Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We will come to order.

Hello, everybody. Once again we are joined by witnesses for the temporary foreign workers study, the TFW study. We are waiting for a few witnesses who are apparently coming through security, but we're going to start with presentations from our first witness, who is Mr. Bruce Webster.

Mr. Webster, can you hear me?

[Bruce Webster, As an Individual]

Yes, sir, I hear you very well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent. Mr. Webster is appearing as an individual via video conference from Langley, British Columbia. We're going to start with your presentation. Could you keep it to seven minutes, please, sir?

Thank you very much, and welcome.

[Bruce Webster]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, excuse me if I read from my notes. I don't want to omit anything.

I have experienced, as a person executing the power of attorney for my late mother, all of the situations I'm about to describe.

First, Employment Canada's method of determining an applicant's ability to adequately cover all expenses associated with a caregiver is limited and inaccurate. Their basis of judgment is to look at the past year's CRA assessment—line 150, I believe. This method is fair for someone who is employed, but for most retirees looking for caregivers, it is inaccurate.

For example, my mother's income was generally less than $50,000 per year; however, she had in excess of $350,000 in investments and outright ownership of her home. It took a protracted and lengthy discussion with Toronto to prove that my mother's claim about ability to pay was in fact valid.

Second, the processing time is a huge detriment to elderly persons wishing to hire in-home caregiving. In my mother's case, it took 21 months from the time the LMO, as it was then called, was initiated until I finally had a caregiver in her house. My mother celebrated both her 99th and 100th birthdays with full-blown dementia and increasing states of total confusion while I was trying to provide for her adequate in-home care. Some days we had to put her into institutions, which she totally detested.

Third, the duplication of information—and this is very key—asked for by various departments in supporting the LMO and temporary foreign worker issuance of a work permit is a lot of duplication and, I feel, a waste of applicants' and government employees' time. This should be simplified and perhaps streamlined. There should be some method of interaction between the various agencies in the employment and immigration departments so that the duplication could be reduced and thus the time of 21 months reduced as well.

For example, I was seeking to hire a lady from the Philippines who had been referred to me. She met all the criteria demanded by the TFW program for elder care, yet the embassy on one occasion sent an email to her, and part of that email was in fact forwarded to me. She did not realize that she needed to... [Technical difficulty—Editor] the email.

My honest opinion is that if an agency is working to ensure that the TFW is legitimate and the employer is viable, then the agency—immigration or employment—should be asking me directly, or, if they feel that they have to send it through the applicant in the Philippines, they should at least copy me on it so that I can respond. This almost caused a dismissal of the whole application, after some 14 to 16 months. It's thanks to a particular individual's intervention that we managed to get the embassy to reinstitute the application.

Fourth and last, if a situation arises in which the TFW is here in Canada and in the employ of an elderly person, and that elderly person passes away, the TFW is severely disadvantaged, particularly with the changes that were brought in the last year, I believe, in August 2015, changing from in-home care, with the caregiver living in the elderly person's home. Suddenly that person is faced with the need to procure new employment, a new LMIA—it's no longer the LMO process—and all the commensurate delays and such that go with that.

My feeling is that TFWs, when they enter Canada with an LMIA contract in hand, should be allowed to extend that contract. The changes that were brought in in August 2015 have driven the economy of TFW elder care virtually underground because of the in-home live-in change, and the increase in wages has made it virtually impossible for elderly people to sustain them. Also, an increase of $5 per hour does not make it any more attractive for the TFW to live out.

I don't find that is an equitable way to deal with a TFW who has come to the country under what I view as a three-way contract between the elder care person—or, in my case, I was acting as a power of attorney—the TFW themselves, and the Government of Canada, because the government does act as the agent vetting, if you will, the LMIA process. We're filling out a Government of Canada form. It's a three-way contract, and just because one party is deceased should not cause that particular contract to be void.

The intent of the TFW program—particularly for elder care, I believe—is to provide quality in-home care for our elderly who wish to stay at home and be less of a burden to the taxpayer. If they can support themselves and support a temporary foreign worker in-home caregiver, then we have extended their quality of life. After all, we're talking about people who have given much to Canada in forming the fabric of our country. I think we should examine how we can... [Inaudible—Editor] useful for the TFW and the elderly.

