Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 8th, 2008

[Stan Raper]

I'd just like to make a couple of points in regard to the current stream and what's happening.

Employers drive the temporary foreign worker program. There are no quotas. As long as an employer applies, you can get as many as you want, as quickly as you want. So it's an employer-driven program.

What we're seeing from employers is the need for blue-collar workers, if I can call them that. So the temporary foreign worker program is expanding rapidly, with no quotas whatsoever.

The problem is that the points program doesn't recognize blue-collar workers. Therefore, they're out of the queue. They can't get into the queue. They don't qualify. So the federal government over the last couple of years has tried to develop little band-aid solutions around trying to fix that.

The PNP, the provincial nominee program, the economic class now that is being put in place, the high-skilled workers program, all those are, again, employer-driven programs. So employers are again seeking ways to address the problem, the broken system of the points program, through these three types of programs.

What we're saying is, recognize the problem. Employers need blue-collar workers. Change the points program so they can be identified and dealt with appropriately.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

That's part of what we're about to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Your time is up, Mr. Komarnicki.

We'll have a closing remark by Mr. Karygiannis, in whose riding we happen to be.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you. I'm supposed to share my time with Andrew Telegdi, my colleague from Kitchener--Waterloo, because he didn't get a chance. However, it's nice to see that Mr. Komarnicki is finding religion and wants to move it into this committee. So, Mr. Komarnicki, I'll let you have a couple of words.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Komarnicki? No, it's me. You mean Mr. Telegdi, not Mr. Komarnicki.

Mr. Karygiannis gets confused when he's in the great riding of Scarborough--Agincourt.

Let me just say, the system is broken, and when you look at it, in 2002, the bureaucrats—and let's not kid ourselves, it's not the ministers—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Somehow the meeting got taken away from the chair, but anyway, go ahead.

We've gone overtime already and we have a panel, but go ahead, Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

It's the bureaucrats who drove the change in the points system that created a crisis. The system is not working. Now the bureaucrats say the system isn't working, so the way to fix this system is to give them total control. It's shameless what they're doing. They're saying , “Give us total control, and we're going to fix it.” That's the problem.

In terms of the vote, for us to be able to debate Bill C-50, we're going to try to debate Bill C-50—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

No, we're not going there.

I'm going to stop this now. We were all gracious enough to give Mr. Karygiannis some extra time, because we happen to be in his riding, but that's as far as we go. We have a panel waiting.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. Believe me, based upon your recommendations, we will be making recommendations.

Mr. Raper.

[Stan Raper]

I have just one point.

We heard from Mr. Solberg, the minister of HRSDC, last summer indicating he was going to commission a study for the federal government around temporary foreign workers. Has this committee seen that report or does it have any understanding of where that report is?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

No, I don't think we do. The parliamentary secretary can probably answer that for you after the meeting.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I want to welcome to our proceedings today our second panel this afternoon. As an individual, we have Mario Bellissimo, certified specialist and barrister and solicitor; from the Canadian Auto Workers Union, we have Carol Phillips, assistant to the president, and Raj Dhaliwal, director of the human rights department; and we have Geraldine Sadoway of Parkdale Community Legal Services, and Abigail Martinez.

Thank you for being here today. I guess you're familiar with how the committee works, with seven minutes for your opening statements.

I'll start with you, Mr. Bellissimo.

[Mario Bellissimo, Certified Specialist, Barrister and Solicitor, As an Individual]

I'd like to thank the committee for the invitation and for the wonderful work it has undertaken on behalf of Canadians and future Canadians.

I provided a nine-page report, or speaking notes, which will be made available in a few days. The basis of the report is eight points, only a few of which I will have the opportunity to touch upon today.

One is, what is the definition of an undocumented worker? Two, is there a need for a program? Three, what are the public deterrence policy considerations? Four, what are the historical lessons? Having a two-tiered approach is number five, one being a permanent residency program and the second a temporary worker class program.

First I'd like to touch upon the definition of an undocumented or illegal worker. That definition is becoming more complex as time goes on. I've read with great interest the transcripts from many of these meetings, and I understand the familiarity with the term and the concept. I would add that we now have permanent residents who are losing status for various reasons and who are also going to fall into this category. The definition can lead to misconceptions, and it's a very complex one.

