Evidence of meeting #28 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employers.
2:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Construction Recruitment External Workers Services (CREWS) and Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD)
Yes, because currently the humanitarian and compassionate stream would be one option, but it's not usually successful for them. There does need to be something to address that issue.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Is it a symptom of the fact that maybe we haven't had a stream that adequately addresses the economic needs that are out there?
2:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Construction Recruitment External Workers Services (CREWS) and Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD)
You could do that, but then you're still going to leave out a lot of people who may be working in industries, if we don't identify.... It depends on how you do it. If it's occupation by occupation, it might be difficult to do that. You need to encompass everyone if you're going to look at undocumented workers.
2:50 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
Certainly the point system could be modified to have some kind of reflection of those areas.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you.
To the parliamentary secretary, sometimes I have to go out of the room to talk to the media about something we're not talking about here, which is Bill C-50--and also to say good things about our chair compared with other chairs in Ottawa.
It seems to me we could be solving a number of problems with the shortage we're having right now. It doesn't make any sense at all, from a policy perspective, to spend a lot of resources chasing after undocumented workers so we can now deport them out of the country. We'd be better off trying to regularize those workers, because really, they're the result, to a large extent... There has been a huge growth since the new Immigration Act was put in place in 2002, when we said that people with trades and people who want to work hard need not apply because they cannot get in. So what we did was to drive up those numbers.
My community has a lot of university professors and what have you, so we have a pretty high level of education in my community. But when I go around the community, I dare say that 95% of the people who came here as immigrants would not be able to get into this country now if they wanted to get in on this point system. That includes people like the parents of Mike Lazaridis, Frank Stronach, Frank Hasenfratz, and the list goes on.
We really made a huge mistake. We'd be much better off to make up for the mistake that the bureaucrats talked the government of the day into because ministers, unfortunately, did not know what they were doing--then as now. We could use those numbers to correct it, because it was the shortage of workers that drove the people who are in the precarious class of being not documented or not being in status at the present time.
I agree; there isn't a restaurant I can go to in Waterloo region where people aren't complaining that they're really having trouble getting people. It's all a function of totally perverting the point system and totally changing the way that Canada used to do immigration.
Do you have any comments on this?
2:55 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
I would agree; quite fundamentally, I would agree. I think that using a temporary foreign worker program to solve a problem that was, in part, created by that, and in part created by demographic change and changes in industry and globalization and all these factors, is using a band-aid approach to something that I think is a much more long-term issue: the shortage that employers are facing. Employers need these workers now, and these migrants want to come now. Many of them are already here, undocumented. That is a bit of an irony to try to work with.
I think that using the temporary program as the only means to get migrants and workers into the NOC C and D categories is going to lead to greater numbers of undocumented, greater numbers of people who are trying to stay, who are separated from families for long periods of time, greater costs--
2:55 p.m.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
And it seems to me that the government wants to solve the problem by going to the same bureaucracy, which is not transparent and not accountable, and giving them more power to be less transparent and less accountable. It's an oxymoron, and I think we have to expose this as being an oxymoron.
I hope you really pay attention--I'm sure you already have, but we can't talk about it, we have to go outside the room--when this bill is being debated.
2:55 p.m.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, As an Individual
Certainly with respect to the money that was just given to the foreign worker program to help deal with some of these issues, they now have a monitoring section. They have a lot of areas that are developed within their program. It used to be one or two people, and now they foresee an expansion, I think.
They spent a lot of money to set up Service Canada, to be able to help employers get workers, but they've spent no money helping workers and spending energy to try to find a way to regularize the many capable workers and migrants, and their families.
2:55 p.m.
Executive Vice-President, Government Affairs, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
I agree that we have an opportunity to include Canadian work experience in the criteria for immigrating to Canada. As I said in my presentation, we already have that kind of classification, and a new classification. We just need it to apply to all categories of workers and not just the very high-skilled categories of workers.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you for coming today and presenting. You had some very interesting views, and I'm sure they'll be very helpful as we compile our report and recommendations to the government. Believe me, your views will be taken into consideration.
Again, thank you. We appreciate that.
3:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
I want to welcome you here once again to the immigration committee hearings.
Debbie Douglas and Roberto Jovel of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, good to have you here. Sima Zerehi, the communications coordinator from the Status Now! Campaign in Defense of Undocumented Immigrants, is here, and we also have Marie Chen, the staff lawyer for the African Canadian Legal Clinic.
