Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 8th, 2008

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Is it for that reason that you hope the bill will not pass on Wednesday at 5:30 or 6?

[Victor Wong]

Yes. We recommend that the government withdraw the amendments to Bill C-50, instead issue a proper discussion paper, and then organize community hearings before drafting legislation. This has been the process when we made changes to immigration law in the past. You don't stick it into a budget implementation bill and then pass it.

I would urge all parliamentarians to bring that back to their caucuses and hope that the government will withdraw those amendments.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

In connection with the temporary foreign workers program, one of the problems with the point system is that it does not really give many points to people who don't have a degree and cannot speak fluent English. As a result, many of the employers have to go through the temporary foreign worker route.

It wasn't always like that, by the way. In the early 1990s and all through the 1980s there were A, B, C, and D categories, and people were coming in all categories. Now it's mostly stacked on the A and B categories, the people with degrees.

Until we actually fix the point system so that we can have all skill sets and not just those with degrees, whether it's construction workers or farm workers we need to be working here, we will forever have temporary foreign workers coming in and then having to leave, and some deciding not to leave and filing for refugee status and clogging up the entire system. It's not going to work very well.

I know we're not really talking about a point system, but it's hard not to talk about a point system. Do any of you have any recommendations on that front?

[Philip Mooney]

If I may, Mr. Chair, we've recommended that clearly the weaknesses in IRPA are exactly that. They've gone to something called the human capital model. The human capital model says that the better educated the people are who we bring in, the more likely they are to adjust to Canadian life.

That was a philosophy of the nineties. I know what a decadal philosophy is; I was a child of the sixties. Well, this was a philosophy of the nineties, and it unfortunately didn't take into account the fact that the world is made up of all kinds of people, and when you hit the demographic problem, it applies to all skills and not just high skills.

What we've proposed to both Immigration and the CEC, where we've had extensive consultations, is that they simply take work experience in lieu of either education or language, meaning that if someone comes to Canada with fluent English and a good job, they're a permanent resident right away. If someone comes with no English and a reasonable job, maybe it's three years, maybe it's five years, but they're given points for every year they legally stay in Canada, work in Canada, and contribute to Canada.

The way the current system is.... I have client chefs from southern India who start working at age eight. By age 30 they are the best south Indian cuisine chefs in the world. We bring them into Canada. They've never spoken a word of English. They create jobs for five Canadians for every chef, but it is impossible for those individuals to ever become Canadian permanent residents unless they're lucky enough to find a Canadian girl to marry.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

That's another story.

[Philip Mooney]

The point system does not address what we'll call--I shudder at the words “human capital”, because that says people with low skills aren't human.

What we need is a “capital” model. Frankly, with regard to Bill C-50, we've had extensive consultations on the CEC. We had no consultations on Bill C-50, and I'm talking about the CBA, our association, and AQAADI in Quebec. Last week we asked the senior diplomats in CIC why there was no consultation; the answer was, because there wasn't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Wong, I'm going to allow you to have a brief comment, and then I'm going for seven minutes to Mr. Komarnicki.

[Victor Wong]

Canada was built by lower-skilled workers. My grandfather immigrated in 1912. He was a lower-skilled worker. He chose Canada. It took him 50 years to unite our family here due to the Chinese exclusion act.

I would ask members of Parliament to go back through their family trees. You're going to find that lower-skilled worker in your own family tree. They also chose Canada, most of them. Are they not deserving? I think they're deserving. You're deserving.

The Canadian experience class should be open to all temporary foreign workers, including those with lower-level skills.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Wong.

Mr. Komarnicki.

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

Just to set the record straight, the vote is not going to be on Bill C-50 itself; it's with respect to the amendment to the bill. Obviously, the bill itself will go to committee, and there will be much discussion and much debate in the House. There have been a number of debates in the House, on Thursday and Friday of last week.

It's on the amendment to the bill, so it has a long way to go. It will go to committee as well, or to two committees, so there will be an opportunity to hear from people.

The other thing is to understand what this portion of the bill does. It will give the minister the ability to give instructions with respect to the issues you talk about. Of course, those instructions will have to based on the broad principles the government has for policy and so on.

During the phase of determining what those instructions might be, there will be consultation with the provinces, consultation with the stakeholders—with various groups—before an instruction is issued. The instruction will not deal with individual cases; it will deal with general policy considerations that people will have input to.

What we're saying is, the way the system is right now is not working, and it can't continue on the path it has been on; there need to be some changes. It needs to be responsive, as many have said here, to the market forces, and what we have now lacks that responsiveness.

Certainly on the temporary worker side and of course the farm worker side, there needs to be a group that advocates on behalf of them. I know your group has done so. We need to look at that as an issue.