In terms of whether we need a program, I am guided by the words of Mr. Les Linklater, the director general of the immigration branch, who testified before this committee on February 25. He indicated that at the low end there are 80,000 to 120,000 workers who may find themselves—and other groups, I understand, are reporting as high as 500,000.... Mr. Robert MacDougall, the director general for the Canada Border Services Agency, indicated that currently there are 22,000 in the removal stream, 8% of whom are criminal or whose cases involve a criminal element, and their current budget on removals generally is $23,000,433.

In 2005 I asked the committee to look at the Spain amnesty program and be guided by some of those terms. It's quite similar to what we may be undertaking here in Canada, and 900,000 persons were granted status under that program.

I need not highlight the acute socio-economic needs that have been spoken about by various members.

The other point that deserves mention is that we need to direct our finite resources concerning security and criminal sourcing to those who pose a security risk. It is a good public policy choice that we should consider.

What's important, in my respectful submission, is that any such program we embark on in this area must strike a balance, and not strike a balance just for stakeholders in the industry, but also for Canadians generally. There's a message we need to send, therefore: the first public deterrence policy consideration is that a responsive immigration system will be the greatest deterrent. A clear and transparent system will eliminate much of the abuse we are currently seeing.

There is considerable methodology surrounding what a skilled worker is. Many pay taxes; many are engaged; many openly work. To categorize them all as individuals who are not abiding by certain conditions is inaccurate.

Further, the life of an undocumented worker is not a lifestyle of choice. That is not to be lost on the committee. Many points of access—I know Miss Vilma Filici spoke about those today—that traditionally led to the entry of illegal workers have been closed by the requirements of visitor visas, better tracking, and enhanced technology. We need to develop a program for 2008, one that's not rooted in the problems and principles of the 1970s and 1980s.

As an historical lesson, there have been nine such amnesty programs. Obviously I do not have the time to get into them, but what is important and what we should learn historically is that when we launch a program of this nature without a fail-safe or secondary program to assist in its implementation, we end up with an even larger backlog. We need look no further than the administrative reviews of the backlog clearance program of 1986 and 1989.

I propose a two-tier system to address many of these concerns, drawing on historical lessons. One would be a permanent residency class. One of the criteria for it would be “any non-status person living in Canada for three years or more”, similar to the 1994 program. Applicants would have 120 days to apply, which is similar to the 1973 program. Applicants who apply in writing within Canada must have identity documents, must be between the ages of 22 and 49, must pass the usual security, criminal, and medical checks, and must have applied—and this is where we go to deterrence factors—in the past for either a status document, be it a visitor visa extension even if it was refused, or for protected person status, or for an inland agency permanent residency document. Why? It's because deterrence is built on backward-looking criteria, not allowing applicants to now change their course once the program is introduced. It is important that we introduce such elements.

Also, they would be subject to either being currently employed or to a positive labour market opinion, and they must not have accessed social assistance, excluding disability; that's similar to the 1994 program.

All of these would be what we would call applicants who would be entitled to the permanent resident stream immediately, because they have proven.

A second tier, which would catch...and this is where we learn historically that one program must be buttressed by another--it would be a temporary worker's class. Here, it would be a one-year pilot project.

Again, any non-status person living in Canada for one year or more must apply in writing, again must survive identity, security, and criminal checks, and must be sponsored financially by a person or an organization.

Again, this involves Canadians. We're indicating that Canadians need these workers; that there is a need for workers. Well, we're going to need people to step forward to legitimize the program, so that it not be simply a stakeholder program. I think these are important measures.

And again, they must not have accessed social assistance.

There will be traditional opposition to these types of programs, with the unemployment rate ranging around 7%. But what's important, if we learned anything from the 1973 program, is that if it is properly advertised, meaningfully educating the public, it can be implemented effectively, so that it's not a program that looks to be rewarding poor conduct but rather a necessary and appropriate correction to market and immigration forces.

That is my opening statement.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Bellissimo.

Ms. Phillips, please.

[Carol Phillips, Assistant to the President, Canadian Auto Workers Union]

Thank you.

We too welcome the opportunity to make some remarks before the committee. We're going to be speaking specifically to the current temporary foreign workers program and also sharing with the committee an experience that we have ongoing in one of our workplaces.

