Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2016

[Robert Watson]

On June 16 we kick off our new program, Women on Boards, in the ICT industry. It is a program to encourage specifically women to apply for boards and get on IT boards. In other words, we want to balance the gender thing. In the ICT industry we have more males than we do females, so we have a program that will encourage more women to get into the ICT industry in Canada.

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

How are you doing that?

[Robert Watson]

The inaugural kickoff event is on June 16. We have participation from all of our members on that. That starts at the top level to see if we can do it that way.

We continually have seminars. We continually have conferences. We continually promote the ICT industry.

One of the other things that's a bit of a challenge, quite frankly, are the young kids. They can be any age, but mostly it's the very young. No matter which gender or wherever in the world they're from, they are inquisitive. They go off and do things. They build their own little applications and stuff like that. Somehow we have to bring them forward and bring them out and encourage that kind of thing.

We're a program. We're involved in almost every aspect. Our members range from one-person members to large Canadian corporations and all the way up to large international corporations.

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

What kind of success are you having? What's your opinion?

[Robert Watson]

The success we're having is that 90% of all ICT students graduating in Canada are hired in Canada. The success also is that Canadian companies and foreign-owned Canadian companies are setting up centres of excellence here in Canada: software centres of excellence, a spectrum centre of excellence, a network centre of excellence, and an application centre of excellence.

When you set up a centre of excellence, you have to react. You have to be quick, because the technology changes. If you're a company in Canada that's scaling up to get outside of Canada, or a foreign company that's in Canada, and you want to bring people together, it's not about permanent employees, because they can handle bringing permanent employees into Canada. That's a process. If you want to bring somebody to live here and work here, that's a different process from bringing somebody in to do a project for a year or two years or to help out with a software issue.

If you build those centres of excellence in Canada, we will be doing the same going elsewhere. The free trade agreement has become part of the whole scenario of how we can not only have products moving back and forth but also have people taking our expertise elsewhere.

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

How many temporary foreign workers does the industry need?

[Robert Watson]

That's a good question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Robert Watson]

ICT is coming out with a report at the end of the month that will give us more information around that.

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

So—

[Robert Watson]

Sorry. I'm trying to answer your question.

It is a fluid number, right?

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

Roughly.

[Robert Watson]

We have approximately 70,000 unfilled jobs now, and it's getting to 200,000 unfilled jobs in the future for temporary workers.

If corporations can have a set time frame, or even be exempt for now, now's the time. The new technologies coming out now, the worldwide technologies coming out now.... We mentioned 3-D printers before, and now 5G is a worldwide technology. Some of our members want to develop that in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent. Thank you, sir. Sorry, but I have to cut you guys off.

We'll go over to, Ms. Ashton, please.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you.

I would like to thank all of our witnesses for joining us here today. I would like to direct my questions to you, Ms. Barret, and I want to thank you so much for joining us on such short notice and for sharing the tragic story of Sheldon, your loved one, a story that was also broadcast nationally and I know touched the hearts of many Canadians. I think you touched on it as well.

Many Canadians, seeing that story, asked how this is possible in Canada. How is it that a worker in Canada, no matter where they are from, can be treated in such a way? How can we treat somebody who does that kind of work in such a way?

I also wanted to note that stories like that of Sheldon were shared very powerfully as part of a film that was shown here on Parliament Hill, called Migrant Dreams. Hearing directly from migrant workers themselves is something that our committee here obviously has not done enough of. I would encourage all the members of the committee, and those who are tuning in, to watch this film and hear those stories.

Of course, hearing from you today about what Sheldon went through and how he was treated.... We must take it very seriously, and take the recommendations you are putting forward very seriously as well.

I wanted to touch on the battle you had to keep Sheldon in Canada because he didn't have access to health care and there was a constant threat to deport him. There have been some studies on those acts of deportation. You also spoke of people who are back in Jamaica, who were deported after their injuries on the job. I am wondering if you can speak to us as to how unacceptable that lack of coverage and support is for those who are injured on the job.

[Marcia Barret]

I'm a Canadian citizen. I came to Canada, so I believe I have an advantage in knowing some things about how things work here. For me, it was impossible to find the proper place to seek help when we ran into issues. Moreover, migrant workers who have no family here are relying on what the employers are telling them and what the liaisons are telling them.