Thank you for being here.
If you have any opening statements you might want to place on the record, please feel free to begin.
3:05 p.m.
Debbie Douglas Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Absolutely.
I know we were here yesterday, but on a different issue. We wanted to thank you for hearing us on the temporary workers program.
We believe, as OCASI, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, that this is a real change in the direction of Canada's immigration policy, away from nation-building towards treating immigrants as economic units. You'll hear quite a bit of that from us.
I won't be presenting. I just wanted to introduce my colleague, Roberto Jovel, who will be presenting, and to give you a heads-up that he will be presenting in English and French.
3:05 p.m.
Roberto Jovel Coordinator, Policy and Research, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
I want to thank the committee for inviting us.
As Debbie mentioned, we're going to talk about temporary work permits. I'm going to do one part in French and the other in English later.
I'd like to raise three points: first, our concerns about these programs; second, our proposals for change; and, third, a final comment on how to view the connections between the various Canadian policy areas and immigration, the labour market and human rights.
I have two main concerns. First, there are all the human rights abuses and violations to which temporary workers are subjected, particularly in the seasonal agricultural industry. As they have already been very well documented by workers' organizations, such as the Travailleurs et travailleuses unis de l'alimentation et du commerce, I won't repeat them. And yet the program and commitments of the Canadian and local governments and host countries of the workers and employers, as well as the agreements and formal declarations, tend in the direction of rights protection and labour rights legislation.
I would like to question the common idea expressed in the media and certain circles of political thought that temporary work permits are an adequate solution to meet current labour market needs. These permits do make it possible to obtain workers very quickly for economic areas where there are obvious labour shortages. However, are the workers who come here on a temporary basis, without their rights being respected, without being able to settle in a stable setting and have a life that can be considered normal, without being able to make a proper contribution to the objectives of private businesses? We don't think so. We think this unstable and undeveloped living situation does not enable workers to perform at an optimum level, even in the businesses that have hired them.
Lastly, the main concern, as Ms. Douglas said, is that the program marks a departure in terms of immigration policy in Canada: we are switching from the notion of immigrants as co-builders of a country to the notion of workers born outside the country, as though they were economic units that could be easily disposed of.
In conclusion, we are creating a highly vulnerable subclass of workers instead of bringing in new members of healthy local communities to create a healthy labour market in a country that is building itself in a healthy manner.
Given the current policy of increased recourse to temporary work permits, what we would like to propose is threefold. On the one hand, we would like to propose that access to services and to real enjoyment of rights in all Canadian and international legislation be given to temporary workers.
We are seeing the fact that they are being brought here quickly, that there's an increased use of the program. There's no way to deny that reality. We do think the Government of Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada should provide eligibility for these workers to receive services like anyone else. Again, even for the purposes of satisfying the labour market needs, we are able to enable them to live under better conditions while they are here.
That said, of course, as our second proposal, we are suggesting that they be given the opportunity to apply for permanent residence status early on--that is, as early as they apply for their temporary work permit. This is in line, again, with the objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, in terms of having new members of Canadian society being able to contribute to building Canadian society.
We would propose equally to extend already existing measures that are currently granted to specific categories, like live-in caregivers, for instance, or skilled immigrants, to all categories of temporary workers. We would give the example of the Canadian experience class, which is now limited to international students and certain categories of temporary workers. We want that generalized, as well, to people without status who do already have a Canadian experience. If they become employees in a regular manner, they wouldn't have so much of a steep curve to learn and to be able to integrate businesses.
To end with, we would like to raise the concern about the linkages that are being made between several Canadian pieces of policy. We are seeing that labour market policy in Canada is informing immigration, so the link between the two areas of policy is there, but we are concerned that this might amount to a devolution to businesses of this responsibility, the responsibility of building the country through immigration.
Now, the other way around, we are not sure that this is happening, whether immigration policy is informing labour market policy. Again, the use of immigration to build a country is not being taken into account when we try to give solutions to labour market issues.
Finally, as the piece that we are most concerned about, if the current government or any government in Canada is able to make those linkages between labour market and immigration policy, what is the role of Canada's human rights policy to make sure the all these linkages are done in an adequate way?
Thank you very much.
3:10 p.m.
Sima Zerehi Coordinator, Communications, Status Now! Campaign in Defense of Undocumented Immigrants
Thank you.
