in my position—of my age, having two degrees from U of T including a law degree, having presumably the highest maximum scores in English, and two years of relevant work experience—would still be deported after my work permit expired.

I'm not tooting my own horn, but if somebody in my position were deported because they couldn't meet the score, I imagine that Canada is losing an incredible amount of young talent, people who would be the best suited to settle in Canada and make contributions to economic, cultural, and social life. It just doesn't make sense from a national point of view, wherever you are on the political spectrum, to let these people go.

I will conclude with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Mr. Wong.

I understand that Montreal is back on video conference. Welcome back.

We have, from Montreal International, Hubert Bolduc and Martin Goulet. Welcome.

Can you hear me?