Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 31st, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Thank you very, very much. Thank you for your presentations. I'm sure you've been very helpful to us in compiling our report and making recommendations to government.

I will call our next groups. The Independent Contractors and Business Association, B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council, and also the Trade Union Research Bureau are coming to the table. I'll give them a moment or two to get here.

Mr. Karygiannis is first on the speaking list.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a question about procedure.

I encountered people who wanted to speak to these hearings but didn't know we were conducting the hearings. So if they've missed the opportunity to get into the hearings, then they cannot.... Their question was how the committee advertised the hearings. Did we let people know there were hearings? What would be our answer to that? What was our notification?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

There was a press release that went out. I saw it myself. It was reported a couple of times in the paper--I think once in The Globe and Mail--and I think committee members submitted names to the clerk. We have 52 panels, I believe, between here and St. John's, Newfoundland, so it's going to be difficult to work any more in. As a matter of fact we turned down a number of groups who wanted to come. You have to draw it somewhere.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

So would you be able to notify them, then?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I wouldn't mind knowing the response so we can have a similar response about notification, because people asked why they didn't know about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. I appreciate that. I'm glad we got such a big response to our meetings.

Now, we have three more hours to go, and we have the Independent Contractors and Business Association, the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council, and the Trade Union Research Bureau.

I think you're well aware of the drill of our committee. You have seven or eight minutes, whatever, to present opening remarks....

Sir?

[David Fairey, Researcher, Trade Union Research Bureau, British Columbia and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council]

I'm David Fairey.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

What organization are you with?

[David Fairey]

I'm with the Trade Union Research Bureau.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

We will begin. If you have opening comments, please feel free to make them in whatever order you wish.

Mr. Peppard, go ahead, sir.

[Wayne Peppard, Executive Director, British Columbia and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council]

I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear. We've been trying to get listed on the committee for two years.

Just by way of information, we found out late. You'll notice that we have submissions that are in English. We did not have time to do them in French. We apologize, but we did not find out until late, and we had to fight our way up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

They'll be translated anyway.

[Wayne Peppard]

Thank you.

The BCYT is not opposed to the importation of foreign workers when there is a proven shortage of Canadian workers and provided that these workers are not used as a source of cheap labour. Unfortunately, the experience for many temporary foreign workers has been less than welcoming. Our office regularly receives calls from foreign workers looking for ways to address exploitative and abusive situations.

This brief submission identifies some of the basic flaws in legislation and regulations under IRPA governing the foreign worker program. At the same time, we consider the global and local forces that result in undocumented workers and the unconscionable fees charged by some immigration consultants. In the conclusion we summarize our recommendations to solve problems caused by the current policy and regulations.

There has been much talk previously about skill shortages. I am a plumber. I know what's going on. I've been in the industry for more than 35 years. These are high economic times, and yes, there are shortages in some areas, but it's not consistent. Shortages have to do with a whole bunch of issues--not just wages and wage packages, but our ability to be mobile across this nation, between the provinces, and from foreign countries as well. That has to do with credential recognition. It also has to do with domestic training, and it has to do with increasing our own domestic capacity in the construction industry.

Temporary foreign workers are vulnerable—and I stress “vulnerable”—to exploitation and abuse because of their work permit restriction to a single employer, language barriers, a lack of understanding of their rights, worry about their immigration status, and unequal power relationships that are set up, dependent on their employer for income and for information.

The common examples of exploitation and abuses include broken promises on wage remuneration, garnisheed wages to pay for illegal placement fees by immigration consultants, and illegal payroll deductions for accommodation, meals, and transportation.

Employer coercion and intimidation are met by slow-moving and largely ineffectual provincial employment standards and labour code protection processes. It's not enough for the federal government to drop it down to the provincial government if the provincial government does not have the capacity or the intent to provide those protections.

Human rights protections are only available to temporary foreign workers with legal representation. Already our council has spent in excess of $200,000 on one single case in the last two years, to protect a group of foreign employees on one site. To expect a foreign worker who may be making $15 to $20 an hour to purchase the services of a $250- to $700-an-hour lawyer is absolutely ludicrous, and that's what you need to walk through the system, whether it's at the labour board, at the human rights panel, or through the courts.

On cheap labour, global construction labour markets are now boasting an excess of cheap accessible workers, averaging $1.50 per hour. Placement fees and loan sharks connected to brokers and then to the contractors are issues we have. It's not enough to control what we can in our province or in our nation, but it's the effect it has from the country of origin as well. We have no control over that. So the brokers, the loan sharks, all those people have that control from the host country.

They're ineligible to collect benefits for EI and CPP should they run into problems and know that they can't be kicked out by their employer. Federal government payroll deductions are a misappropriation of temporary foreign worker earnings in this case.