Thank you for seeking my thoughts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, sir.

We are also now joined by Mr. Robert Watson, president and chief executive officer of Information Technology Association of Canada. Welcome, sir.

We have a third witness via video conference. We're trying to reconnect with her.

Mr. Watson, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Robert Watson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Association of Canada]

Thank you very much.

I apologize for being late, but security is security and you don't shortcut that.

My name is Robert Watson. Forty years ago this month, I graduated from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, when it was still a polytechnical institute. I've been in the business for quite a long time and involved in a couple of industry sectors. I've been in the communications industry for most of my career. However, I had the enjoyment of running a power utility for the Province of Saskatchewan also.

I'm here to represent ITAC, a national organization that represents over 300 members made up of Canadian, Canadian-owned, and foreign-owned companies. They include large-scale companies and companies of all sizes. We are the voice of the ICT sector in Canada.

We are a unique sector in that we contribute over $70 billion to the national GDP in Canada. We generate, directly or indirectly, one million jobs in Canada and invest over $4.8 billion annually in R and D, more than any other private sector in Canada.

ICT is also broadening to encompass more traditional sectors. In fact, every industry sector in Canada has ICT involvement, and it is dramatically changing their sectors.

We would like to thank you for being here today and we want to talk about the highly skilled workers in the TFW program.

My sector faces enormous skills gaps and labour shortages. The ICTC estimates that by 2020 there will be more than 200,000 unfilled jobs in ICT. These are high-paying jobs with an average income of $71,000. These will come from the backbone of our knowledge-based economy.

Canadian colleges and universities produce great students, and ICT companies in Canada predominantly hire these young graduates. My organization is doing its part to help train Canadians to fill these jobs. We presently run two programs that have been incredibly successful. The first is called CareerMash, and it targets high school students. The program inspires students to go into ICT and helps them realize connection points between technology, health, the arts, and other disciplines. CareerMash produces inspired, well-rounded students who are ready to pursue post-secondary training in the ICT sector.

We also run a business technology management program, a BTM program, that targets post-secondary students and provides them with technology and business skills. This program has a placement rate of over 90%, and exists due to the generous contributions of the federal government and the private sector.

ICT companies in Canada are eager to hire locally, and will invest in programs such as BTM to ensure a steady supply of talent. However, despite these efforts, Canada does not produce the talent that we need. This is where we need foreign temporary workers.

To be clear, hiring foreign temporary workers in our industry is more expensive and less convenient than hiring locals, and temporary foreign workers do not take the jobs of local Canadians in our industry. They fulfill crucial gaps that will allow our companies to grow and hire more Canadians. We look to temporary foreign workers predominantly for special projects and training. For example, if there is a malfunction with an advanced 3D printer, there may only be a handful of engineers in the world capable of fixing it.

Another example is IoT, the Internet of Things. There is no 10 years' experience in Internet of Things anywhere in the world right now. If we want to get the expertise in Canada or have the expertise flow out of Canada, there has to be movement of personnel.

They also come from outside to train Canadians for particular projects, and they create new products. The ability to train and mentor, in particular, is important to Canadian ICT companies looking to scale up. They have to scale in order to be part of the worldwide....

Earlier this year one of the founders of BlackBerry, Mike Lazaridis, released a white paper called “Scaling Success: Tackling the Management Gap in Canada’s Technology Sector”. He interviewed over 125 top ICT companies to identify barriers to growth and found the lack of executive- and management-level talent was a major inhibitor to growth. Canada does not have a lot of talent at this level because we don't tend to produce large companies. One of the ways to address this gap and to help Canadian companies to scale up is to bring in foreign talent.

What I'd really like to emphasize here is temporary foreign workers, which is what my industry needs, are highly skilled and in short supply. If Canada cannot find a way to access foreign talent easier, we risk hindering the ICT sector and delaying growth and technological advancement with other sectors of the economy as well. For this reason, I'd like to make the following observations and recommendations:

Canada needs to revamp the national occupational codes. These codes provide key data about employment within our industry. Currently they are outdated and a number of discrete professions end up being pigeonholed into broader categories. This makes it harder for Canada to pinpoint vacancies within the workforce where programs should be developed, and it leads to increased rejections when companies apply for TFWs. Updating these codes, therefore, would have the dual benefit of helping to train domestic workers and facilitating short-term solutions. So, access TFWs.