We have about 255,000 members in almost 2,000 workplaces across Canada. As you well know, we've participated in public debates about the direction of immigration policy and the temporary foreign worker program for many years.

The emerging emphasis on temporary and migrant labour is bad labour market policy. That is the reason we have made presentations, but it's also bad immigration policy. The temporary foreign worker program, however, itself, has moved from the sidelines to the fast lane of labour market programs. It's no longer a phenomenon restricted to just western Canada; the program has crept into British Columbia, Ontario, and beyond.

We find the low-skill program showing up for the first time in CAW workplaces from hotels to fish processing plants. We're preparing, in fact, as a union, to survey our workplaces on the prevalence of the programs. They stay up to two years to wash dishes in hotels, serve food in coffee shops, care for the elderly, or work in a warehouse. This is rapidly becoming a major part of the government's immigration policy, it appears.

The low-skill pilot project is creating for us complex and difficult new tensions in a number of these workplaces, sometimes pitting worker against worker. In the hotel sector, in which as much as one-quarter of our union membership is now made up of temporary foreign workers in some Alberta and B.C. locations, we've seen tension on both sides. Resident workers have no guarantee of shift hours during slow months, but the temporary foreign workers have full-time hours, as required by the temporary foreign worker contract with the government. On the other hand, temporary foreign workers can't use their collective agreement right to bid on job postings because they're locked into a job description on temporary foreign worker contracts.

At Presteve Foods in Windsor, a low-skill pilot is being used currently by a management team to undermine harmonious collective bargaining relations that have been there for almost 20 years. It is being blatantly used for union busting. Although it's a federal program, we've found, sadly, that the federal government is unable to step in and correct the situation, and it can't cancel the contract. We have letters from the director of the foreign worker program attesting to that.

The situation has now escalated. We are in a lockout situation at Presteve Foods and in a formal labour dispute with the employer. We don't know how many temporary foreign workers are in the workplace. They're displacing union jobs at $12.80 an hour with temporary foreign worker jobs at $8.75 an hour. The regular labour market opinion route was followed, but no one investigates an employer's claims. In this case, Presteve fraudulently claimed there was no union on the application and that $8.75 was the prevalent wage in the workplace, so there is very little oversight for the regular route.

When a fraudulent application becomes clear, as it has in Presteve, HRSDC is powerless to act. Instead we're left as a union to hold demonstrations, to go to the media, and to go to arbitration. The employer ignores the decision recognizing the rights of foreign workers under the collective agreement. Higher rates of pay, seniority rights, etc., and the repayment of lost wages have all been ignored by this employer, in spite of the decision.

Due diligence investigations at the front end of the permit process would have demonstrated, among other things, the employer's failure to properly advertise in Windsor, a community that is suffering from one of the highest unemployment rates in this country.

There's a mixed message on the applicability of collective agreements to temporary foreign workers in the workplace that hopefully this committee will look at, and it appears that the federal government office responsible for this program in these kinds of situations is powerless to do anything about it. We have potentially dangerous pilot projects, and with only three to five days for processing, we risk losing any ability to assess the bone fides of employers' attempts to hire or train the existing workplace.

What we're saying is that rather than a labour shortage, in fact what we may have is a cheap labour shortage, and it's very troubling for the immigration policies.

Our goal is to find a balance between protecting and representing foreign guest workers and moving to a fairer immigration system. We're calling for a moratorium on the expansion of the deeply flawed temporary foreign worker program; broad consultations on long-term labour market planning with labour market partners; appropriate responses to genuine labour market shortages, including a sustainable training program; and a fairer immigration system, including a reformed immigration point system and more opportunities for family reunification and refugee applications.

On undocumented workers, the CAW supports the current campaign for status for undocumented workers and supports new immigration policies that provide meaningful opportunities and rights for working-class immigrants. Immigration bureaucrats will often say that if undocumented workers are granted status, the government will be condoning queue-jumpers, but the present immigration point system values elite skills and university degrees, and workers essential to our economy are not allowed to come as legal immigrants.

We'll continue to work alongside our community partners in demanding fair immigration policies that provide workers with security and real opportunities.

We're prepared to answer any other questions as well on the other issues before the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Phillips.

Ms. Sadoway, please go ahead.

[Geraldine Sadoway, Parkdale Community Legal Services]

Thank you for inviting us.