Our deputation is going to address predominantly the issue of undocumented workers, but we're going to make a few references to temporary foreign workers as well.
I'm here on behalf of Status Now! Campaign in Defense of Undocumented Immigrants. Our campaign includes various national, regional, and local immigrant refugee organizations, trade unions, and agencies.
We strongly believe an immediate moratorium on deportation of all non-status people living in Canada must be implemented. Until then, we ask that a full, inclusive, and acceptable regularization program be put into place.
I would like to begin by making a couple of references to the motion for a moratorium on deportations for undocumented workers under family, which was discussed in June 2007. The success of the motion spoke to the growing support for a national regularization program in Canada. In fact, the motion itself was a response to significant demonstrations and public protests demanding an end to the unjust deportations that an increasing number of Canadians see as cruel and unnecessary.
We're encouraged that such a motion has recently been debated and supported by members of our Parliament. Regularization programs have been a significant part of Canada's history. In fact, the first regularization or amnesty program was introduced by MP Douglas Jung about 50 years ago.
Many such programs have followed, including the administrative review program and many others. I won't waste your time reading through those.
While the previous motion put forward by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for a moratorium on deportation was a tremendous step forward, we believe that in the future a more comprehensive strategy needs to be set forth. We're speaking in particular to the wording around non-status workers and their families.
While we support the spirit of the motion, in order for the moratorium to adequately address the multiple barriers faced by the individuals without status, we ask that this category be expanded to include all members of non-status communities, not only those who are working. In this way we can ensure that individuals are not lost in the translation of such terms as “family”.
When examining the definition of “family”, we want to guarantee that definitions used take into account the various formations of families, which could include multiple types of extended families and same-sex couples.
We're making a lot of references to the previous motion because we're optimistic that you will include such recommendations.
In addition, limiting regularization to those who are working is problematic, as individuals without status or with precarious immigration status face many barriers while attempting to hold stable and continuous employment. Establishing proof of such employment is difficult, as many employers are unwilling to provide proof of employment to individuals without work permits.
Oftentimes workers without status are forced to accept precarious terms of employment and precarious jobs with no guarantee that their position will be available the next working day, week, or month. These workers have no recourse if they are not paid or if employment standards are violated.
Workers without immigration documentation are often forced to move from one job to the next, with inevitable lags between employment. These realities must be addressed in any future initiative.
The reality is that while regularization programs are designed and implemented, the hundreds and thousands of people without status will continue to live in deplorable conditions with little to no access to basic services. Individuals initially arrive in Canada able and willing to participate fully in Canadian society; however, many newcomers fall out of immigration status or enter various forms of less-than-full status.
Unfortunately, precarious immigration status also means a lack of access to medical care, the legal system, education, employment, and housing. Currently we have a two-tiered system in which individuals without status struggle to access the basic resources needed to ensure full membership in Canadian society.
This has serious negative consequences on their mental and physical health and on family stability. This also reinforces the emerging two-tiered society, a model of society that most Canadians would consider unjust and undesirable.
As we wait for a positive decision on a moratorium on deportation and an inclusive regularization program, we need to ensure that these vulnerable populations are extended access to the most essential services and are offered the same employment standards and recourse to justice that other Canadians rely on.
We also believe universal access to health care is essential amongst these services for the overall health of all of our communities. This is a public health issue. We live in communities where our schools, hospitals, workplaces, public transit systems, and community centres are all interconnected. It is crucial that all members living in these communities and participating in these systems have good health through access to public primary health care.
Although illness is a normal life event that can be addressed through access to health care and social benefits, individuals without status are greatly penalized if they become sick. Non-status individuals are uninsured and cannot access comprehensive medical care. They are forced to pay for medicine, doctors' visits, and hospital stays; however, they are not eligible for disability or sick benefits.
The impact of illness results in a severe crisis, as individuals without status will simultaneously lose their employment, shelter, and health. In addition, illness presents a profound barrier to regularization because of the medical inadmissibility category. The medical inadmissibility category unfairly targets individuals with disabilities and fails to acknowledge that society is composed of individuals with varying abilities.
Canadian immigration policies that exclude individuals with disabilities from obtaining permanent resident status actively contribute to systematic discrimination and contradict the Human Rights Act.