Most of the workers I speak to who are back in their own countries with no health care were promised that when they got there, they would be looked after. Some of them were told, “Here is a certain amount of money. Go back home, and we will send you money.” They are waiting to this day with no resources.

For myself, I had to go to legal aid. I had to try to get lawyers in place to assist me in Sheldon's humanitarian stay for him to stay here and to continue to get health care. When I first showed up in Windsor, I was not told immediately that he had slipped and fallen at work. I was left with the impression that he had a stroke. It took a lot of digging, and it took a lot of investigating on my part and my husband's part to find out exactly what had happened to him.

From then on, there was the constant threat of repatriation from the liaison. It began in a very friendly way. “We will put him in a medevac and send him home, and he will get proper health care.” I've been away from my country for a long time, but I happen to know there is not such a thing.

When I started to say, “No, he needs to stay here and receive proper health care”, they would not release his passport, so I went to the lawyers for the humanitarian visa to be taken care of. The liaisons held onto his passport. As a family member, I hired a lawyer. I had power of attorney at the time to get the passport, but it still was not released to me. After his death, I still had to fight to get the passport to repatriate his body back to Jamaica for burial.

This is happening with nothing in place for the family or for the workers themselves to go to, because if they talk to those who are in charge of them, they will not be able to come back, and this is, for some of them, the only way to take care of their families. No matter how horrible the job conditions are, they are working hard to care for their families and they will put up with anything to get money to take care of their families.

The problem I have is that this is not the Canada I know, but maybe I've been living in a bubble and I've been blind to a lot of things. This is not what we know when human rights are concerned. We have failed these people miserably, I think probably because the perception is that they're coming here and taking jobs from Canadians. I think that is far from the truth. They are doing jobs that regular Canadians do not want to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Ms. Barret.

[Marcia Barret]

We need to put it in place that their permits are not tied in to their medical care. Their permits must not be tied in to how they are cared for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

We need to move on.

Go ahead, Ms. Tassi, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As well, thank you to all the witnesses for your input today.

Ms. Barret, if I could follow up with your comments, I will start by saying I am sorry for your personal tragedy. I listened to what you're saying.

If I were to ask you for two or three specific and direct recommendations to improve the temporary foreign workers system, other than what you've spoken about in terms of what you've been through, what would you offer? What would you say?

[Marcia Barret]

Do not tie their permits to their medical benefits, because once their permits run out, their medical benefits are cut off. That's number one.

Number two, there is a fear of repatriation. There has to be something in place so that when they get sick on the job here or get injured on the job here, they're tapped into regular health care immediately. Whether it's compensation or something else, it's taken care of immediately. They pay into EI, and I know a lot of them do not get EI benefits. That needs to change.

The permit is also tied in to one employer, which means that if anything is awful, they cannot complain, because they have no other resource. I don't think it should be tied in. If they are facing an employer who is abusing them, they should have the right to change jobs.

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

Okay, thank you.

In addition to that, with respect to the reporting of abuses, if temporary foreign workers are facing a situation in which they feel they are not being treated properly, is there anything you would like to say there? Do you have any advice there for us?

[Marcia Barret]

Obviously, what I run into.... I can't speak of other people's experiences. I have heard of other people's experiences, but speaking from my experience, the liaison service that is in place is not working. From what I understand, they are there to make sure that the rights of the workers are protected. They are not. I have found that most of my battles, most of the injustice, and most of the fears of the workers were against the liaison workers. Many of them said that if they complain to the liaison workers, they go back to the bosses and tell them, and then they are not welcome to come back.

From my experience, I felt like the liaison workers were working for the boss more than they were working for the actual migrant workers. There needs to be a system in place so that there is safe reporting and proper investigation into.... I am sure probably each country has a liaison who works with these workers. It should not be just left up to them, because what I encountered was that they are in Canada, but they are an entity all by themselves. They were untouchable. Nothing I said, nothing I wanted for my cousin mattered. They had the power, and they could do whatever they wanted.

That should never happen here. There should be a system whereby maybe somebody in the Canadian labour market who has a separate interest has governance over this so that these workers can safely report and be protected and looked after.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Watson, I will direct the next couple of questions to you. I know you gave us some numbers. Can you just clarify what percentage of workers in your industry are currently temporary foreign workers?

[Robert Watson]

We don't have a figure right now. The report is coming out at the end of the month.