Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 3rd, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Doyle.

Mr. Zaifman.

[Kenneth Zaifman, Lawyer, Zaifman Immigration Lawyers, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I come from the world of immigration law. I started as an immigration lawyer when a poor, hapless client walked into my office 20 years ago needing help to stay in Canada. That led to experience that has now brought us to the point where immigration is on the forefront of many people's agendas.

The temporary foreign worker movement has been around for many years. It is now becoming more important to the economic viability of Canada, and I'll leave it to others to determine whether it is essential or not.

The process itself involves a number of different actors. In terms of the approval of a labour market opinion, we have Service Canada. In terms of the application for a work permit, we have Immigration Canada. In terms of the issuance of the work permit, we have the Canada Border Services Agency. In terms of renewing the work permit, we have the inland operation of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. In terms of compliance, where there is a breakdown in the working relationship or the job offer is not legal or there have been excessive fees, we have a variety of agencies. The Canada Border Services Agency is responsible for enforcement; the RCMP is responsible for criminality; and local provincial agencies are responsible for breaches of the employment standards legislation.

We have a lot of people in the foreign recruitment business, leaving aside lawyers, consultants, and others.

From my experience, if we want to make the temporary foreign worker movement work, we need a single window; we need one repository responsible. I find that if you don't have one person or one agency responsible, then you have in effect no responsibility that can be effectively administered.

At the end of the day, the issue of temporary foreign workers is a function of corporate responsibility. We can legislate all you want, but if there is no corporate responsibility in the foreign worker recruitment process, it will break down.

I notice you have Maple Leaf Foods here. There is a model of foreign recruitment that works in certain countries, where they actively went out, examined, recruited, tested, assisted applicants with their work permit applications, and dealt with integration into the workforce. There is a model that works.

The difficulty I find, and I think what's important for this committee to focus on, is not with those companies who take the responsibility to administer what I consider an effective and responsible temporary foreign worker movement; it's with those people who do not. The people who do not take responsibility really have to be regulated, charged, and taken out of the business entirely.

We have so many different parts to the process, as I said. You have a labour market opinion that sets out a prevailing wage. In some cases, workers are told that's not what they're going to be paid, even though that's what the paper said. We have some places where people apply for work permits and their qualifications are put together to meet the requirements of the labour market opinion. In other cases, once they come here, that job isn't available on the basis that was set out. For example, some people are laid off because of seasonal demand issues and are told they can't apply for unemployment insurance, because if they do, the company will not be eligible to sponsor other foreign workers or renew their work permit.

I think it's very important for us to come to grips with what the various players are. The temporary foreign worker movement does work: we are recruiting foreign workers; they are working. There are instances where there are breakdowns, and where there is a breakdown, that's where the system collapses, because the worker has no particular place to go to get assistance.

We routinely represent workers who are in situations where the employer is not fulfilling his or her responsibility, where the job is not as described, or where the worker isn't qualified to do the job. It's very important for this committee to come to grips with those particular issues.

If I can leave you with one thought on the temporary foreign worker movement, it's this. Temporary foreign workers have been around for many years. They will continue to be a part of the immigration process. In many cases, provincial programs have accepted temporary foreign workers as immigrants, so in some cases, the selection process for immigration to Canada is being offloaded to the provinces. We're bringing in temporary foreign workers. The provinces select them and they allow them to remain in Canada. Many people may argue that we should maybe give the entire skilled worker movement selection process over to the provinces.

The point I'm making is that without some governmental responsibility for who can assist workers when they come here, who is responsible for compliance issues and who can take an employer to task, not simply saying, “You can't recruit again”, but to meet their responsibilities? Without that multi-department, multi-jurisdictional federal-provincial mechanism--it's got a little bit of everything--in place, the temporary foreign worker movement will not progress to the level where I think it can to provide the types of workers the Canadian economy needs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Zaifman.

Mr. Ryan.

[John Ryan, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank you and the committee for allowing us to appear before you today.

My name is John Ryan. I am the chair and also the acting CEO of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, which is the national regulator of immigration consultants that has come as a result of recommendations this committee made in 2003 to the minister and as a result of a Supreme Court decision and a number of other things.

I want to limit my remarks today to what we are seeing as a regulator in the foreign worker unit in terms of the actual complaints and problems we're seeing at the regulator level.