Living without status is marked by instability and uncertainty. Individuals and families without status or with mixed status live with the fear that the lives they have worked so hard to build can be ruptured and dissolved at any time through deportation. Working and surviving without social benefits is an additional stressor. Anxiety, worry, and mental exhaustion accompany the non-status experience. This is a population that is at risk for depression. This clearly has a negative impact on an individual's mental health as well as the health of the overall community. A regularization program could play a critical role in responding to the significant mental health problem.
Access to education is another barrier faced by non-status families in communities. Although the right to education is guaranteed under Canadian immigration laws as well as under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Canada is a signatory, many barriers continue to deny non-status children unrestricted access. Parents without status attempting to enrol their children in Canadian schools continue to be confronted with staff who are not familiar with the rights of all children to education. As a result, Canadian-born children of parents without status may also encounter barriers to education. School boards across the country still disseminate registration information and registration forms that demand information regarding children's immigration status and immigration documents.
To compound the situation, in the past few years we have witnessed multiple cases where CBSA enforcement agents have used schools as a place to arrest families without status. In one case, children were used as bait to entrap their mother.
When it comes to access to post-secondary education, there are no options for non-status students. Students who have been raised in Canada and have received the bulk of their primary and secondary schooling in Canadian schools have the right to continue to college and university. As such, students without status are treated as a second-class population and relegated to the same precarious areas of employment as their parents.
Access to emergency services for the non-status community is also a public safety issue. We see this clearly in domestic violence situations in which women are afraid to call the police because of the lack of immigration status. We have seen unfortunate cases of undocumented women reporting incidents of rape, only to end up in detention and facing deportation without ever having their day in court. Similarly, witnesses of crimes continue to be afraid to report to the police services across the country, as their immigration status or that of their family members may be revealed.
No one should be afraid to call the police for immigration reasons. There needs to be a strict division of duties between police services and immigration enforcement. The police need to serve and protect our communities and not act as attachés of the CBSA, enforcing immigration policies.
We have had some progress with the Toronto Police Services Board in adopting an “access without fear” policy that provides limited protection for victims and witnesses of a crime. A great deal more work has to be done across the country to ensure safe communities.
Any regularization program implemented must not include any requirements regarding criminal records or backgrounds.
The use of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as a clumsy tool for punishment of crime makes for a situation of double jeopardy for non-status people and immigrants, a system where they are doubly punished for the same crime, which stands against the very principles of our criminal justice system. It also creates a two-tiered criminal justice system, one where citizens are punished once and all others twice.
As we work towards implementing a regularization program that meets the multiple needs of non-status people, families, and communities working and living in Canada, it is important to work closely with affected communities, agencies, as well as academics to ensure that the implementation of this program is relevant and effective.
Academic research and advocacy has identified barriers to accessing services without fear. It has also outlined some of the negative effects of living without status on individuals, on public health, on mental health, and on the well-being of women, families, and children.
Finally, the solution to the crisis of undocumented workers cannot be an expansion of temporary work programs, the increase of temporary work permits, and work visas. Canadian immigration cannot become a glorified temporary work agency where immigrants are treated as cheap and exploitable commodities.
In the past month we have seen the government pushing through changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in the House of Commons, via the Budget Implementation Act. Despite the government's insistent denials, these drastic changes will give vast powers for the minister to decide which categories of immigrant applications will be processed, ignored, or discarded. It will also limit several kinds of applicants, based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds that sponsors can use to bring their relatives into Canada.
If the current amendments are implemented, the minister will have the power to refuse to examine agency applications filed for refugees and immigrants outside of Canada. The government has oftentimes pointed to the agency application as the recourse for the gaps in our immigration laws. With these amendments in place, this recourse will no longer be available.
We close by noting that in order for regularization to be effective, it must be inclusive in terms of who qualifies and also with regard to cost. While we are not opposed to cost recovery, we also know that high fees could pose a barrier, particularly to families in general, single parent families, and youth. Mounting a regularization program is an investment that must be planned in order to maximize its reach so that as many qualified applicants apply as possible.
Thank you. And I'm sorry for the length of my presentation, but many organizations are part of our campaign.
3:25 p.m.
Conservative
3:25 p.m.
Marie Chen Staff Lawyer, African Canadian Legal Clinic
I have an oral statement only, as I didn't find out about the standing committee until last week.
In the short time I have, I am planning to speak to two issues--temporary foreign workers, specifically the seasonal agricultural workers program, and also immigration consultants. I'm not sure how these issues have been bifurcated, but I can't be split in two, and I'm here today, so I'll talk about both things.
