Evidence of meeting #19 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 alberta.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
And in Manitoba as well.
We'll maybe get another round and we'll come back to you.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Okay. That's fine.
Mr. Karygiannis has a point of clarification.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Yessy Byl, am I correct in understanding that you're a lawyer?
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
You made a statement that the rights of people in Canada, as I understood it, are only for landed immigrants and for citizens. Don't--
2:05 p.m.
Temporary Foreign Worker Advocate, Alberta Federation of Labour
No, that's not what I said. Let me explain what I meant.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
You have to give Ms. Byl time to answer, and then I have to move on, because I have five to six minutes that I'm going to divide up between Ms. Beaumier and Mr. Carrier.
Ms. Byl.
2:05 p.m.
Temporary Foreign Worker Advocate, Alberta Federation of Labour
Temporary foreign workers are covered by some of the legislation, such as employment standards, WCB, and some of that kind of legislation. However, their rights as people who are entitled to be in Canada are completely dependent on the work permit, so if they don't have a work permit, they are not entitled to work in this country, unlike everybody else who has either refugee status or permanent residency. Their mobility rights are non- existent; they cannot move to another job without having a new work permit. So their rights in that respect are not the same as other people's, and that's what I meant.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
That's a very good explanation, and we will leave it there.
Ms. Beaumier and Mr. Carrier, you have three minutes each, please.
We'll be over our time, but that's okay.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
Colleen Beaumier Liberal Brampton West, ON
Thank you.
Thank you for your presentations.
Mr. Gurnett, as a politician you know that when you come before committee, you have to have some answers and not sit on the fence, okay?
We're talking about different situations here. We're talking about the temporary worker program, which includes a different group from the people we have living underground and working within our society. Obviously, these people are very necessary, certainly in Toronto and in the building industry. The last time I heard, which was a couple of years ago at hearings, the estimate was that there were 30,000 Polish—and this only covers the Polish community—underground workers. We obviously need these people. If we found them all and deported them, our building industry would fall flat on its face, and it would be a detriment to our economy.
Mr. Diachuk, you were saying that these people need to be ferreted out, that we have to be stricter. If we could get enough police to police people in Revenue Canada and get all our tax revenue in, then we wouldn't have to worry about these people: we could provide them with social assistance and all of the other benefits and bring them into our society.
The only way you're going to find these people and the only way the provinces can clamp down is with more policing, and I think that has to be out of the question.
Mr. Komarnicki was saying that amnesties don't work. Well, we haven't had an amnesty for 35 years. In the last Parliament—and I'm going to be accused of being partisan—one of the things I was very proud of that Joe Volpe brought in was the financing to give these underground workers the ability to come forward, get a work permit, and work for two years, at which time they could apply for permanent resident status from within Canada. I don't know whether you would call that an amnesty. I think everybody's afraid of the word “amnesty”.
Mr. Diachuk, do you have a problem with having these people come out voluntarily? That way, we can check for security, and if they've already learned the language, if their kids are in school, why send them out to start all over again with people who don't have these...?
2:10 p.m.
President, Edmonton, Ukrainian Canadian Social Services
My position here in Alberta is, as I've indicated, that the Alberta government was too late in bringing in these temporary foreign worker problem-solvers. And the two ladies are doing an excellent job; maybe we need about three in each city, or more. But they are dealing with these workers who are falling between the cracks. I'm aware of that.
However, it took them too long, and possibly this is why I indicated that the federal government should have gone to the provincial government and said, get somebody to make sure these workers we bring in as temporary foreign workers through the recruiters.... And please understand that I really an unhappy with the recruiters who are outside of the country, because—
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
Colleen Beaumier Liberal Brampton West, ON
What do we do with the people who are already here, who have lived here, some for 15 years?
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
I have to stop here because we're running a lot over time and I have to get on to Mr. Carrier.
Maybe you can save that question, Ms. Beaumier, for the next group that is coming. Thank you very much.
Mr. Carrier.
2:10 p.m.
Bloc
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to welcome you to the committee. I was very pleased to hear your concerns regarding the conditions in which foreign workers live, especially the temporary foreign workers. I think these concerns are very important.
You noted that there were a lot of temporary foreign workers because our immigration system is dysfunctional. You said it was a consequence of a dysfunctional system. I think undocumented workers can be important. We have to help temporary foreign workers, and this doesn't necessarily mean they will become immigrants afterwards.
I think the federal government has a role to play. The government must meet the need for seasonal workers in certain regions. There must be a contract that would be signed by the province. If the federal government gives permits, it's to meet the needs of a specific province--for example, Alberta. The Government of Alberta also has to meet its responsibilities. Temporary workers should not be left at the mercy of employers and they should not be exploited.