I will begin talking today about an initiative taken by the Government of Manitoba in which we're seeing great promise. The Minister of Labour and Immigration has announced a new initiative through which they're going to be changing their act, the Employment Services Act, to better regulate temporary worker recruitment agencies within the province.

We think this model can be followed by other provincial jurisdictions, but we would like to call on the federal government to consider its role on a national level to ensure there is one standard, not a patchwork of standards, for controlling the activities of individuals who appear before the federal government's tribunals and in front of HRSDC and the various agencies involved with temporary workers.

The proposed provincial amendment will require all third-party recruiters to be licensed by the province and to be members in good standing of the law society of the province, or other law societies in Canada, and of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

We think this is a good thing, because essentially immigration consultants and immigration lawyers deal with foreign nationals who choose individuals to represent them before government for a fee.

We believe that the federal government, unfortunately, is hampered by a number of issues. First of all, the immigration refugee protection regulations stipulate in subsection 13.1(1) that if a person is going to represent someone for a fee--advise, represent, or consult for a fee--they must be a representative of one of three organizations: a provincial or territorial bar, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, or the Chambre des notaires du Québec, and they can only advise and represent and consult on applications before the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, which means there is a problem in that there is absolutely no control on employment agents, human recruiting agents, who are representing people on the LMO process. It's a loophole that needs to be closed.

I share my colleague Mr. Zaifman's concern that there needs to be a coagulation of efforts among government departments to deal with this.

Section 124 is the penalty provision under the IRPA, the general provisions, which is the only provision the Government of Canada can use to enforce unauthorized practice against unscrupulous agents. It's severely limited. It's handicapped. To date, to our knowledge, it has not been enforced. We're concerned about that.

Recommendation 31 of the minister's advisory committee on the regulation of immigration consultants--which is also in keeping with the recommendation of this committee to the minister in its last report on immigration consultants--recommended a specific provision to include a penalty provision within the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to specifically deal with unauthorized practice.

What we're seeing at the regulator is a problem between CIC and CBSA in determining who is actually charged with the enforcement and what measures they can bring to bear to actually control criminally the acts of unauthorized representatives.

We are seeing increasing numbers of temporary workers being abused. They are vulnerable and unsophisticated. We need to have the government look at its HRSDC process and we need the minister to see what can be done in that regard.

I will turn it over to my colleague Wenda Woodman, our manager for complaints and discipline, who can give you more accurate statistics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Go ahead, Ms. Woodman. Then it will be Mr. McAlpine.

[Wenda Woodman, Manager, Complaints and Discipline Department, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants]

Good morning.

I'll speak to the issue of temporary foreign workers within the framework of my experience as a manager of the complaints and discipline department. We have engaged with the issue on the basis of allegations against our members for breaches of the rules of professional conduct and also in the context of information that we received concerning individuals who are not society members and who are acting as unregulated labour agents.

I've provided a chart setting out the number of complaints about both members and unregulated labour agents that we've received between 2006 and the present that relate to the issue of the temporary foreign worker.

The society has a strict view on what constitutes employment activity. We are coordinating our efforts with provincial governments to receive and act on complaints from the provincial departments concerning the activities of any of our members who are acting inappropriately or outside their scope as authorized representatives. As a regulator, we act in the public interest, and as such, have implemented errors and omissions insurance and a hearings and discipline process, and we are in the process of establishing a compensation fund.

Our first hearing took place in March 2007 and related to a member who was found to have breached the rules of professional conduct when she failed in her professional obligation to inform 24 Korean truck drivers about the English language requirement related to the job offers that she had obtained. The company withdrew the job offers on the basis that the majority of the truck drivers' language skills were not up to the business standard. The full decision can be found on our website, if you'd like to look at it further, and we're just now going to return to argue penalty.

One of the problems we've identified in the administration of the disciplinary process relating to temporary workers is the potential for deportation of the complainant or witness prior to the conclusion of the matter. Consequently, we respectfully request that the minister enact a provision to allow for a delay in the deportation of temporary skilled workers in circumstances where disciplinary proceedings have commenced and they are required as primary witnesses.