I'd also like to recommend the creation of service standards for processing applications. Some of these applications take over six months for processing. In our industry we need to make decisions within days or hours. These delays can cause Canadian companies to lose clients or mandates to foreign competitors. Our industry is not overly concerned when the application fees are increased, but they'd like faster turnarounds.

ICT companies are domestically and globally very competitive. There’s a requirement that we disclose salaries publicly when we advertise the LMIA, labour market impact assessment, therefore putting off companies. It is a very competitive industry. This can be difficult for smaller companies which cannot always match the larger international salaries. This is why I'd like to recommend the exemption of ICT from having to disclose salaries in the labour market impact assessment.

The definition of “specialized knowledge” should be clarified. This phrase appears to be in international mobility and TFW programs, but there is no set definition. I recommend that we create a clear definition based on several factors: training, education, work experience, and salary. This would make the application process more predictable for companies applying.

Finally, I'd like to essentially ask for two things from this committee.

First, I'd like to recommend that Employment and Social Development Canada and Statistics Canada be more granular with their information. We need more granular information. We cannot prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow if we're not closely monitoring labour patterns. Improved foresight in this area would help universities, colleges, and private groups such as BTM and CareerMash tailor their programs, and in turn, there’d be a decreasing reliance on TFWs. We need the data to be more granular.

Second, I would like to ask this committee to consider restoring the pre-existing sectoral exemption for the ICT sector. Given the severity of our skills gap and the global competition that surrounds TFWs, this would allow industry to grow. If sectoral exemptions are not feasible, then perhaps a trusted employer program could be considered.

In conclusion, I represent interests with significant skills gaps in highly trained and highly motivated personnel. We need the government to collect more data about ICT labour markets and exempt the ICT sector from labour market analysis.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Mr. Watson.

I understand we have a representative from the Caregivers' Action Centre. Unfortunately, Teta Bayan, whom we had here previously and who had offered to come back, was not able to come back Monday and apparently was not able to come today either. However, we do have Marcia Barret from the Caregivers' Action Centre.

Thank you very much for stepping up and stepping in. You have seven minutes, please.

[Marcia Barrett, Representative, Caregivers' Action Centre]

Thank you for having me and thank you for listening.

My name is Marcia Barret, cousin of Sheldon McKenzie, who was 39 years old when he was injured and died at 40.

Sheldon was a loving and devoted father of two teen daughters. He began to work as a migrant worker 13 years ago in Canada to care for his family. Sheldon loved to play soccer, loved music, and also coached the game.

Sheldon was injured on January 26, 2015. He died September 17, 2015, on his younger daughter's birthday.

It was during this time of Sheldon's injury and death that I became aware of the frustration and the difficult conditions that the migrant farm workers bore. On top of the injury and death that traumatized our family, the policies that are in place were a source of frustration that we endured during that time. Things we had to endure included the fear of repatriation, of his permit running out, lack of medical coverage, his family's...[Technical difficulty—Editor] Realizing that there are no proper policies in place to take care of these workers, who contribute greatly to the Canadian market, was quite a surprise.

The horrible conditions that they have to endure.... [Technical difficulty—Editor] ...we ever thought happened right here in Canada. Some of the horrible conditions they have to endure...this was during the time in Ontario when we were looking after Sheldon and had the opportunity to talk to other migrant workers, who live in constant fear. They are afraid that if they speak up about the working conditions that they have to endure, they will be repatriated; not only that, they would never be called back to work.

For some of them, this is the only way for them to take care of their families. They are hard-working men and women who came here to contribute to Canada and take care of their families. They're asked to work hours that.... I don't think we subject even a farm animal to those kinds of hours.

Oftentimes, as a family member who was present, I wondered whether, if there were proper policies in place, we would have suffered the loss of a loved one through a preventable injury and death.