I believe...and this is what we really want to do in our committee; this is what we're going to tell the committee to do. We think the federal government should have a certain process that would enable each provincial government to contribute to work norms. We have to resolve this issue first and foremost. If we want to improve the immigration system because it's not working right now, that's another question. We won't be able to solve the temporary foreign worker problem just by accepting them as immigrants.
What do you think about that statement?
2:15 p.m.
Director, Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers
I think you're summarizing a situation that I have a high amount of agreement with. The reason you're gathering information about temporary workers is because there has been a decision, very poorly examined, very poorly analyzed, to run to the idea of temporary workers as a labour market solution in Canada at a time when the immigration system isn't working well and the economic achievement of immigrants who are already here is inexcusably poor. So we've jumped on a bandwagon, and I think we need to back up.
When temporary workers involved highly skilled professionals and seasonal agriculture workers, we didn't have nearly the range of problems. It's been this move to bring in large numbers of tradespeople and low-skilled workers that has all the problems arising. I think it's time to back up from there.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you. The committee appreciates the contribution you've made to our discussions today. It was very good indeed. Thank you for coming along.
We'll just suspend for a moment or two to give the Ledcor Group of Companies time to come to the table.
2:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
We're ready now to begin.
The Ledcor Group of Companies is not here, I am told.
I want to welcome to our meeting, from T.C. Hunter, Trevor Mahl, who is president. Welcome, Trevor. From Sunterra Meats at Innisfail we have Miles Kliner.
It's good to have you gentlemen here. You were here for the other presentation, so you know you may have an opening statement.
Go ahead.
April 1st, 2008 / 2:20 p.m.
Miles Kliner General Manager, Sunterra Meats - Innisfail
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for inviting us here today. I don't have a brief, so what I will do is try as best I can to give you a perspective from a business standpoint, and in particular our business' standpoint.
I am with Sunterra Meats. We have a series of companies in the province—agriculture, meat processing, and retail—and I'm the general manager of the Innisfail plant. We've been involved in hiring foreign workers for I guess about two and a half years now. I would characterize our experience with the temporary foreign worker program, at least as it relates to our business, as nothing short of fantastic. That would be the way I would characterize it.
Back in 2003, BSE in our country hit and created a great number of problems for the livestock sector, in particular the cattle or ruminant sector. Our company, being in the meat processing industry, tried to be a part of the solution at that time and attempted to expand our business, in particular to be able to process additional cattle at a really crucial time.
We found, when we embarked on that expansion, that the ensuing labour challenges that we had in Alberta and in our sector were a huge stumbling block to our being able to deliver on the strategy we'd embarked on, as far as that growth and our being able to play a reasonable role in assisting with the glut of cattle, if you will, and the BSE issue that our agricultural sector was facing were concerned.
At the same time, our sister plant in Trochu, which is a hog processing facility, was experiencing the same or even greater labour challenges, and in 2006 actually had to discontinue operations at their plant for a good 50% of their business, in particular the value-added part of their business, just because the labour challenges made it so difficult.
We developed a strategy around utilizing temporary foreign workers as part of our go-forward strategy for not only stabilizing but trying to grow our business. Today we're very stable, from a labour standpoint. If I look back on the challenges we faced in 2005-06 and at where we are today, I'd clearly say it's been a huge success. The temporary foreign worker program in our business has been a huge success.
One of the things we've noticed, from a people standpoint, is that the folks we have working for us always bear the brunt of labour shortages, particularly in our type of industry—it's a manual labour industry—and morale takes a hit. We lost a lot of what I would say were very good people, people we'd invested a fair amount of time in, from a skills standpoint.
We're actually seeing some of those folks come back, because word travels pretty quickly. They understand that our business has stabilized and that from a labour standpoint there aren't the same strains and pressures that were placed on them when they were with us previously. We've seen several of the people we had with us previously come back to our business. That's a huge boost for us, too, because they come back with skills that we already helped them to develop.
I would say that we don't really view it as a temporary program. We very much see it as a program that will be part of our strategy at least for the foreseeable future, and I see that as being several years, not individual years. So from our perspective, the provincial nominee program that exists here in Alberta is very much a part of our go-forward strategy. We recruit and select on the basis that we want these folks to be a part of our team long term, not just on a temporary basis, obviously recognizing that in some cases it will be temporary, but we really don't see it as a temporary strategy from our business standpoint.
