Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today.
My name is Juliana Dalley. I am a staff lawyer with the Migrant Workers Centre. I'm joining you from Vancouver, on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples. I will be speaking to you today about the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on some of the most vulnerable workers in Canada—migrant and undocumented workers.
I'm representing the Migrant Workers Centre, a non-profit organization in Vancouver that is dedicated to legal advocacy for migrant workers. Established in 1986, the MWC facilitates access to justice for migrant workers. We provide free legal advice and representation to over a thousand migrant workers each year. We also provide public legal education and do law and policy reform and test case litigation.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants and undocumented workers across the country work in our grocery stores and as cleaners, care workers, truckers, farm workers and in many other occupations. These workers are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Migrant workers grow the food we eat and make sure it reaches our shelves. They build our homes, schools and workplaces and keep these spaces clean and safe. They take care of our children, the elderly, those who are sick and those with disabilities. They are some of the heroes that we have been applauding every day.
The COVID-19 crisis has shown how essential these front-line heroes truly are. It has demonstrated the level to which our society depends on migrant workers to perform these low-wage jobs, yet migrant workers are uniquely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation in their employment. Many of them have no means of becoming permanent residents of Canada, as their work is not considered by the government to be skilled enough.
The structure of the temporary foreign worker program renders migrant workers vulnerable to abuse. This is important to understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on migrant workers.
In order to apply for a work permit, a temporary foreign worker must first secure a job offer, employment contract and an approved labour market impact assessment, or LMIA, from a Canadian employer. This process can at times take up to a year. Workers must then apply for a work permit from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC. The work permit they receive only authorizes them to work for that single employer, in that single job, in that single location. If the worker loses their job, they have to start the process all over again.
It's important to note that migrant workers cannot perform any work to support themselves or their families while waiting for a new work permit to be approved. If they begin working before their work permit is approved, they risk arrest, detention and removal from Canada. This system makes migrant workers uniquely vulnerable. They are unable to speak up about abuse in the workplace or unsafe working conditions for fear of losing their jobs.
Undocumented workers face similar challenges. Many have contributed to the Canadian economy for years, filling labour shortages by working in low-wage and dangerous jobs that are undesirable to Canadians, yet their lapsed immigration status makes them vulnerable to abuse. In addition, they have limited or no access to workers' compensation or publicly funded health care. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these vulnerabilities. At the Migrant Workers Centre, we have seen our clients impacted by COVID-19 in numerous ways.
For workers in essential services, including farm workers, they are at a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19. We have all seen the tragic reports of outbreaks at farms, nurseries and meat processing plants. Many of these workers are migrants or undocumented workers. They are putting their lives on the line so we can eat. Many of them are afraid to go to work, but they can't speak up.
Particularly for farm workers, many of them work in conditions that few Canadians would tolerate. The guidelines published by Employment and Social Development Canada for employing migrant workers during the COVID-19 crisis, in our opinion, do not go far enough to protect these vulnerable workers. I'll return to this point later in my remarks.
On the other hand, many migrant workers are at risk of becoming undocumented because of the COVID-19 crisis. More temporary foreign workers are losing their jobs, and they can't work because they have employer-specific work permits. These workers want to work. We have clients who are health care workers and who want to be on the front lines of this crisis, but they can't. We have clients who want to work on farms, but they can't if they lack the proper work authorization.
Temporary foreign workers who lose their jobs can't renew their work permits easily because they can't secure a new LMIA. Again, the process for applying for LMIAs is complex, long and costly, and many employers are unwilling to go through it, particularly in light of the uncertainty we face due to COVID-19.
If a migrant worker has lost their job due to COVID-19 and still has status, they can apply for the CERB, but if their work permit expires and they lose status in Canada, they will become ineligible for the CERB. If they lose their status, they're in an impossible situation. They can't work to support their families. They can't apply for EI without status. They can't apply for the CERB without a SIN, and they can't leave Canada due to travel restrictions and closed quarters. We have had workers in this situation approach our office, and we have had to tell them that there are no viable legal options for them to work and renew their status or for income support.
We estimate that there are tens of thousands of migrant workers across Canada whose permits may have expired or be expiring since the COVID-19 crisis began. These workers will lose their status through no fault of their own without changes. This will result in many people becoming undocumented. At the same time, we know that employers, particularly in the food supply chain, are facing labour shortages as a result of the crisis. There are solutions. The Government of Canada has the tools to provide relief to the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Canada.
I'll now turn to our recommendations.
First, issue open work permits to workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Granting open or unrestricted work permits will allow workers to continue working or return to work in available jobs and to maintain their status in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. IRCC should automatically renew work permits to an open work permit during this time or restore workers to an open work permit if they've already lost their status.
Workers with secure status may be less afraid to come forward and report symptoms or to speak up about health and safety concerns in their workplaces. This will reduce the spread of COVID-19. In addition, we know that employers are in desperate need of workers, yet fewer workers are arriving in Canada. Granting open work permits will allow migrant workers who are already here in Canada and who may have lost their jobs to fill these labour shortages quickly and efficiently. This will benefit everyone.
Second, we recommend that ESDC improve its compliance system to prevent abuse of low-wage migrant workers and reinstate in-person inspections. ESDC has a mandate to ensure that employers comply with the regulations imposed on them for hiring migrant workers. However, ESDC has stated that it will not be doing in-person inspections as a result of COVID-19. In our view, this is unacceptable.
It is possible and necessary for ESDC to do in-person and unannounced inspections with appropriate safety precautions. This is a matter of life and death for workers. ESDC has a duty to ensure that workers are kept safe during this pandemic. With no in-person inspection to ensure that employers are complying with the guidelines for hiring temporary foreign workers during COVID-19, we will have a growing public health crisis on our hands. We had seen dozens of cases in our office prior to the pandemic where workers bravely decided to come forward and report abuse to ESDC, only for their complaints to go nowhere. This cannot happen during this crisis. Migrant Workers Centre has endorsed recommendations for improvements to ESDC's guidelines, and we would be happy to share these with the committee.
Third, we recommend that a new permanent residency program for migrant and undocumented workers be created. Even though they are performing essential work that we depend on, many migrant workers such as seasonal agricultural workers, cleaners or grocery store clerks have no way of become permanent residents of Canada. They should be allowed to apply for permanent resident status. If they have lost their status, they should be able to regularize it by applying for an open work permit. For too long Canada has relied on migrant workers as a disposal workforce. This needs to change. If migrant workers are good enough to work in Canada, they're good enough to stay as permanent residents. MWC has written to Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Mendicino calling on the government to make these changes.
Finally, we recommend that undocumented workers be allowed to access the CERB. During the pandemic, every worker in Canada should have equal access to the CERB. The CERB should be open to people with an expired SIN, or the government can issue a temporary SIN to anyone who applies by suspending the requirement to prove one's status in Canada in order to apply. This will allow undocumented workers to access the financial support that they need and deserve during this crisis.
These are our recommendations for the Canadian government to both respect and value undocumented and migrant workers during this crisis.
Thank you.