As to training, was there... [Technical difficulty—Editor] That's a question we're left with all the time. The runners that he was wearing in a sweaty greenhouse, the plastic on the floor that is wet.... Is there a policy in place for proper training?

I've talked to men who have fallen off tractors and hurt themselves. They were repatriated with no health care. They're back in their countries with nothing. They were injured here, yet they are sent home with nothing.

These horrible conditions have to change. The history of the workers who are sent back is... [Technical difficulty—Editor] ...heading back to one country, Jamaica, talking to wives and girlfriends of past migrant farm workers who were injured here in Canada and sent back to Jamaica. They're sitting there, no longer able to work, and with no support.

It is hard to grasp, knowing the stand that Canada takes on these issues, knowing that these conditions and these things are allowed to happen.

Also, it was during this time that I found out that these workers are tied to one employer, and whether that employer is treating them well or not, they have to endure those horrible conditions, because if they complain...they cannot change; their permit is tied to one employer. They cannot change that permit; they can't go to another job. For them to continue to care for their families, they have to endure horrible abuse.

I've spoken to a group in British Columbia. They weren't allowed to go use the bathroom, because it takes time. It is conditions and things like this that I hear over and over again that have me speaking up today.

I cannot get my cousin back. His daughter will never celebrate his birthday ever again. The reason for my sitting here before this committee as a family member is that I need you, as fathers and brothers, to review the policies that are in place for migrant workers, the policies that force them to endure things nobody should have to endure.

The label I often hear to describe migrant workers is “low-skill”. Low skill does not mean low value or lower human rights.

I am not asking this committee to dismantle the program. The program has been a great benefit to my cousin's family and to many families who are here to work. I am asking the committee to get rid of some of the things in the program that cause these migrant workers not to have access to the proper health care, proper benefits, proper training, and proper working conditions that regular Canadians have.

I am asking this committee to get rid of things in the program that have caused the worst nine months of my life, living under the constant fear that my cousin, who was lying in a hospital bed with a head injury, was going to run out of health care and be sent back to his country, which does not have the facilities or the medical capability to take care of him.

The torture of watching him, a young man stronger than I am, lying there unable to do anything.... On top of that, the worst torture was sitting there every day wondering if he would be shipped out when I turned my back. I had that constant fear: will his medical be cut off? Will he be sent home?

The families are left alone. We have no resources. I had no resources to turn to in making sure that he got the proper medical care and that the medical benefits would not run out when the permit ran out. He was injured, and he should have the same opportunity as any Canadian to get proper medical care.

Again, I am stating emphatically that I am not asking the committee to get rid of the program. I am asking the committee to review the program and the actions to protect the migrant workers and their families.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, Ms. Barret. I appreciate your testimony today.

[Marcia Barrett]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We will jump right into questions.

First up is Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for sharing their valuable time with us today.

Mr. Webster, thank you for being with us. I got to know you and your mother, Muriel. I'm very happy that she reached the ripe age of over 100 years of age. Your whole family was very respected in our community, but your mother had roots here in Ottawa; I believe it was in the mid-sixties that she was in charge of the Ottawa Cancer Clinic in Ottawa. She was a very well-respected nurse and radiologist. Then the family moved out to Langley, where we were happy to have you as a family live and grow up.

We're here today to talk about the temporary foreign worker program and changes that are needed.

You mentioned, Mr. Webster, that the process you went through to get your mother a live-in care provider in the home took 14 to 16 months and then you had to ask to get your application reinstated. The total process took 21 months.

We had an official from Citizenship and Immigration Canada here on Monday, two days ago, and we were told the process takes 56 days, yet you shared that it was 14 to 16 months, and it then became 21 months. There's a huge discrepancy between 56 days and 21 months.

The government is considering having those who apply and qualify for a TFW, after an LMIA, immediately get permanent resident status to deal with the issues of people not being well cared for, which we've heard some very sad stories about. Even now we've just heard a very sad story.

We heard that the process for getting permanent resident status is, according to CIC, about a six-month process, as opposed to a 56-day process, because you have to go into more detail for permanent resident status. The government's now considering having permanent resident status come with the TFW approval. Then the big question is, is it going to take longer to get a TFW, or is the process going to be streamlined so that then we would not be screening adequately?