I would say that as far as managing the foreign recruiting process is concerned, clearly the processing times we face are extremely slow, and sometimes they burn up a lot of resources just from our constantly trying to stay in contact with the government folks. Their resources are stretched at the best of times, and processing times in the embassies seem to be even slower yet and less predictable. When you're trying to build a business strategy that involves labour and have the qualified labour going forward, that predictability is very important. But we're lacking, as far as predictability is concerned, at this stage of the game.
I would also say that from a resource or a program perspective, we're looking at where dollars are best put from a training standpoint. Clearly, in the foreign worker arena, we have a lot of language challenges, etc. Those are areas I think that should be given consideration going forward, in terms of how those temporary foreign workers are supported through a variety of other government training programs.
That's my overview.
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
2:25 p.m.
General Manager, Sunterra Meats - Innisfail
Yes, we have two meat packing plants in central Alberta. We also have a farm division, which is both livestock and farming, and we have a retail store division as well.
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
2:30 p.m.
President, TC Hunter
We're different. We're not an employer, but we work with many companies in the oil and gas industry, mainly in construction. The types of people we're recruiting are skilled trades. The process we go through is governed by the Government of Alberta--the Alberta apprenticeship and industry training department--which essentially oversees the quality and the certification of the workers who are coming into Canada.
I don't really like to call us a recruiter because we're not. We get calls from recruiters around the world. Essentially, we're an outsource solution for companies that really don't want to deal with the entire recruitment process of ensuring that the workers have the proper qualifications, the language skills, and all those things that are required, as well as ensuring that they're settled into Canada.
We're based in Sherwood Park, which is about a 15-minute drive from here. Our office is right in the hub of all the major oil companies that are building the upgraders about half an hour from here, in Fort Saskatchewan. The companies we work with are really servicing these upgraders. They need an estimated 32,000 tradespeople over the next five years to complete these projects. On average, these projects are anywhere from $5 billion to $10 billion in size. Some are getting up into the $20 billion range, in terms of labour costs and the escalating cost of materials. So our company, needless to say, is a little busy.
We get a lot of inquiries from companies that don't know about the temporary foreign worker program. A lot of them don't even know about the LMO process. So we're there to work with organizations, to walk them through what they need to do as an employer, and then our commitment to them is to find them the workers to come to Canada. So we are a big part of the whole program. We're the ones in the trenches who are typically dealing with immigration and the various embassies around the world.
I just wanted to make some comments today. To be honest, our experience to date has been good. I wouldn't say anything negative about the immigration process. There are certainly things that we see as a company that is charged with the responsibility of--I guess in construction terms--finding people yesterday. The reality is that it just won't happen, and we're there to explain to organizations that if they need workers in a week, it's just not going to happen. So we're there to educate them. But as I said, our experience has been good.
Currently, we have mobilized 200 workers into Alberta over the past year. We need close to 4,000 skilled trades over the next year and a half. And to be honest, it's going to be a very difficult feat. It comes down to the organizations and their planning for resources and for people. Also, there are some things that I think, if they can be done, would improve the process from the government's standpoint.
I just made some notes. I talked to three major players in the market--construction companies--that are needing to bring in these workers, and I wanted to get some of their comments, because they obviously couldn't be here today. But I think it's important that some of their comments are noted.
One of the things we're facing right now in the process is the work permit. I heard one of the previous speakers mention that there's limited mobilization for a temporary foreign worker once they arrive in Canada. They come in on a work permit under one company; they are responsible for working with that company, and it is the company's responsibility to take care of that worker.
In a perfect world, everyone will come in and be happy and have a job for as long as they're needed under the temporary foreign worker program, but in reality, that doesn't happen. There are companies that abuse the system, and you may know of them. They're companies that have absolutely no intention of making the workers successful. They're brought in under a temporary basis to do the work that maybe, on one front, a Canadian worker wouldn't do.
There are definitely safety issues that come into play on some of these jobs. Another reason would be working conditions. It is not just safety but the ability to work in an environment that I know I wouldn't work in.
So we see these companies. They pop up. From time to time, they call us, and we politely let them know they should look elsewhere. But we do a good job of screening.
The organizations we work with, the construction companies, have made a commitment to training and to making these workers successful when they come to Canada. When a worker is laid off and not brought here but is perhaps paid fees, sometimes you find out and sometimes you don't.
That's where the speaker before mentioned that...I think it was Yessy Byl, who is a major part of this program in Alberta. She has seen it because we've talked to her. She has contacted us and the companies we work with to see if there are any job opportunities for these workers who are brought here under false pretenses and locked into the program without a job. We do what we can for them. And recent experience—