I'm going to turn now to the issue of unregulated labour agents. A number of the complaints that we've received from temporary foreign worker applicants relate to individuals and organizations who are not our members. These rogue agents act contrary to provincial employment regulations and file applications before the minister by circumventing the regulations. The information that we have been provided concerns groups of unskilled workers being guaranteed employment in Canada at enticing wage rates and being guaranteed permanent resident status within a year or two. They're required to pay fees of up to $20,000 and have also had to pay expenses for travel documents. In some situations, the applicants have had to pay for what have been termed “anti-terrorism documents” and for what were called “United Nations travel documents”. The labour agents offer their services online and are located outside Canada.

A membership list is posted on our website. I've received telephone calls from Gambia, e-mails from the Philippines, Morocco, Nigeria, and Pakistan, from individuals trying to locate the person they hired to assist them in achieving this lifetime opportunity. The promises are inviting and appear so legitimate that it's not until they've experienced a problem that they contact the society for assistance. While we do not have jurisdiction to act against the rogue agents, we do ensure that matters are referred to the appropriate authorities for follow-up.

Therefore, we respectfully request that the committee recommend to the minister that the government regulate labour agents on a national basis. While protection is provided on applications before the minister, labour agents have been able to circumvent these provisions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

I think Mr. McAlpine and Mr. Dell will be presenting on behalf of Maple Leaf Foods.

[Rory McAlpine, Vice-President, Government and Industry Relations, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the committee for inviting Maple Leaf Foods to participate this morning.

Maple Leaf Foods, as you may know, is a large—I believe the largest—food processor and exporter in Canada. We have 23,000 employees in the country and globally, and we have leading market shares in a range of products—in pork, poultry, bakery, packaged consumer foods. We were recently named one of Canada's ten most admired corporate cultures.

On the business front, we're facing intense competitive pressures, mostly due to the appreciation of the dollar and the rapid rise of input prices, but we're driving a new business model to improve our competitiveness and drive out costs and move up the innovation scale for more consumer value creation.

Our operations in western Canada, especially in Manitoba, are essential to our future. The primary processing of pork as well as many of our secondary processing operations are based in Brandon. We will create 800 to 900 new jobs in Brandon by the end of 2009.

Like most employers in Western Canada, we are facing a major labor shortage. As a large employer, we also have sophisticated and finely tuned strategies to hire and train our employees.

We employ many aboriginal Canadians in western Canada but we want to do better. We have been actively working to establish a role for a first nations coordinator to improve our relations with the first nations community and to develop a more effective recruitment model.

But foreign workers are key. We need them in our plants across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. They're essential to our operations and to the future of the communities that depend on our plants.

We began using the temporary foreign worker program about three years ago. We now employ 1,373 skilled and unskilled workers in these operations.

On the skilled side, we have about 150 workers, particularly in our hog production operations. Across all these operations, we have workers from the U.K., Philippines, and Germany. We will add another 900 foreign workers before the end of 2008.

On the unskilled side, we have about 1,000 workers at our operation in Brandon. These foreign workers come from El Salvador, China, Ukraine, Colombia, and Mauritius. We will shortly receive a group from Honduras.

The recruitment and settlement of these workers present some enormous challenges. We work very closely in collaboration with three levels of government, particularly the City of Brandon. I'm very pleased that my colleague Sandy Trudel is here from the city. She can answer questions in relation to settlement of the workers in Brandon.

In Brandon virtually all of our foreign workers qualify for the provincial nominee program, thereby achieving permanent residency such that they can bring their family members to join them. We invest in these new Canadians with the hope that they will become our long-term employees and successful new residents of Brandon.

Now, our initial recruitment efforts did face some challenges and problems. We made some mistakes and we learned some things. We made some mistakes in China in terms of our dealings with third-party recruiters--exactly some of the issues that were mentioned here this morning. Some of these recruits were charged fees of which we were unaware. But we are now much better organized. We understand the program much better. We have strong working relationships with third parties, particularly the International Organization for Migration. We also understand the program and the requirements for a strong labour market opinion.

As well, we've become better organized ourselves. My colleague Susan Yaeger is here. She is our manager for international recruitment, and has a team of people to support her in all aspects of this process. We have established excellent relationships with HRSDC, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Service Canada, Canadian embassies abroad, provincial ministries of labour and immigration, as well as many union leaders and community stakeholders.