Parkdale Community Legal Services has been involved in immigration issues for over 35 years in the city of Toronto, working with law students who come through our program. We work with immigrants, who are the most vulnerable members of the community. We have been involved in the process of the new Immigration Act as part of a major coalition of organizations involved in the new Immigration Act, and we're therefore going to be speaking today briefly about our concern about the amendments that have been proposed and attached to the budget bill.

However, at this point we want to address the issues that the committee is studying in its trip across Canada.

On the issue of Iraqi refugees, I would just briefly like to say that there's a terrible crisis with Iraqi refugees. We trust that the numbers our government decides to take to ease this crisis will not just replace other refugees who are already looking for a place to settle in Canada. We don't want to just see the same percentage level of refugees. If we are going to respond to the Iraqi refugee crisis, then we should be seeing the percentage of government-sponsored refugees increase.

Turning to the issue of undocumented workers, at Parkdale Community Legal Services we see many undocumented workers who are here in Canada. We see them as children who are not going to school; we see them as women who have been waiting for sponsorship or who are in situations of abuse and have left their sponsor; we see them as failed refugees who do not have an appeal, even though an appeal is part of the Immigration Act that was passed.

We know that the government has not yet implemented the Refugee Appeal Division. We work on many of the cases of those same refused refugees, some of whom have a very sincere and significant fear about what will happen to them if they return. We have a decision on life-and-death issues being made by one board member at a hearing, and if it doesn't go with you, then the judicial review procedure is not enough to correct the problem if mistakes happen in the system.

We have that situation of undocumented workers, and what do we have in place for it right now? We have something called the humanitarian and compassionate application. It costs $550 to apply for regularization of status on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. That's why Parkdale Community Legal System appeared before this committee in 2005 and talked about the fees. You may have seen some of the postcards; more than 15,000 of these have already been signed and delivered to Parliament asking for a reduction or the possibility of waiver of the $550 fee whenever there is a situation in which the person cannot pay it. Those are the most vulnerable situations; those are the cases I've been mentioning to you, of children, of women who have not been sponsored, of refused refugees sometimes suffering from severe trauma.

The $550 fee is something that's been in place. This current government reduced the right of landing fee, which was $975, to $490. But the processing fee just to start your application, which applies even to a child refugee who is a principal applicant, continues to be $550. We see the situation of the Children's Aid Society having to provide money to pay this fee. The fee continues to be a huge problem.

It's something everyone shakes their head about, but the bureaucrats continue to collect this money, and there is no possibility of getting rid of it. You cannot bring your application if you don't pay that fee, so the fee is a big problem.

The lack of a refugee appeal system is a big problem.

What we are going to address as well is what happens to the undocumented workers who are in this situation of not being able to apply--and we have a solution.

Some of my colleagues on the panel today have indicated that there have been past programs. One that I know about, because I was starting out in my law career at that time, was the anonymous application to adjust status through a third party. This is a way that you can check out the person. The person can come forward through a third party, give the facts of their case, get an approval, and then be processed for landing. If everything checks out, they become a permanent resident. This would be one of the ways to deal with the undocumented workers who are in our midst, who are part of our economy and are contributing to our economy, and who have a good reason to be here.

My colleague is Abigail Martinez. She is going to be speaking on the situation of temporary foreign workers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We generally only allow seven minutes per group, but we'll allow a few minutes for Abigail as well. It is generally only seven minutes per group, so I might have to interrupt you partway through, because some of our members need some time as well.

[Abigail Martinez, Osgoode Hall Law School, Parkdale Community Legal Services]

I'll just go through some of our concerns and mainly deal with participants in the live-in caregiver program. We've been doing public legal education seminars with participants in this program and want to bring to light some concerns that have been raised.

First, caregivers have unenforceable employment rights and are particularly vulnerable to abuse in the workplace. For example, many of them are forced to work overtime without pay or are forced to work without pay at all. Since enforcing their rights could potentially mean getting fired and being unable to complete the two-year employment requirement for permanent residence, caregivers are almost always willing to tolerate abuse from the employer. In light of their vulnerable position, we would recommend that the live-in requirement for caregivers be abolished.

Second, some employers are unwilling to provide documentation to prove that the caregiver has worked for them for two years.

