Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Sean Strickland. I'm a representative of the Waterloo Wellington Dufferin Grey Building and Construction Trades Council. We like to say yourlocaltrades.ca for short. We're an affiliation of 15 trade unions throughout Waterloo, Wellington, Dufferin, and Grey who represent approximately 8,000 construction workers in that geographical area.
The comments I'd like to share with you today are from a local perspective. You heard from Mr. Dillon about some of the issues facing the province. While the issues are different from those, we do have some particular experiences I'd like to share with the committee today.
First of all, I did submit to the clerk a copy of a resolution on temporary foreign workers that we recently passed at our annual meeting, and just to paraphrase that resolution, because it is quite lengthy, I'd like to say that the resolution points out the fact that our council recognizes that foreign workers can be an essential part of a company's business strategy. We recognize that foreign workers are part of the Canadian economy. We recognize that foreign workers can fill labour shortages in Canada and bring new skills and knowledge to help the country's economy grow. But we do have some concerns.
From the website and from the procedures involved to allow a temporary foreign worker the permission to work in Canada, you're probably all aware about the procedures and the requirements of the job. The offer must be genuine; the wages and working conditions must be comparable to that of Canadians working in the same occupation; the employers must have conducted reasonable efforts to hire or train Canadians for the job. That's one area where we have some concern. Foreign workers filling a labour shortage is another area where we have some concern. And the employment of the foreign worker will directly create new job opportunities or help retain jobs for Canadians.
So there's just a paraphrase of some of the requirements before a temporary foreign worker is allowed to work in Canada. That approval is given by HRSDC based on a labour market opinion, and that labour market opinion from government staff will allow the applicant to work or not to work. Our question is how that labour market opinion is finally determined.
We've had examples over the past number of years where we've had unemployed tradespeople—millwrights and electricians come to mind, among others—and there are construction projects under way where temporary foreign workers are in the plant working, mostly in installing the process equipment. What happens in our experience is that the way construction projects are awarded is that a lot of the process equipment.... A lot of people think of a construction worker as building the building, but construction workers also put into place the conveyors, the automotive systems, and the automation systems within the plants. Often those tender packages are awarded in different phases.
Sometimes owners will like what they see for the first phase of that tender being awarded, but for the second phase they'll say, “Well, let's see if we can get the manufacturer of that piece of equipment to come in here and install it, because it's specialty work”. So they're able to apply to get a temporary foreign worker permit and bring in so-called specialty workers to install that piece of equipment. Oftentimes those temporary foreign workers will be working right alongside some Canadian workers in a plant. The motivation for the owner of that construction project probably varies, but it's due to costs, or it's due possibly to their ability to maybe exploit that temporary foreign worker.
Oftentimes in situations like that we hear from some of our trades people that these temporary foreign workers don't work within our Canadian labour standards: they work through their breaks, they work through their lunch hours. I think you'll hear more of this from Ms. McLaughlin later. They work 12 to 14 hours a day.
So there's a concern when the temporary foreign worker comes in, on one level, that there are Canadians, certified tradespeople, able to do that job, but for some reason there hasn't been any communication with those people who employ those tradespeople—i.e., building trades councils—about the availability of those workers. So that's an issue for us, and secondly, there's the issue that happens on site. Are these workers trained? Are they certified?
And this is not even to mention the communication. We've had examples of electricians—who well know how dangerous it is to work with electricity—working alongside temporary foreign workers from other countries and there is no English spoken. So how are you able to navigate the intricacies and the safety aspects of working with high-voltage electricity when you have those communication barriers to deal with? So the resolution from our council speaks specifically to communication.
I notice on your website that if you want to get a labour market opinion, you submit this to the temporary foreign workers' office in Saint John, New Brunswick. I would assume that the people in Saint John, New Brunswick, talk to the people from Service Canada in our area to make a determination on whether or not there's a labour shortage for that particular trade. I don't know for sure. But I do know for sure that years ago, when these temporary foreign workers were allowed to come into the country, there was communication with the local labour councils to determine if there was unemployment amongst their trades. That communication no longer occurs.
So our resolution says that we would like HRSDC to consult with local building trades councils to more accurately determine the availability of skilled tradespeople in the local marketplace, prior to granting permits to foreign workers. We think there's some improvement in communication that could be made.
Some of the other issues and concerns related to undocumented workers are anecdotal, I guess is the way you would describe them. But these stories and situations have been conveyed to me by our affiliates. For example, the painters and glaziers had an example of foreign workers actually living in a barn in a rural area, in deplorable living conditions by any kind of Canadian standard, working 12 or 14 hours a day painting houses. Now that's a concern.
We've also talked about the safety aspect on the job and the credentials. How certified are these temporary foreign workers when they come in? When that labour market opinion is granted and the worker comes in, how clear and how clearly defined is it that the tradesperson, that temporary foreign worker, actually has the skills to do the job?
I recognize that my time is up. I covered a broad swath of issues related to temporary foreign workers.
The message I would leave you with is that of communication. We'd like to see greater communication with building trades councils before those permits are granted.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.