Before going to questions, I want to outline what we see as the challenges and opportunities with respect to the program. We've certainly seen some important improvements, particularly allowing the temporary work permit to be extended to two years from one year. Under the program, there's also been a greater acceptance of unskilled workers, who are very much needed by our industry. But we still find an inconsistent approach to the treatment or the acceptability of unskilled workers when we deal with the provinces under their provincial nominee programs.

I will list some areas of improvement, which we can elaborate on later.

First, we would like the LMO requirements to be more clear and consistent across the provinces, across the Service Canada staff who are processing these LMOs. A standard template would help.

The definition of “occupations under pressure” and the availability of the recently announced fast-track, or electronic, LMO process are not consistent across the provinces. In particular, we face the fact that while in Alberta and B.C. there's now a fast-track LMO for most of the job categories we employ, this is still not the case in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. In Saskatchewan, for example, meat cutter is not deemed an occupation under pressure, and yet the labour issues we face there are no different from those in Alberta or Manitoba.

There ought to be pre-published wage rates for different occupations to avoid the judgments that are made rather arbitrarily with respect to adequacy of wages. While we do not employ foreign workers in Quebec, the Quebec government has decided the meat industry simply doesn't pay adequate wages and therefore has denied the meat industry in Quebec any opportunity to participate in the program, even though it pays wages that are among the highest levels in North America for the meat industry. We've had similar challenges with respect to this in Alberta.

An employer should have the ability to move workers between plants to accommodate different requirements in different plants, if the employee is willing to move. The program should not allow one employer with an approved LMO to poach foreign workers from another employer that has incurred all the effort and expense to recruit them. We're starting to see evidence of that.

At the provincial level there should be more consistency and transparency in the definition of minimum language, education, and work experience requirements--again, this varies across the provincial nominee programs. There should be a consistent national policy on third-party recruiters, exactly the point that's been raised here. We welcome the initiative in Manitoba--it's more tightly regulated--but we're concerned about a patchwork of standards across the country on this that should be harmonized.

Finally, with respect to program administration, again we've seen improvements. We've seen the officials managing the program grow and learn and become more effective. At the same time, there are some significant problems--again, more consistency, transparency, and timeliness in the review and approval processes by Service Canada and HRSDC across the provinces. We need to see clear service standards and performance measures.

For a large, responsible employer like Maple Leaf Foods, we'd like to see an opportunity for concurrent processing of LMOs and work permits. This was announced by Minister Solberg in February 2007, and yet we subsequently learned it is not being applied to unskilled workers for fear there could be exploitation of workers who have to pay for a work visa only to find out their employer has been denied their LMO. We don't think this is at all appropriate in our case. We pay all these fees. There is never a chance that a potential recruit is going to be out of pocket.

After waiting for four months, yesterday we received a letter from HRSDC asking for clarification. The answer points the issue over to CIC. Again, the issue is that nobody's in charge of the file and everybody's denying accountability for an answer. Again, we'll wait to see CIC's answers.

We haven't observed improvement in communications between program managers and the embassies abroad, but this could still be improved. We find there's inconsistent understanding on the part of visa officers as to the parameters of program announcements. Again, there are no consistent service standards and processing.

Finally, we face a major problem in Alberta. The time delay we're facing on LMO approvals has become unacceptable and very difficult for us. We are facing significant plant shortages in labour. We're facing serious questions about the viability of plant operations, and yet the time it's taking to get any answers is far too long. Applications we submitted last November and December have yet to be responded to, and this problem continues to grow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. McAlpine, maybe I can just stop you there, because it's quite a lengthy presentation.

[Rory McAlpine]

I'm finished. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I know your colleague has some comments to make as well, and we have some people itching to get in on this.

Ms. Trudel.

[Sandy Trudel, Economic Development Officer, City of Brandon, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.]

Thank you.

Good morning.

In my role as economic development officer for the City of Brandon, I've worked closely with Maple Leaf Foods for the past ten years. I am pleased to be able to speak to the collaborative relationship that has developed over time between Maple Leaf Foods, the municipal government, and the community as a whole and how this has benefited Brandon and area.