Of course, anyone who comes in properly or legally, as Mr. Mooney has said, brings a family with them, a wife or children. They need to have some ability to join the workforce. If you have a job and a family, you're likely to succeed and integrate into society. That's an area we need to look at very constructively, because if you bring somebody in, you want to have the family involved as well. So that's an area that needs looking at.

I think all of you have suggested that we need some path to permanent residency with what we have going in terms of the temporary foreign worker program. I think Mr. Wong mentioned there were 120,000 last year, and you're saying the Canadian experience class is maybe looking at that, but it needs to be broadened or changed.

[Philip Mooney]

Absolutely not.

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

Okay, but the fact is there needs to be some sort of legitimate path for that to happen. If you're taking in, let's say, 265,000 newcomers per year and you are taking another 120,000 in the temporary foreign worker group, if you want to call it that, and you have foreign students coming in to universities and we've given them the ability to work off-campus, and after they've been here a while they have the opportunity to make application for permanent residence, you now have not 260,000 but you are looking at a group, potentially, of 370,000 or 380,000 or 400,000 people for permanent residence.

I guess my question is, in addition to whatever we set for targets—and it could be 265,000, and you could argue that it should be higher or lower—if you're having the volume of other temporary workers coming in and you want to find a legitimate path, do you want to see them eventually become permanent residents in some sort of fashion that would add to that number?

Mr. Mooney, you can start, if you like. I guess you're on.

[Philip Mooney]

What I would say is that we're here to discuss undocumented workers. One of the causes of people staying in Canada is that the life here is so much better than that where they came from, wherever they came from and for whatever reasons. So you have to expect there's a demand to be able to stay in Canada.

If we don't provide them a legitimate way to meet that demand, they'll take an illegitimate way. It's fairly simple; I think we all agree with that. And they'll go to some extraordinary means to do it, especially if they have families here. I'll do anything for my family, and frankly, if it means breaking a few rules, as far as getting them to the hospital faster is concerned, I'll speed. If it means you're going to live and go to a hospital and have one that you might even get into, as opposed to starving to death, I'll be here.

We can't really state that a rule will keep men out, so we need a path to permanent residency to stop the undocumented part. What does an undocumented worker mean? It means that the worker and the employer are no longer good citizens of Canada. They're avoiding paying tax; they're avoiding all kinds of things. It starts winding up. So we really need to address the undocumented worker part.

I appreciate your comment on Bill C-50. If I could make a quick reply, it's to say that we have one problem with Bill C-50, and I believe it's because we're good Canadians.

We don't understand why anything has to be retroactive; why someone who applies, puts in an application, believes they've qualified, and at some point two years down the road—three years, four years down the road.... At least they know, if they're waiting a long time, that their application will be processed.

What the bill does, absolutely, is give the minister the right to say no, we're not going to process your application; I'm going to hold it for another year and then I'm going to return it to you, and thanks very much.

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

But in fairness, the fact of the matter is that all those prior to February 2008 will be processed, one—

[Philip Mooney]

Absolutely, because the government lost a similar decision four years ago.

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

So you have them processed, and what you're doing now is saying, “We're going to realign the system so it's more responsive, it takes less time to come in, and those who do come in, come in faster and are able to integrate into our society.”

You can disagree with the direction or not, but what it's attempting to do is that if you're going to have a fixed number, whatever that is, and if you're going to bring temporary foreign workers into that fold and that number is whatever it is....

I think last year we landed 429,000-plus people, the highest in a 100-year period of time, and if we're going to use the same process to bring them into permanent residence, that's a significant number. You should at least have the ability to—

[Philip Mooney]

I appreciate that. There are just other options that are not involved in taking away something you already get.

There are other options. There really are.

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

Right, but what we do know is that the status quo is not on.

[Philip Mooney]

No, absolutely. Problems are always there to be solved, not endured, and that's your job.

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

Exactly.

[Philip Mooney]

But there are different ways to solve those problems, and in this case, because there was no consultation except—

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

There will be.

[Philip Mooney]

We've been talking to the same ministry officials who proposed these things, for five years. Alli has been doing this for 30 years, talking to the same ministry officials, and this time, I think there's been an accident.

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

But at this point, we do have something that's very concrete that you can work on and discuss. We do have $22 million a year that has been allocated to improving the system, including $37 million going forward. These are constructive steps that are saying the status quo is not on, what's happening isn't sufficient, and we need to address it.

If you want to make input, there will be time for that when consultation begins with the provinces and with the stakeholders such as yourself.

Within the guidelines of what we're trying to do, we're saying we want to have input from you, but that's not what this is about. This is about giving the ability for change to happen, and it needs to happen fairly soon, because the budget will stand or it will fall, and that's in it, and the other parties have to decide whether they support it or not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. I'm going to give Mr. Raper a chance. He's had his hand up for a while.

Go ahead, sir.