If the government moves ahead so that your approval for a TFW comes with permanent resident status, what do you think of that idea? Will it slow the process down, or speed the process up? Could you comment?

In your case, you showed incredible compassion and care, particularly to the women who had worked and cared for your mother, Muriel. Even after her death, you treated them like family members to make sure that they were taken care of, even with accommodation. How do we make sure that we create a system that protects TFWs and avoid some of the very sad stories that we've heard? You're a prime example of how it's done right, so could you comment.

Thank you.

[Bruce Webster]

Thank you very much, Mr. Warawa.

Just to address the 21-month versus the 56-day issue, I initiated the LMO process in February of 2013, after having read all the documents and such on the website. At that time, you had to advertise the job position for three months. There was an error in that I advertised in Abbotsford. In fact, the job should have been advertised in Langley, so that cost me three months. It was my fault. [Technical difficulty—Editor] ...understanding what it was.

The LMO process in August of 2013 changed somewhat. It changed by virtue of the government's trying to make it a cost recovery system. There was an additional page to the LMO, which demanded payment of $750.

Apparently it was sufficient for the government to restart all LMO processes that had not been submitted by July 31. If your submission was received August 1, you were supposedly out of luck. Again, it took some assistance from, I believe, the minister at the time. I contacted the minister in Ottawa. The minister may have suggested that my suggestion was correct and that there should be some sort of weighing-in period, if you will—that it shouldn't be an 11:59 to 12:01 clock-driven change of process.

In summary, then, there were a number of things that caused this particular application and the LMO process to be delayed.

However, to answer your question about granting permanent residency under the TFW program, I don't particularly see that as being terrifically advantageous. Many of the TFWs wish to have permanent residency, but they're willing to serve the 24-month probationary period within... [Technical difficulty—Editor] ...calendar year to achieve their PR, their permanent residency.

The problem with the PR process, as I see it now and as I know from two examples first-hand, is that for the one lady it took 39 months from the time of her arrival in Canada before she was granted PR, and for the other lady, I believe it was 46 months. It's a point I heard from the gentleman from the Information Technology Association. The time is onerous for anybody trying to get temporary foreign workers in.

From the IT perspective, it's critical from their business standpoint. From the standpoint of finding an elder caregiver, it's crucial, because we don't want to hire a TFW to come to a funeral; we want to hire that TFW to come to provide elder care, which, as you know, Mr. Warawa, was the objective.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Mr. Webster.

We'll go over to Mr. Long, please.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our presenters this afternoon.

I have listened with great interest to the presentations today, earlier in the week, and obviously in previous weeks. Coming up with the right framework or formula on TFWs is a heavy load for the committee. We hear and recognize that atrocities and very bad stories and situations have happened out there and continue to happen.

On the other side of that coin, we see examples from ITC, the video game industry, Maple Leaf Foods in Brandon, and other situations or industries that really need temporary foreign workers to sustain them.

We're here to try to find solutions and to come up with the right framework going forward. I can ask you lots of questions about your industry and things such as that, but I think I'm going to start, Mr. Watson, with ITAC and talk about your industry's efforts to recruit, retrain, and attract Canadian workers. We want to hire Canadian workers first, if possible.

Can you elaborate a little bit on what you and your industry have done to recruit, retain, and attract new Canadian workers?

[Robert Watson]

Thank you very much.

ITAC, which is the Information Technology Association of Canada, goes from coast to coast. We have relationships with all the major institutions across Canada, including colleges and universities. As I said, CareerMash is down into the high school level now. We have a business technology management program that is now a degree program, which we're working on with the institutions, trying to get it into every post-secondary school we can.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Is it community college, or is it university?

[Robert Watson]

It's university level.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Is it a degree—

[Robert Watson]

We also have community colleges that have the program.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Is it a degree?

[Robert Watson]

Yes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

A degree in...?

[Robert Watson]

It's a degree in business technology management. It's IT courses, but it's more on the business side. It's not a course that gives you source code programming and stuff like that. It gives you the business of technology.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Sure.

I'll let you continue.