Human Resources Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Michael Ferguson]

Certainly I think that would be something to consider. I don't know the nature of all the committee's business and what the committee does and doesn't tend to do, but the department has prepared an action plan and that action plan is with the public accounts committee. You might consider the work of this committee and the work of the public accounts committee as well.

I think any involvement of parliamentary committees to make sure the departments are implementing what they say they are going to implement to deal with our recommendations is a very important way of making sure those changes are made to improve the program. Again, I think there would be a lot of things this committee would need to consider in terms of whether they are going to call the department to do that, but I think it is something the committee should consider.

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

You have highlighted some shortfalls and recommended some changes, an action plan, and a framework. I believe that's helpful. I think most members of this committee found it very helpful to identify where we need to do better.

The ultimate goal of the temporary foreign worker program is to protect Canadian jobs. Canadian jobs need to be filled first by Canadians, and if there are no Canadians who can do it, then the temporary foreign worker program kicks in.

As my colleague Mr. Blaney pointed out, there was a level of success in protecting Canadian jobs, but the temporary foreign worker program will evolve over the years. There are recommendations. There's an action plan. Would it be helpful to have another audit maybe in another five or 10 years to see if additional changes and accountability need to be implemented?

[Michael Ferguson]

Part of our work is always to consider which of our audits need follow-up work. The department should be able to use what we have done here to create some indicators that would show whether they are making progress on improving the program. We will look at what the department does. We will take that into consideration over the next few years, and we will decide ourselves whether to go back in and do another audit. Perhaps the department will do an audit through their internal audit shop.

This is a complex program. It is a difficult program. It has a lot of competing objectives, so it needs the audit view of the program to see whether it is actually implementing whatever the policy of the day is, as that policy was meant to be implemented.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Now over to MP Boulerice, please.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I would simply reiterate that more inspectors are needed to verify the real situation and working and living conditions of temporary migrant workers. I do not think that a lot of them have problems, but as a society I would not like to see, as we have seen in the past, cases of eight to ten people living in a container with poor access to drinking water.

My other point pertains to housekeepers, who are often women from the Philippines. These women come to work in the homes of people who need help managing the family, cleaning, and so forth. They are part of a specific program, the single employer program. They come here to work at one specific home, which puts them in a vulnerable position with regard to their employer. There can be harassment and all kinds of violence, and they can also be subject to threats. If they decide to leave their job, they must return to their country and give up the income they used to help their family at home.

Have you examined the live-in caregiver program? I see you have. Did you identify any problems with this program?

[Glenn Wheeler]

Mr. Chair, the caregiver program changed in its nature midway through the audit. At one point, the department or the government made a decision that caregivers did not have to live in. The larger point is that we found the department did not do inspections of employers of caregivers, and they were identified by the department itself as a high-risk area.

There's perhaps one other note to add. Later on in the report, we identified a risk that perhaps this stream is being used as a family reunification mechanism as much as for providing caregiver services. The department didn't do any analysis to identify the extent of that problem and whether there had to be any changes made to the program to ensure it was being administered as intended, and perhaps to minimize any chance of abuse.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I would like to talk about another category of people who come here.

In Montreal, there are a lot of employers in the video games, new technologies, and entertainment industries who want to bring in talent. In general, they are in quite a rush. Is there a recruitment program that enables these employers to recruit individuals with the skills they are looking for?

[Michael Ferguson]

We look at how the program is implemented. If one of the goals is to bring people in quickly, then the department needs to put in place how they're going to actually achieve that objective, and we would audit to see whether they are doing that. Whatever it is they say they need to do—one of those things might be timeliness, to process a claim quickly—then they have to be able to figure out how they then balance off a need to bring somebody in quickly with the need to make sure the employer has done what it needs to do to see whether there is a Canadian available for the job. We would look to see what policies they put in place to do that, and then we would audit whether they're following those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, sir.

Now we go over to MP Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I will share my time with Ms. Wong. Ms. Wong will start.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank Ms. Fortier for mentioning caregivers, because with an aging population, caring for seniors is so important. She brought up two areas. One is the seniors' homes. I believe that seniors' homes actually do not employ a lot of foreign workers. It is the family that actually hires a lot of family caregivers.

Mr. Ferguson, you did mention that there has been some reforms, for example, reducing or actually taking away the live-in element. We did, as we were in government, talk to these caregivers, actually. I was with Mr. Kenney when we met a whole group of caregivers who told us about their concerns. Therefore, we put together the reform.

Again, for family caregivers, we want to ask your opinion on whether, with an aging population, that number of family caregivers should actually be reduced.

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, that's not something I can comment on. That's something the department, in compliance with the policy, needs to determine as to what the numbers are.

The only thing I would comment on is that we said that the department should make use of the labour market information that it has available to understand where the labour shortages are, to understand where in the economy it is needed to bring in the temporary foreign workers. I wouldn't make a comment on what the right number is. The only comment I would make is that the department should be using that labour market information to try to understand where those shortages are.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

In fact, for the number of family caregivers, the quota has been reduced by a half. As I shared with the minister for seniors, I do have a concern. I'm hoping that when we bring the department in, they will really have a very in-depth evaluation of the market needs. With an aging population, and with the fact that there are not many people in our existing labour force who are actually able to do a lot of family caregiving, that adds a burden to unpaid family members who are doing all the caring. They're going to work. They have to cut their number of hours in order to look after their parents or grandparents.

As you said, this is a very complex program. I'm hoping that down the road we will be able to look at all these issues. Do you agree that these are the kinds of things we should look at?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, the recommendation that we made was for the department to use the information available, use the labour market information. In fact, I think the department also had started to work with Statistics Canada to get a new survey in place to gather additional information about the labour market, and not just in the one area but across multiple, different types of employers. Having all of that information, again, is very important to this type of program so that they know where the shortages are, where they are geographically, what types of jobs there are, what Canadians might be available.

