Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 1st, 2008

[Trevor Mahl]

That's great. Yes. She is fantastic.

We recently had a group of workers—this is just an example—who were brought over and only worked a short period of time; they were promised long-term work under their work permit, but they were left literally out in the cold. When it was minus 50 here in Edmonton in January, these workers were let go and really had no place to work.

We were fortunate. We had work for them. However, the restriction that happened with these individuals was that they couldn't go to work because their work permit had another employer's name on it. We were told when we contacted Immigration that it would take two months to process and make the change to the work permit so they could start working again. Unfortunately. companies will not wait that long. When it happens that they have a need and there are people available, it is a natural instinct to want to hire them right away.

So that is one area that I know we've seen that would warrant looking at. Some ideas that we have come up with that could be shared with you are that perhaps some of these workers can go to work for another company while they're waiting for their work permit to be processed—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Maybe you can address some of these things in Q and A. Thank you.

Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much.

Essentially your business is to recruit temporary foreign workers for companies.

[Trevor Mahl]

Yes.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Would your company possibly not be as profitable if you were to recruit foreign workers to fill needs and when these people come they'd be landed immigrants?

[Trevor Mahl]

You are asking that if they become landed immigrants we would become more profitable? I don't understand.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

What I am saying is that right now, the way it is set up, you're dealing with temporary foreign workers, and there is a great deal of discomfort among many people about the number of temporary foreign workers who are coming into this country. And it continues to grow.

What I am saying is that if we had a program where people could come here as landed immigrants, to fulfill some of these roles, by giving points under the points system so that they can actually get here, that would not harm the business of your company, would it?

[Trevor Mahl]

Not at all, no. I think we would prefer that.

The reality is that a lot of these workers don't want to come here on a permanent basis. They've made it very clear to us that they're here to work, they're here to make money. I can only speak for construction. I can't speak for manufacturing or some of the other areas, but they're here to make money. These are lifestyle changes for these individuals who do work in these countries. The conditions are good. They're taken care of, and in a lot of cases they don't want to stay here forever. They want to go back to their home countries.

But in some cases, you're right. They do want to come here, move their families, and become landed immigrants. The provincial nominee program enables them to do that, for those people who do want to stay and remain in Alberta or in Canada and become a citizen of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll go to three five-minute segments here. I have to manage the time a little more effectively. We have to leave here by 5 p.m. I've got two more groups, which is two hours, so....

Andrew, please go ahead.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

My experience has been that a lot of the people coming to my office are people who want to stay, and the government is expending a great deal of resources to try to get rid of them. The money would be much better utilized in starting to deal with the backlog and having a system that reflects the needs of the economy, but you, I am glad to say, would prefer having people who could stay as landed immigrants.

[Trevor Mahl]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I appreciate that response.

I'll conclude by saying we have an immigration system that is broken. What is fundamentally needed is a points system that reflects the needs of the economy.

I get concerned when I look at the experiences in other countries that have a large number of guest workers, if you will--Germany is one case in point--and the kinds of problems that entails. I think it would be best for everybody if we could get people in as immigrants, get them landed, and give them status, so they're not open to exploitation and all the other problems going along with it.

I appreciate the answer you gave. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Andrew.

Go ahead, Mr. St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you to you all.

Mr. Kliner, give me an idea of the scope. How many workers in the temporary worker program work with your company?

[Miles Kliner]

There are 42 out of 110.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

What is that in terms of percentage?

[Miles Kliner]

It is 15%.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I got the impression that the skill level of people who work with your company is quite low. It's basically manual labour. Am I correct?

[Miles Kliner]

They are semi-skilled.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

You say there are problems on the labour market at present. Many people are concerned about whether employers have really used all the tools available to them and whether all efforts were made to ensure that local workers were recruited before trying to recruit foreign workers. This is a concern we hear often around this table and outside. When employers use this program, how do you respond to the people who have those concerns? What can you tell us to demonstrate that every possible avenue has been used to hire local workers?

[Miles Kliner]

I think that's a fair concern that folks might develop. Certainly the LMO process requires that we show due diligence in that regard--show that we've done everything we can to attract workers from the local market. It's done through whatever traditional means, but in addition to that there are creative means to attract local workers.

I gave an example a little earlier. Because our workforce is more stable, we have people who worked for us at one time now coming back to us, and we're making sure we're taking them back. It makes sense. It's an obvious benefit to our business when we have people coming back to us who have developed skills previously in our business, in our industry, and for us to be able to incorporate them into our business, particularly when we're growing and want to grow.

I can't see why you wouldn't want to incorporate them. That's our strategy. That's our approach as far as that's concerned. We exhausted every possible means available to us, I feel, and probably then some, in terms of creativity.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I'm asking you the question because we have the opportunity of having an employer with us who can give us his side of the story. Of course, there are good employers and there are employers who are not as good; there are good employees, etc.

We talked about how those workers can be exploited. If you are before us today, it's because you're probably a model employer and you want to retain those workers, so it's all to your advantage. But I'm sure you've already heard of cases in which workers were exploited. What solutions could you recommend to the committee in order to prevent such cases of exploitation by unscrupulous employers?

[Trevor Mahl]

I have a comment on that very good question.

Certainly you can't control everybody. You can't control everything that they're thinking and their motives for bringing in workers. We see it; we see it all the time. Workers are brought here, and they pay big fees. They will pay those fees because they simply want a job. They're used to making $2,000 or $3,000 a year wherever they're working. In our experience, most of these workers are from the Middle East and have been working on the various oil projects. They come here and make, in some cases, up to $35 per hour. That's a salary of $80,000 a year. That's a life-changing experience, so they will pay that.

The problem is that when they do come here, the employers are taking advantage of that, and the recruiters overseas are obviously trying to profit from their coming to Canada.

I don't know what the answer is, to be honest. I think it comes up to companies like TC Hunter. They are working in Alberta and trying to screen out these people, because there is absolutely no benefit in anyone having to pay fees.

We let the advocate know if we hear of any cases. We're the first to make a call to Immigration if we hear of a company operating like that.

I'll mention one of the concerns we have in Alberta. Obviously you know it is illegal in Alberta to charge a fee for an Alberta company. You are probably aware that in Ontario it's legal to charge a fee, so many of these companies are surfacing in Ontario, and we see it.

When we get a phone call from an Ontario recruitment firm, the very first question we ask is what they are charging as fees. They won't go into it and they won't explain to you, but it is legal there. A lot of them will set up their shop there--wherever they are, in their basement--and then they will be the filter for the workers coming into Ontario. Usually they'll come into Ontario through Pearson, and then they'll get mobilized to go on from there.

That's one way of catching them. If they're operating in Ontario, that's probably a good place to look.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Ms. Chow is next--

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Your only compensation--