When Maple Leaf Foods confirmed Brandon would be home to a new state-of-the-art pork processing facility in late 1997, company and city officials promised to work closely to ensure maximum benefit and minimum impact of the new facility. Within two months of Maple Leaf Foods' selecting Brandon, a series of jointly hosted regional town hall meetings were organized and underway.

This early and continued commitment to community engagement has minimized negative impacts often associated with growth and cultural diversification. Community engagement has been achieved through a variety of methods.

Recognizing time limitations, I will only touch on a few ways in which we have maintained open dialogue and involvement with the community. It is critical, though, to understand that none of the items referenced hereafter would be possible without the open and collaborative relationship that exists between the City of Brandon, Maple Leaf, and community participation.

A socio-economic impact model was commissioned to help the community understand and prepare for the impact of Maple Leaf Foods. Regular updates have been completed over the years, and ail reports are available online.

The need for labour from outside our region and likely from outside the country was identified very early in the process. A housing supply-and-demand analysis based on Maple Leaf projections is conducted annually and is available online.

The City of Brandon maintains a chronological accounting of the Maple Leaf project online, including important projections related to foreign worker recruitment. In 2006, the City of Brandon and Maple Leaf Foods met personally with well over 40 local organizations to gain an understanding of the impacts created by the arrival of foreign workers to date and to seek input on solutions to mitigate future impacts.

The information gleaned was used to proactively plan for the addition of the second shift and the arrival of additional foreign workers.

In 2007, a committee focused on the proactive planning and coordination of immigrant settlement services was established, of which I am the chairperson. The committee is fortunate to comprise diverse community members, including immigrants who have recently arrived and those who have been in the area for multiple years.

A database of organizations and individuals who wish to receive regular updates on the foreign workers destined for Brandon and the second shift expansion was established by the City of Brandon. This distribution list continues to grow. At a minimum, quarterly updates, including statistics, projections, and educational pieces, are distributed.

Maple Leaf established and dedicated staff to community liaison committees around the topics of transportation, child care, housing, education, health, language, and community settlement. This ensures community engagement at the service delivery level and assists with identifying trends and planning for and resolving situations before they become issues.

Maple Leaf has welcomed community participation and input into their foreign worker orientation sessions, and Maple Leaf has also been kind enough to share their orientation package, so that it can serve as a template for a community-wide orientation package.

The City of Brandon actively participates in service provider meetings throughout the community to ensure regular and timely sharing of information. In this capacity, city staff often act as a neutral communication bridge between Maple Leaf and the community.

Maple Leaf and the City of Brandon are actively participating in a Rural Development Institute research project around the topic of temporary foreign workers. The project is proving to be an extremely valuable stakeholder educational tool.

As Rory mentioned earlier, the settlement of foreign workers and their family members over the past three years has brought challenges and learnings to Maple Leaf, the municipal government, and the community. It has also brought great rewards; thus I would be remiss in not briefly touching on a few of the benefits.

Maple Leaf Pork has been ranked the most important economic development project for Brandon for the past three years in an annual business leader survey.

Maple Leaf has acted as the catalyst for population growth in Brandon. For the first time in years, and bucking the national trend, Brandon's school enrolment numbers increased in 2007.

In a recent statistically representative survey of local residents, 68% of Brandon's residents felt that the increase in immigrants arriving in Brandon in the past few years has made Brandon a more interesting and culturally enriched community, and 22% felt that there had been no impact. I believe this speaks clearly to the efforts that have gone into community engagement on the topic of foreign workers.

The increased number of immigrants arriving in Brandon have finally provided the critical mass to enable Brandon to be funded as a true immigrant settlement centre.

I thank you for the opportunity to share the Brandon perspective and strongly encourage you to develop policy that enables rather than hinders industry's ability to utilize foreign labour. The area has benefited greatly from the enriched cultural fabric, additions to the labour pool through the arrival of family members, increased school enrolment, and of course the resulting economic growth. Brandon and area would suffer irreparable harm should Maple Leaf Foods be unable to source the necessary labour pool, thus jeopardizing the continuation of their Brandon operations.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Trudel.

I thank all of you for your presentations.

We'll go to Mr. St-Cyr.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You will have to use the earphones to hear the interpreters.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Right, you all have interpretation.

Go ahead.

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

Thank you all.

While you were listening to the interpreters, and since this will be my last series of questions for this week, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate some people who will not be back with the committee next week.