On human trafficking, some undocumented workers are temporary foreign workers who have fled to the black market or the underground economy or have been directed that way by contractors. In order to escape from abusive conditions with their legal employer, others have overstayed tourist and student visas. In fact, undocumented workers are even more vulnerable than temporary foreign workers. Employers of undocumented workers have an additional hammer over workers who are worried about their immigration status.

A lack of monitoring and enforcement--and I emphasize this one--has opened up the door to widespread non-compliance and abusive conditions by unscrupulous employers. That certainly isn't all of them. There are only a few rotten apples in the basket who make it bad for everyone. No system is in place to identify and locate temporary foreign workers. There is no tracking right now, so how could you even monitor if you wanted to?

Temporary foreign workers need orientation, advocacy, and settlement services provided by government in order to access their rights. I've appended some documents that we have provided in presentations both provincially and federally on these issues. We need to tell every immigrant worker who comes to Canada what their rights are. Not only do they have to be apprised of their rights, but they have to have a place they can go when they need those rights to be enforced, which is an advocacy centre, and that requires further monitoring.

Foreign credential recognition is a huge aspect of all of this. I can't get into the whole thing in the few minutes that I've been given, except to say that we're working very clearly on foreign credential recognition. But there is no standard across Canada. Every province, every organization that brings in foreign workers, be it S.U.C.C.E.S.S. or any other group, has their own credential recognition processes. They are not standardized, and that impacts on our capacity to even know who we're getting and what their skills and experience are.

In conclusion, the B.C. building trades call on the federal government to call for a royal commission to travel the country and take submissions from all stakeholders on the issue of temporary foreign workers, undocumented workers, and immigration consultants. We call on the government to immediately allocate significant resources to monitor and enforce the terms of labour market opinion agreements. Joint federal-provincial compliance teams should involve Service Canada, CIC, Revenue Canada, the Employment Standards Branch and the WCB, or WorkSafeBC in this province. We did this before and it worked. We identified, within a three-month period in the province of British Columbia, with a compliance team, that there was in excess of $80 million that was going uncollected. That was in a three-month period before this government actually brought that down, after they got elected.

We call for joint federal-provincial advocacy centres across Canada to assist temporary foreign workers. Referral information and assistance are required by thousands of workers looking to solve abuse and exploitation by their employers.

We call for orientation programs for temporary foreign workers at the point of entry into Canada. These orientation programs must alert workers to their rights and obligations as temporary foreign workers. Even the written word in their own language may not be sufficient because they may not even be able to read their own language. Information about their rights under employment standards acts, the labour code, human rights, WCB and occupational health and safety regulations, residential tenancy laws, and access to health care are absolutely fundamental.

We recommend the allocation of significant resources to support settlement services designed for temporary foreign workers, especially ESL and French as a second language training, and services to facilitate adaptation to Canadian culture and society.

We recommend reassessment of labour market opinion approval criteria. Canadian workers faced with the challenge of living-out allowances, mobility costs, and retraining opportunities must be included in the labour market opinion evaluations.

In closing, we further recommend that pre-approved labour market opinions be re-evaluated at least every six months and that employers not be allowed to lay off Canadian workers before temporary foreign workers in the event of work shortages.

Finally, we call on the Canadian government to ratify the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

It is time for developed countries, particularly members of the government, to make a binding commitment to end the exploitation and abuse of migrant workers.

This is about orientation, it's about advocacy, and it's about monitoring and compliance.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Peppard.

We'll go to Mr. Fairey.

[David Fairey]

Thank you.

First I'd like to thank the committee for coming to British Columbia to give us an opportunity to reach the members of Parliament on this important issue.

I, too, only heard of your meeting on short notice and obviously was not able to get to you a written submission in time for translation.

My name is David Fairey. I'm a labour economist with extensive experience in labour policy research. I'm appearing today to share with you some of the key findings and policy recommendations that resulted from a recently concluded two-year study on the impact of recent B.C. provincial policy changes on immigrant and migrant farm workers. It was done by a group of academic and community researchers like me, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, under a community-university research alliance called the Economic Security Project.

The academic researchers on this project included Dr. Arlene Tigar McLaren and Dr. Gerardo Otero of Simon Fraser University and Dr. Mark Thompson of the University of British Columbia. Our study report will soon be published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The following questions guided this study: What implications do changing legislation, policies, and practices have for immigrant and migrant farm workers in British Columbia? What impact does this changing legal and policy context have on farm workers' experiences? And what alternative models of employment standards and enforcement procedures would be able to better address their needs for economic security, health and safety, and labour rights?

Of relevance to your investigation is our examination of the seasonal agricultural worker program, SAWP, for temporary migrant farm workers in the British Columbia context and our interviews with 25 Mexican migrant farm workers in British Columbia who were here under SAWP.

The B.C. labour policy background to this aspect of our study was the significant reduction in B.C. employment standards regulations for farm workers in 2003-04 and the B.C. government's decision to join the federal-provincial SAWP in 2004.