Having all of that information is the basis of what they need in order to properly design the program and establish whatever numbers for each sector that they feel are appropriate.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Ferguson, based on our discussions this afternoon, it is clear that a follow-up on this program is needed.

You said that the government had implemented an action plan in response to your report. When exactly did the government's action plan begin? Can you give me the date please?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'm not sure that I have the exact date of the action plan. What I can say is that we released the report in spring, so that was in May 2017 and the department would have been asked by the public accounts committee to prepare an action plan shortly after that, so it was probably sometime in late spring.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Your report was published in the spring, which is less than six months ago. I guess we have to give them a chance.

The minister announced some interesting measures in April, including putting an end to the four cumulative years and making it easier for a temporary worker to obtain permanent resident status, which might reassure Mr. Boulerice. I have a lot of experience in this regard because there are temporary foreign workers in my riding and they do excellent work. The government should make it easier for these people to integrate into our communities, because they have to obtain permanent resident status first if they want to bring their family to Canada.

We have an integration model that is truly successful. I am not talking about people who are deported to other countries or who arrive at the border illegally. I am talking about people who have been brought to Canada because there were labour needs.

Unfortunately, as we have seen too often, the temporary foreign worker program has been used to meet long-term labour needs, which is why the program requires greater flexibility. It will be important to follow up on this.

The fact remains that, in 2016, permits were issued to 79,000 foreign workers. In my opinion, the points you raised are still valid. We will of course ask the government to report on its action plan and its ability to make sure that Canadians are hired first, and that the right people are recruited...

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I'm sorry....

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Okay, my preamble was a bit long, but I will get back to it the next time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

It was about a minute and a half too long. No problem.

MP Ruimy.

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

Thank you very much for presenting to us today. This is a subject that has been very near and dear to our hearts since we started the temporary foreign worker program study. Throughout, the witnesses we heard from shared a common theme. I'm going to keep myself focused to that common theme of not necessarily hiring Canadians. I had a lot of experience with this program, too, during my corporate days. I saw first-hand people being hired. It was quite easy to hire for Tim Hortons, for Wendy's, for McDonald's. It was quite easy to hire people.

We know back in 2014 there were some challenges, and the program was basically shut down with closed doors and you couldn't make anything happen. I see from your comments that the reforms introduced in 2014, while they contributed to a reduction of temporary foreign workers, the reasons are what is telling for me. You note, for example, that in many cases the department just took the word of employers that they could not find Canadian staff. It was fairly easy to get people on board.

We finished our report and then we filed it. The report was tabled in the House on September 19, 2016.

I'll tell you a quick little story. About two months ago in my riding, one of our local restaurants, a Thai restaurant, had applied to the temporary foreign worker program and it was denied. He came to us and I actually looked into it. I was curious because this is something that we had taken care of, so I actually made the phone call to the temporary foreign worker program. It was quite interesting because, as frustrated as I was, the reason he was turned down was because of the way he advertised. They said, “No, it was too tough. It should be easier for Canadians to apply. You are targeting this only to find somebody in Thailand to cook for you.” I don't know how they got this information, but they said, “In fact, we know that somebody applied who was a culinary graduate in the area and you turned that person down”.

That was very telling. When I look at your comments on the program from before, and my experiences, and the fact that we agreed and have the same recommendations, I am curious to know, when you look at that and you talk about the quality assurance framework, what should that look like? Can you tell us what that should look like?

[Michael Ferguson]

I guess in broad strokes, a quality assurance framework can look very similar to an audit, really. In terms of looking at how the department assessed the applications, we looked to see whether they had done enough work to determine whether there would have been a Canadian available. In some cases they would have done enough, and in other cases there were indications that they did not.

A quality assurance framework would make sure that, in every case, those assessments were being done according to the policies and that they were looking at the things they should be looking at. With a quality assurance framework, you would have assurance that each case was being handled the same way, that each case was being handled the way it should be, that the people looking at the applications were properly trained so they knew what they had to do and they would follow the procedures to make sure the procedures were done, and that this would be consistent across the country. Those would be the types of things that a quality assurance framework would bring up or would give the organization assurance of, so that when we come along later on, or somebody comes along later on and does an audit, you don't find that, in some cases, yes, they questioned whether the advertisement was focused in on one person, and in other cases, they really just took the word of the employer.

I think we have one example here in paragraph 5.35 of somebody looking for a caregiver. The reason they gave in the application for not recruiting a Canadian was that the employer was looking for “someone who was trustworthy and with the ability to work without supervision”, and apparently there were no Canadians who met those criteria, and the department didn't question that.

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

Exactly.

Then I guess for us the important thing that we want to see, as we move forward, is how our recommendations that we all worked on with our committee here, all sides worked on, which match a lot of your recommendations.... We want to be able to understand, when and if you do another study, if you will you still take the same approach or if you will improve the way that you do your own audit to try to get down into the details.

[Michael Ferguson]

Each time we do an audit, we try to determine where we think there's the most chance that something may not be working the way that it should be working so that we can try to focus in on the areas that need to be improved. When we do an audit, we always take into account recommendations that have come from others as well.

If we were going to do an audit of this program some time in the future, we would take into account the recommendations of this committee and recommendations perhaps coming in from any other type of study of the program. We'd look at the recommendations that we had made. We'd try to identify where we thought there were the most problems. We'd look at what the department had put together in terms of information showing what they were doing. We would go to their quality assurance program, if they had one in place, and what results that showed. We'd use all of that information to decide what things we would want to focus on at that time in doing a follow-up of the same program.