I want to welcome you to Edmonton.
There's been a dramatic change in Alberta over the past two years. When I drive up to Peace River country in the northwest to visit my grandchildren these days, whether I stop for coffee in Valleyview, for gas at Fox Creek, for lunch at Whitecourt, or at the mall in Grande Prairie to buy some gifts before heading on to their house, the probability is that the service people I'll encounter all along that route will be temporary workers. Last year in Alberta, more temporary workers came here than immigrants.
So I want to begin by presenting some suggestions to address the many difficulties that arise for temporary workers, especially those in the low and unskilled occupation categories. I'm not going to take the time in these very few minutes to provide any samples of the horror stories that the staff of our community organization receive, because I suspect you're familiar with a lot of those. So I want to touch on some possible ideas to resolve some of these concerns. There is quite a bit more detail in the full presentation, the full written paper, that we've provided to you, but I will just highlight some ideas.
The first thing is that I think we need to reconsider the whole idea of this list of expedited occupations, where the labour market opinion process has been abbreviated. In fact, we believe it would be useful to enact more careful and more cautious assessments of whether there is an actual need for temporary workers in any situation.
Second, I think we need to ensure that better and more first language information on all aspects of working and living in Canada is available to temporary workers in these categories.
Third, we need to improve the processes for workers with work visas to move to new employment quickly when an employment situation breaks down.
Fourth, we need to require employers to provide temporary workers with settlement services that are equivalent to those funded by government for immigrants and not believe that they know how to do this work and that we don't have to ensure equality in it.
Next we need to improve the ability to protect workers in the workplace and to reduce the unmonitored self-reporting by employers.
We need to require that the brokers and the agents involved in the recruitment of temporary workers meet clear standards and are registered.
Finally, we recommend making sure that all temporary workers, before coming to Canada, get thorough information about issues of immigration so that we can break the myths that are being perpetuated, especially by brokers, about how being a temporary worker is a quick route into immigration and permanent status in Canada.
However, these are only measures to patch up a program, a program that our organization believes is not good for Canada or the foreign workers involved. So I also want to take a couple of minutes to touch on some larger recommendations about how better public policy and practices regarding immigration could make most of what's happening with temporary workers unnecessary.
First of all, and not surprisingly, I think the immigrant-serving sector needs to be more fully involved in consultation on matters related to immigration. There's a national body now for immigrant-serving organizations, which I happen to chair. That sector now has the ability to provide input much more effectively than it has in the past.
Secondly, I think there should be reconsideration of the recently proposed amendments to IRPA as a way of dealing with the difficulties of the immigration process. We should instead back up and take a look at approaches, such as better staffing of the department and revisions to the criteria for becoming an independent immigrant, to address some of these things, rather than putting more power in the minister's office.
Third, we recommend that making improvements to the economic outcomes of new immigrants be made a top priority, through measures such as more appropriate and available language programs and effective use of prior learning, to achieve better employment incomes. Until we address the economic underachievement of immigrants, it's hard to resist the temptation for temporary workers.
We need to clearly distinguish public discussion about immigration from matters involving temporary workers. These things have increasingly been blurred together by governments and others over the last couple of years.
Finally, Canada should sign the international convention on the protection of the rights of migrant workers as a public and symbolic way to show that we're concerned about this issue.
Bringing temporary workers to Canada should be seen as a last resort. We should make a renewed effort to have a healthy and effective body of immigration policies and practices that ensure we are bringing a rich variety of great new people to establish themselves in Canada, people who are committing to be part of our communities.
The current enthusiasm for temporary workers is shortsighted and has many dangers, both for the temporary workers and for the larger Canadian society.
Thank you.