Recent changes in B.C. employment standards that have had a significant negative impact on the supply of farm workers from the local labour market and on the conditions of employment for both resident farm workers and temporary foreign workers brought to B.C. under SAWP--and now for farm workers being brought in under the low-skilled worker pilot project--involve the following: their exclusion from statutory holiday pay, annual paid vacation, and hours of work and overtime pay provisions under the regulation; a reduced minimum daily pay from four hours to two hours per day; the introduction of a $6 minimum hourly wage for those employed for the first time or those without experience; significantly reduced employment standards, branch-site inspections, and enforcement activity in the agricultural sector; and no increase in the minimum wage for seven years.

We're told that there's a labour market problem, that there's a shortage. Well, it's interesting that it was the farm owner community, the farmer owners, who were the strongest advocates for these reductions in the employment standards for farm workers. They then pressured the federal government and the provincial government for inclusion in the seasonal agricultural worker program. It's obvious that the employers and the provincial government have created labour market conditions that have contributed to the shortage by creating a labour market, a supply situation, that is untenable for local workers.

Historically, B.C. has drawn on specific groups from four non-white countries as a source of cheap labour for dangerous occupations with inferior employment and citizenship rights in Canada. Early in the 20th century, British Columbia farmers successfully petitioned the federal government to admit South Asians and Japanese to work in agriculture.

Canadian immigration policy continues this racialized pattern by allowing specific groups from the global south to enter Canada to fill jobs with poor pay and working conditions, which other populations are unwilling to fill. Their racialized and highly vulnerable status allows the employers to justify substandard working conditions. In entering Canada under strict conditions with inferior citizenship rights, immigrants and migrant workers are susceptible to highly exploitative wage work.

B.C. farmers in the Fraser Valley rely largely on immigrants from the Punjab to replenish their labour force. Today about 90% of these farm workers are Indo-Canadians. The majority are women, many in their fifties and sixties. Most migrated to Canada under the federal family reunification program, sponsored by their Canadian children or grandchildren. While most B.C. farm workers in the Fraser Valley are Indo-Canadian, this traditional source of labour was curtailed by Citizenship and Immigration in 2003 when it restricted the admission of parents and grandparents in its family reunification program. This measure contributed to the labour shortage that was emerging in B.C. agriculture.

Accustomed to paying seasonal harvest workers no more than minimum wage, and sometimes less, B.C. farmers had been facing a labour shortage in the early 2000s. The provincial government did not raise wages in agriculture to meet these shortages, nor did the federal government seek to increase the number of immigrants. And mechanization of farm work proceeded slowly. The horticulture industry, instead, extensively lobbied the federal program to negotiate with B.C. and Mexico a memorandum of understanding for the province to join the SAWP.

In 2004, B.C. joined the SAWP, which grants farm workers temporary employment visas in agriculture, with wages slightly above the provincial minimum. In the first year of the program, in 2004, there were 50 workers brought in under the SAWP. This year it is projected there will be 3,000 SAWP workers in British Columbia. As I said, the low-skilled program is also being extended to agricultural workers.

Canadian government officials and employers defend the SAWP program as necessary due to domestic labour shortages and an unstable workforce in agriculture.

The government requires a labour market opinion from employers applying to the SAWP to show that they have tried to hire local labour and that a supply is not available. In the case of migrant agricultural workers, the government does not address the way low wages and poor working conditions fail to attract local workers.

In addition, the government has not adequately acknowledged how the SAWP exposes workers to inadequate employment and safety protections, which renders them unable to exercise their rights as workers. In particular, the SAWP does not allow workers to freely choose their workplace or residential location, in contrast to citizens who have the formal right to circulate in the labour market. SAWP workers are only allowed to come to Canada if they work for a specific employer, live in their employers' designated premises for a specified period of time, and then return to their home country. In being bound to a single employer and having a temporary status, workers are unprotected from the threat of repatriation. Dismissal by an employer can mean that a SAWP worker will be sent home to Mexico without their anticipated earnings. The threat of repatriation is a powerful deterrent to workers' rights.

The temporary worker status also separates SAWP workers from their families, making them further vulnerable to employers' excessive demands. SAWP visas are different not only from conventional landed immigrant categories but also from other temporary migrant worker programs, in that they only allow the holder to stay in Canada for up to eight months.

There is more in my submission, but I think I should go essentially to the recommendations.

Could I just conclude with some of our recommendations?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, you can have a couple of minutes more, but we have quite a number of questioners who want to get in.

[David Fairey]

Our recommendations to the federal government are as follows. We make recommendations to the provincial government and to municipal governments as well.

