Evidence of meeting #18 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was worker.
Prof. Don DeVoretz
The short answer is yes. I think, though, that it has to be broad. It can't be just directed toward graduate students and have high barriers and linguistic and educational barriers, or you'll get the same problems you have with the permanent class.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
So what you're saying is we want to get it broader than it presently exists and ensure that it goes across various trades and occupations.
Prof. Don DeVoretz
As long as the “net economic benefit to Canada” rule works across these skill groups, yes.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
So what you're saying is we have to realign things to fit the economic trends and needs of the country.
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I know our population, just from census statistics, shows that we've increased approximately 1.6 million over the last five years, which was the amount of increase in population in five years, and 1.1 million of that was through immigration. Would all of you agree with me that if we want to meet our needs of a growing, expanding country, we're going to have to look abroad--in addition to training the best we can, with those we have here--and be competitive at the same time?
Conservative
Director, British Columbia Office, Canada West Foundation
If we agree--and Martin doesn't--that we need a growing population, and if we want to increase within the next twenty years, during which time all the people who are going to enter the labour force have already been born here, we're going to have to increase immigration.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you so much.
I wish we could continue, because I know other people--Mr. Karygiannis--wanted to ask some questions, but we do have another group coming on the same topic: undocumented workers.
I'm reluctant...although I see people who are asking for a minute.
Okay.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
I don't want a minute; I want a point of clarification. I was mentioned by Mr. Collacott, as well as Mr. Andrew Telegdi.
I do want to make Mr. Collacott aware of something, if he really wants to research a little bit of my background. It's not me who serves as a success story; it's my father. I came to this country as a refugee at the airport, and he claimed refugee status. So the success story does really belong to my dad and not to me. I had everything here. So if you can call him an undocumented worker, and if he's a success story, so be it. I certainly—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
That was a good minute.
We'll go to you, Mr. Carrier, and I think Nina wants a minute. Then we'll dismiss our witnesses and get on to our next group.
Mr. Carrier.
Bloc
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I have to go quickly, unfortunately.
I draw a distinction between temporary foreign workers and immigration. As the expression indicates, a temporary worker comes here to meet a temporary need, whereas, in an immigration case, we apply stronger criteria than those for employment, such as culture, language and belonging to this country.
Ms. Kunin said earlier that temporary workers should be able to stay in the country as long as there is work for them. Ultimately, that constitutes back-door immigration. We'll keep them as long as we have work to offer them. That's not necessarily the kind of citizen we want to take in. We don't just want workers; we want good Canadian citizens.
I would like to hear what you have to say on that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Okay.
Ms. Grewal, you wanted a minute.
Again, I remind our members that the next group coming on is also on undocumented workers, and you'll get a chance, I'm sure, to make your points to these witnesses also.
Ms. Grewal.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I would like to thank each and every one of you for your time and your presentations. If you have a copy of your presentation, could you please give it to the clerk. Those were well informed, and all of us can really learn something from them.
I know all of us are talking about the shortage of workers here and there. Could each of you say in one, two, or three sentences what improvements you would recommend to the temporary worker program?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Maybe a minute from each of the witnesses to also address Mr. Carrier's point, if you will, please.
Anyone at all—Mr. Collacott, Ms. Kunin.
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
Sorry, could you just repeat the essence of your point? I was preparing another comment.
Bloc
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
I drew a major distinction between temporary workers, who meet a temporary need, and immigrants, who are selected on the basis of a number of important criteria for a country. So allowing temporary workers to stay as long as there's work for them is tantamount to back-door immigration, which is inconsistent with the government's objectives.
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
I would have a problem with that too. There may be cases where a temporary foreign worker then qualifies for permanent residence here. I think there is some provision for that. But it's true, you can't let them stay indefinitely; you're going to have social and other kinds of problems. So that has to be dealt with.
Just to summarize my thoughts very briefly, we do need to do more research on this. We have to have a clearer picture. We should see what other countries have done and where it doesn't work, because we've suddenly gone into this massively expanded program, and I think there are problems. We really should be looking at them more carefully.
Director, British Columbia Office, Canada West Foundation
First of all, on Mr. Carrier's point about being temporary versus permanent, I think we should look at the experienced worker program to give us an idea there. The temporary workers who we should invite, allow, permit, and sometimes encourage to stay as permanent citizens are the ones who, while they were here temporarily, learned the languages, adjusted to the culture, and became useful contributors to Canada. Those are the ones who should contribute, not the ones who otherwise have difficulty fitting in because they don't have skills or they don't have language and so on.
On the temporary foreign worker program, I do agree with Don DeVoretz's views on how we should best use that program, with sunset clauses and so on.
Prof. Don DeVoretz
To answer Madam Grewal's question directly, as a resident of the Fraser Valley, the very first thing I would do in this province is to make sure the conditions under which temporary foreign workers work in the agricultural sector are enforced before any more are brought in. You and I know enough tragedies that we don't even have to talk about that any more. That could be done by simply enforcing these orders against employers.
To respond to Monsieur Carrier's question, I think the experience class, with its linguistic requirements, employment requirements--showing good employment history--and attachment to the country, is exactly the kind of thing you want to do, coupled with my idea of a sunset clause. Not everybody is eligible. If you keep repeating it, you've got to put them forward.