I will be speaking from the experience of my work as a staff lawyer at the African Canadian Legal Clinic. We are a specialized Legal Aid Ontario clinic. We have a test case mandate to address issues of systemic racism impacting on the African Canadian community in Ontario. We litigate and advocate on behalf of African Canadians to protect their human rights. In our advocacy work we receive calls from African Canadians on a daily basis regarding immigration-related issues. I'll be speaking from that experience.
I'll start with the immigration consultants issue. At the African Canadian Legal Clinic, we've seen our fair share of clients who have been taken advantage of or exploited by immigration consultants to whom they have gone for help. We've seen people who have paid huge sums of money, but the work was not done or it was done badly. We've seen people whose chances of being accepted were dashed by the incompetence of the consultants they hired. We've seen people's chances of a future ruined. We've seen people who have been given false hopes when they really do not have a viable case, yet they have forked out huge amounts of money.
These stories are commonplace in many immigrant communities. It's not an issue that these incidents happen; the issue is what the Canadian government should be doing about it. What is truly needed is a system of accountability that works. The fact is that the current self-regulating system by the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants does not work. It is weak, has numerous loopholes, and in fact there is no accountability. Immigration consultants act with impunity.
In terms of our proposal as to what can be done, with respect to the provinces where the law societies are currently regulating paralegals, we propose that the federal government work with their provincial counterparts to ensure that these law societies also regulate immigration consultants. Immigration consultants do work that's akin to paralegals. There is absolutely no reason why the law societies that already regulate paralegals should not be regulating immigration consultants.
The problem is that not all law societies regulate paralegals. In Ontario we have paralegal regulations, but it's not consistent across Canada. Alternatively, our proposal is that the federal government look into setting up a licensing scheme with respect to immigration consultants, whereby standards of competence are set and there are regulation mechanisms.
As part of that regulatory mechanism, there needs to be an arm's-length complaints system through which victims of exploitation can seek recourse and can file complaints without fear. That's why we're proposing an arm's-length system, because many people have no status, and if you have a government agency, they're not going to come forward. There will be no hope of people coming forward from the get-go. It has to be an arm's-length system.
Also, to make sure that complainants do come forward and they're not excluded by fear, you should allow for third party complaints. Organizations, councils, or people who have come in contact with victims can file those complaints.
With respect to the temporary foreign workers, the seasonal agricultural workers program, I am going to be talking specifically about it. I will touch on some of the problems that are faced by the workers. I would also speak to some proposals to address those problems that the federal government can implement.
I would also like to draw attention to the racialized aspect of this program. The history of the program is rooted in the Caribbean. It was started in 1966 with workers from Jamaica. Since that time, it has drawn workers mostly from the Caribbean.
Currently all workers in the program are racialized. They're from the south. We have workers from Mexico and the Caribbean mainly. Approximately 40% of the 20,000 workers are now from the Caribbean, from countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. About 80% of these workers work in Ontario.
Because of their status, migrant farm workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation and mistreatment. Their vulnerable situation also allows for abuses to go unchecked. As racialized people, they experience racism not just from the employers but also from the communities, the people in the communities they work in. These workers are mostly placed in rural, predominantly white communities.
We've also heard of workers complaining about the poor working conditions they have to work in. Caribbean workers, for example, have compared their working conditions to modern-day slavery. They experience extreme social isolation. A lot of these workers come here for extended periods of time, up to eight months. A lot of them come up year after year. They are separated from their communities and their families for extended periods of time. This is extreme social dislocation. There's no opportunity to be reunited with their families while they're in Canada.
They also can be sent back very easily, repatriated. If they stand up for their rights, they can be repatriated. They live under this constant threat. They have no choice but to remain silent and endure unfavourable work conditions and treatment, if they are victims of that.
What can we do about this? What can the federal government do about this?
Let me be clear right from the get-go. These migrant farm workers provide much-needed labour. They are a benefit to Canada. They fill a labour gap and contribute to Canada's economy. They do the long hours and the long days, the hard back-breaking work that Canadian workers do not want to do.
On average, migrant workers work 6.7 days per week, 9.5 hours per day. There's no question that Canada has benefited and profited from this program. Indeed, it's part of our history that Canada has benefited from migrant labour, from the Chinese railway workers who built the railways to the manual farm workers who cleared and settled the west.
