Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to make a presentation today to the committee. I would like to welcome Quebec MPs Mr. Carrier and Mr. St-Cyr to the province of Ontario.
I want to ensure that we understand there's an expectation to provide some further information. I also want to take the opportunity today to provide some information about the industry.
The industry is the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada. It's an organization of industry stakeholders I helped develop a number of years ago to work on self-regulatory practices in the industry so the industry can work with government.
We've established an immigration subcommittee. It's a subcommittee of the board of directors that reports back to the board to improve facets for temporary foreign workers, and we've had discussions with various levels of government.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is already aware that they need to improve the current program. They've spoken to the committee. HRSDC is aware that they need to enhance employer monitoring and compliance with employers, but everybody needs the tools and mandate to execute it.
As we've heard from other witnesses today, we're suggesting business partnering initiatives about what to do with LMOs and how to find new employers. You need to work together with the business associations, to be involved with government, because HRSDC doesn't work in the field. Most importantly, we need to implement preventive measures rather than strictly enforcement.
The departments have said to us that they have a number of reasons why they can't do anything: there are difficulties, it's out of their mandate, there are technicalities, etc. What we think should be done, not just for our industry but for others, is that the government should focus on encouraging legal movement.
One of the problems is that the current government department structure is uncompromising. The three departments work on their own mandate. We're recommending to the committee that there be a quarterback; somebody should be at the helm. In World War II, Dwight Eisenhower was appointed. If you want to be effective, you need to come to the realization that there needs to be a quarterback.
I believe in French the reference would be to a “capitaine de bateau”.
The government has said the pressure is likely to grow. They've already said the number is expected to increase by 25% in all aspects. We feel they should be more responsive to Canadian employers. The government estimates anywhere from 80,000 to 150,000 immigrants will be undocumented, which means quite clearly that on average one in two foreigners coming in is illegal.
Everybody here is aware of the current process. HRSDC does the first review. They review, confirm, and verify an employer's status. Then it goes to CIC for formal approval. As everybody on the committee is aware, in 2006 we found that HRSDC approved 163,000, but when you look at CIC, only 113,000 were approved, meaning there's a 29% rejection rate. A significant number of people in Canada know there's a job waiting for them. HRSDC has already said they're fine with these employers, but CIC is rejecting them. We think the emphasis should be on trying to minimize the amount of illegal activity.
When we look at our industry compared to the national average, HRSDC has a 93% acceptance rate for Adult Entertainment Association members. The average is 80% across Canada for all industries. When we went to CIC, the rejection rate was 29%, so that would be a 71% acceptance rate, but we're at a 93% rejection rate. It's clear there are messages, and in this committee we understand the reason. Unofficial measures have already been taken to ensure few exotic dance visas are going to be accepted at embassies, and this is what we think we should be working to prevent.
CBSA comes into play here because they're given a mandate to deport those who are at risk. They've already told us 4,000 criminals are waiting to be deported. They prioritized the risk of what they have to do, and we know what that is.
What we want to do as an industry, Mr. Chairman, is provide educational awareness materials. We have this in five different languages and not just three: the government offers English, French, and Spanish.