I want to mention first of all our interpreters, Karine, Cécilia and David, who do tremendous work and who are the voices you hear when I speak. I also want to mention Lynne, Sharron and Nardia who work mostly behind the scenes. All the members of the committee are aware of their fantastic work, and we all know how important it is, but I want everyone to know that the Citizenship and Immigration Committee is much more than the few MPs you see before you. It is also those persons who work very hard and do a superb job for us.

I also want to thank Mr. MacAlpine for having said a few sentences in French. He is the first witness to have done so since the beginning of those hearings. I will probably remember that the next time I have to buy groceries.

Let us now deal with your statements about the situation in Québec because I think it would have been important to mention that there have been numerous layoffs in the meat industry. I must say that I find it very difficult to accept the claims that foreign workers are needed to fill labor shortages when in fact some plants are simply being shut down. The only possible explanation for employers wanting to bring foreign workers in this industry in Québec is that they want to put pressure on salaries, which is absolutely contrary to the spirit of the program. I wanted that to be very clear.

Let us now go to questions.

I have been listening closely to your statement, Mr. Ryan, and you probably know that it is very important for us to hear from an organization representing all the immigration consultants in Canada.

How did you validate the position you have expressed today before the committee to make sure that it really reflects what your members think of your organization in Canada?

[John Ryan]

First of all,

thank you very much for your question, Mr. St.-Cyr.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

To respond to your question, I think it's important that I explain the mandate of the society to the member.

First of all, the mandate of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants is protection of the public, protection of the consumer, first and foremost.

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

I will have to stop you, Mr. Ryan, because my time is extremely limited and I have other questions to ask.

I know your mandate and I have no problem with it. However, when you take a position in public, how do you get that position validated by the members of your organization?

[John Ryan]

We have it validated on the basis of the members electing a board of directors, Mr. St-Cyr.

If I may finish, Mr. Chair, that position is endorsed and approved by the board of directors, who are elected. One-third of them are appointed as public interest directors in the public interest.

I hope that answers your question.

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

That is what I wanted to know.

I have another question for you. I understand that you are based in Toronto but you are now testifying in Winnipeg. What brought you to Winnipeg? Do you have an office here?

[John Ryan]

Mr. Chair, I don't understand the question. We're a national regulator and we're here to speak on the issue of temporary foreign workers. We will be addressing the issue of immigration consultants in Toronto.

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

So, it is because of the logistics of the committee that everything could not be done in Toronto. The committee will deal with that issue later on.

I would like to take advantage of the fact that we have representatives both of the workers and of the industry. The committee will have to make some recommendations on how to reconcile the protection of workers with the needs of employers. One of the major problems that we have heard about relates to the fact that the temporary visa given to the worker is associated to a specific employer.

Let us say that someone comes to work for Maple Leaf Foods or for another employer. If that employer is unscrupulous, he can have some incredible power on that worker and he can take advantage of him by telling him that, if he's unhappy, he just has to go back to his country. That is a problem.

Some people have suggested that we should allow workers to change employers, like any Canadian can, in order to avoid this type of abuse. On the other hand, some employers have told us that they have had to bear some costs to bring those workers in the country, related to hiring, to airfares, etc.

As a committee, we will have to find a position reconciling the two. For example, if we allowed the worker to move from an employer to another, in the same field of work, the expenses paid by the first employer could be transferred to the new one.

Do you think this could be a satisfactory solution for workers as well as for employers?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Anyone who wishes to make a comment should please feel free to do so.

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

Mr. MacAlpine.

[Rory McAlpine]

Certainly I think the issue I mentioned about poaching is a concern when we have incurred expenses. The suggestion you're making is something that perhaps would alleviate that. I think, though, it's important to say that the rights of the foreign worker are in all fundamental respects no different from the rights of a domestic worker. All the aspects of those protections beyond the wage apply. As I mentioned, they have the ability to move. They are not bound to one employer. They can switch to another employer who has an open LMO, and that's why we have a concern.

Realistically, how does that happen? That maybe is something that an individual worker may not be aware of, or their ability to move from one employer they're not comfortable with to another is an issue. I think it's important to know. To us it's about engagement with our union, engagement with the community, proper orientation, and education of the workers so they understand and they successfully integrate. That's the approach that we take.