First of all, there should be coordination with provincial and municipal authorities. HRSD/Service Canada should move from being a labour market matching service to a service that protects workers. It should assume leadership in ensuring that all levels of government, including the Employment Standards Branch and WorkSafeBC, exercise their responsibilities. To begin the process of coordination, HRSD needs to inform provincial authorities of the number, job title, and location of SAWP workers.

There is no registry of these migrant farm workers, so the Employment Standards Branch doesn't know who they are or where they are. They have no way of knowing where they should be doing enforcement.

The federal government should develop a transparent system of pay rates for SAWP workers. The process for determining appropriate rate of pay should be transparent, represent a substantial improvement over the minimum wage, and correspond to the specific duties performed by the worker. Workers are just getting the same rate regardless of the duties they perform.

The process should also require growers to provide evidence that wage increases substantially above the minimum wage have been unsuccessful in attracting domestic workers.

The federal government should require employers to demonstrate a satisfactory record of compliance. Right now there is no test of satisfactory performance in the application for a SAWP worker. When applying for an LMO to hire workers under the SAWP, employers are not compelled to demonstrate a satisfactory record of compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and the Employment Standards Act. SAWP workers could be asked about an employer's treatment, with evidence to be considered in the reapplication. So there should be an assessment of the performance of the employer after a review of a program.

There should be a removal of the employer's right of repatriation. The employer now has the right to repatriate a worker. Growers who wish to dismiss SAWP workers must demonstrate proper cause before doing so. Illness or injury is not a cause for repatriation of SAWP workers. On the contrary, they should be covered by the B.C. Medical Services Plan for treatment here or in Mexico for the full length of recovery.

Workers must have the right to appeal dismissal to an independent body. Repatriation is the main deterrent for SAWP workers exercising their labour rights. Dismissal should not be linked to repatriation.

There should be a restructuring of SAWP. The designation of migrant workers to a single employer and housing by the employer for a specified period of time amount to unfree labour. Workers have little recourse in negotiating the terms of their contracts. At a minimum, the SAWP should allow workers to move more freely from one employer to another.

The SAWP should also explore possibilities for securing rights to employment insurance and the Canada Pension Plan for workers once they are in Mexico, or refund all employer and employee contributions.

The SAWP should enable immigration. If workers are accepted into the SAWP, they should be able to apply simultaneously for permanent resident status. They should have the right to live here with their families and become Canadians.

Finally, we would like to endorse, from the previous presentation, that Canada should sign on to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and our legislation should be geared toward compliance with the standards of that charter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Fairey.

Do you want to make a few comments, Mr. Barrett?

[Joe Barrett, Researcher, British Columbia and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council]

Yes. Thank you very much to the committee for your interest.

I'll be brief.

The language barrier is one of the vulnerability issues. I was involved in the building trades with the workers on the Canada Line. They were Spanish-speaking workers who were being paid less than $5 an hour on a federal-provincial project. Our taxpayers were paying them less than $5 an hour.

This case has been at the Labour Relations Board in B.C. and is now at the human rights board. We have a decision from the human rights coalition. There is coercion. There is intimidation. The employer has been ordered to pay half of the legal costs.

We're right at the very beginning of this issue, and five years from now it will be much more.... I am called daily, “Señor Barrett, se me puede ayudar?”

In another life I was a Spanish teacher. I have now become the advocate for the Latin Americans in this city, who come after being promised $25 an hour. All of their paperwork is fine with Service Canada. These promises are broken time and time again. It's widespread.

The Shangri-La tower, the Children's Hospital, two buildings at UBC, and public projects...because the construction industry is subcontracted, it might be SNC-Lavalin at the top, but it's subcontracted and subcontracted. By the time it gets to the worker, it's $7 an hour, $12 an hour on public projects. It's widespread, not just in Vancouver, but throughout Alberta.

Please take a few minutes to read our submission. Wayne can talk about these legal costs--expensive. We're not a trade union movement that has $200,000 to spend on every case.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

So these general contractors make a promise of these high wages, $20, $25 an hour, and then when they sub....

[Joe Barrett]

No. Simply put, it's easy to hide the actual employer. The employer is the subcontractor. It's a contextual thing. To understand the construction industry...it's very easy for undocumented workers.... Again, it's in our submission.

The underground economy is what Wayne was referring to, the joint compliance teams. We have Revenue Canada, Service Canada, the Employment Standards Branch, WorkSafeBC--these different ministries are all working together. All it takes is a team of government officials out there, unannounced spot checks, and the word will spread like wildfire that the government is watching.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Barrett. That's very interesting indeed.

Now we'll have our questioning.

Mr. Karygiannis, seven minutes.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Before I talk about CPP, a question for you, sir. If the employer and the employee contribute to CPP, are you telling me that once the foreign workers or the undocumented workers are removed, go back to their country, they cannot collect the Canada Pension?

[Wayne Peppard]

I'm not sure whether they can or cannot. I'm saying they're not. They don't even know they are entitled to that.