But with benefit comes responsibility to protect the human rights of the workers we bring in and we profit from, to provide the rights and protections that are due to them under Canadian law.
The federal government should work with its provincial counterparts to ensure that these rights are protected. For a start, it should work to provide accountability for employers who mistreat workers and it should create avenues of redress and recourse for workers who have been mistreated. In this respect, we support the UFCW's call for the creation of an appeals process for repatriation cases.
The federal government can provide funding and support for advocacy services to these workers—for example, advocacy services and help for workers who are being repatriated or who have worker's compensation claims or appeals.
The federal government can also work to improve the living and working conditions of these migrants by helping to set minimum standards of living conditions and setting up regular inspection and monitoring mechanisms.
The federal government can allow these workers to apply for permanent residence status, by setting up a special program such as the one for domestic workers, whereby workers can apply for permanent residence after having worked in Canada for a certain period of time and shown an ability to successfully live and work in Canada permanently. Currently workers experience indefinite temporary work. Year after year, they're here temporarily with no chance of success of applying for permanent residence.
Canada should also sign on to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers, the migration workers convention in short, which contains protections and rights to prevent workers from being exploited. Currently Canada is not a signatory.
We have heard that the reason for Canada not signing is that we have a superior immigration system, where people can come in and apply for permanent residence and citizenship. This does not apply to migrant farm workers, who live here on a temporary basis. They're completely temporary, and the avenue of applying for permanent residence doesn't apply to them.
I would like to close by saying that it would be remiss of me not to mention Bill C-50, because it does fundamentally affect everything we're talking about today. I know that the committee has set down the work in these categories, but it really does affect what we're talking about fundamentally.
I agree with the concerns that others have raised about the changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the sweeping powers that will be given to the minister, and the cutting out of humanitarian and compassionate applications. I won't speak to the substance of those concerns, but I would like to speak to the process.
These changes are sweeping and fundamental. In a democracy like ours, we should be debating this, truly, just as we are doing here. It needs to be worked through the legislative process, and not through the back door by a budget bill. So we would ask that a full and open public debate, with a full consultation process, be held to discuss this issue.
Also, I would like to comment that this hearkens back to the good old days where, you know, who decides whom is good for Canada or which immigrants are desirable? The history of Canada is replete with examples of groups—to which many of us here belong—that were considered undesirable. The change from an objective system, which the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act has with respect to checks and balances between subjectivity and objectivity, to an arbitrary system is going to affect fundamentally the way that immigration is dealt with in Canada, and it deserves full and public consultation.
Thank you.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Thank you.
Just on the temporary foreign workers, we've been travelling now for about a week and a half, and we did hear—I think it was in Alberta and Vancouver—about human rights violations, the living conditions of temporary foreign workers, safety on the job, and about different wage rates being promised and not delivered.
Right here in Ontario, of course, they use an awful lot of temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector, don't they, such as tobacco growing, fruit, and wine? Have you found widespread abuse of or complaints from temporary foreign workers? I guess what I'm wondering is how widespread, in your opinion, would it be? I guess it wouldn't be all that widespread here in Ontario, would it?
3:40 p.m.
Staff Lawyer, African Canadian Legal Clinic
In terms of our experience at the clinic, ACLC, we work with other groups who are on the ground. We are not on the ground in Ontario--we're a very small office--but we keep in touch with the issues that arise within these very isolated communities.
You see, the thing is, it really does depend on the employer, or whom your employer is. That is not good enough, because all you need is a bad employer and the whole migrant community working for that particular employer will suffer. And they suffer in silence, because the sanction is that they could be sent back at the drop of a hat.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Yes.
I can't speak for all committee members, but I don't think I've heard of any abuse of temporary foreign workers here in Ontario. It's—
April 9th, 2008 / 3:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
Let me give you an example of how we're defining abuse.
We have a large agricultural migrant population in Leamington. One concern that OCASI has had, and one clarification that we've sought from the provincial government, is that everyone who works in Ontario should have access to our labour laws. The answer is yes, absolutely. But if you're an agricultural worker in Leamington and the labour ministry is based in Toronto, how do you get here? One thing that we know is happening--unfortunately, only anecdotally--is that people are on their bicycles trying to get from town to town, just to begin to get out of their social isolation. We have deaths of migrant workers that nobody is documenting.
So to your question about abuse, yes, there is abuse here in Ontario, because we do have isolated farming communities here in Ontario.