Third, many caregivers are unable to complete the two-year requirement due to circumstances beyond their control--for example, severe illness or injuries--and some caregivers are also forced to accompany their employers outside the country. None of these periods will count toward their two-year requirement. Also, many caregivers are simply unable to complete the two-year requirement, due to prolonged periods of unemployment.

Many caregivers often learn that their family members are inadmissible to Canada for reasons that were not known at the time of accepting their employment contracts. This may be due to criminality or illness of a family member; for example, a caregiver may have a dependent child who has become ill during her absence and is now considered medically inadmissible to Canada for excessive-demand reasons.

Also, many caregivers find themselves inadmissible due to misrepresentation. Women are often told that they are more likely to be accepted into the program if they are single, so they state that they are single even though they have a family, but this then prevents them from including their spouses and dependent children in their landing application.

Last, many caregivers are placed with their employers through agencies that charge exorbitant fees, so in order to prevent exploitation of caregivers, we would recommend that there should be greater regulation of these fees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Martinez.

We'll go to our panel for six minutes each.

Go ahead, Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much.

I've been on this committee for about ten years. We have issued many good reports which, for the most part, have been ignored by government. One of the simple conclusions I've come to over the years is the bureaucracy really has run the system, is running the system, has messed up the system, and now wants total control in terms of how they continue to mess up the system, lacking both transparency and accountability.

We have a vote coming up on Bill C-50, and it's a budget vote. If we defeat that budget, then we're into an election and we're not going to be talking about Bill C-50.

Right now the situation is that Bill C-50 will be talked about in the budget committee, but we have motions from everybody now to make sure that the citizenship and immigration committee talks about it. I think what we have to do is take the time in those discussions to make sure that Canadians across the country appreciate what's contained in Bill C-50, what the challenges are, and what the draconian proposed solutions will be.

What I'm putting out to you is this: would you want us to defeat Bill C-50 before we talk about the immigration stuff, the amendments, or should we talk about and study the implications on the immigration act? That's the question I'm putting out to you. I think we have to engage Canadians coast to coast to coast. They really have to wake up to what the implications of the amendments to the immigration act really are.

Can I start with you, Ms. Sadoway?

[Geraldine Sadoway]

Yes, I'd be happy to speak on that.

One of the provisions in Bill C-50 is that humanitarian applications made from outside Canada may not be dealt with.

I have with me today pictures--cards, actually--sent by a little girl to her father. Her father is an excluded family member because her mother did not include him when she was being selected as a refugee to Canada. I'd just like the members of the committee to look at these pictures. Can you pass those over?

The only way that this girl can be reunited with her father in Canada--this little girl, a seven-year-old from a refugee camp in Kenya and a refugee from Ethiopia--is if on humanitarian grounds her father is allowed to come by a visa officer after applying from outside Canada. There's no appeal. We would've liked the old system, through which there was an appeal when there was an excluded family member due to misrepresentation, and the whole story could come out.

This is just one example of the terrible tragedy that happens when a family is broken up. Yes, the mother made a mistake, and she did it. We have explained why she did this. She did this believing totally that she was doing the right thing to get herself and her child to Canada.

I'm just saying that I think the immigration changes in Bill C-50, which allow for this kind of exclusion and will potentially mean that the minister doesn't even have to answer the humanitarian application--

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

My question was whether you think we should debate the impacts on the immigration act before we vote against the bill.

[Geraldine Sadoway]

Yes, absolutely.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Dhaliwal, would you comment?

[Raj Dhaliwal, Director, Human Rights Department, Canadian Auto Workers Union]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

It should be debated--not only debated; it should be defeated. I can show you that many people in public are strongly opposed to this, although there are others who are trying to create confusion.

This is going back many years. I'm going to pick only one example. I'm one of those who immigrated to this country under the point system. There used to be a point system in the 1960s and early 1970s. Ten points, on suitability, were left in the hands of the immigration officer, and were put into practice in any way that person felt like looking at it. That was creating a lot of litigation.

What happened later on due to those problems was that legislation was clear on the point system. Although I'm not in support of the point system, at least we'd be following the proper procedures. Then, based on that....

I just want to say finally that the current system under the new Bill C-50 is basically giving more control to the bureaucrats, and that means immigration officers under the name of the minister will be discarding applications of many. Some of them may be the ones who may not be the right people in the minds of the immigration officers, and of course the minister too.