Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 9th, 2008

[Marie Chen]

It's a chicken-and-egg thing, because people suffer in silence. We know, from the ones who have spoken out and from working with our advocacy partners, that there are abuses, but the fear is there than when abuses get reported, there are serious repercussions.

So we don't know the full extent of it. We know it's there, but it is a chicken-and-egg thing.

[Sima Zerehi]

Yes.

I think the fact that they're not unionized here also has a tremendous impact on the level of reporting of abuses. In places where temporary foreign workers are unionized and have access to unions, they also have access to bodies that can document and then echo their voices.

We have some legislation coming in May around the unionization of temporary farm workers here in Ontario. I think we're going to see a dramatic change once those workers have access to unions and the ability to voice some of their concerns through those bodies.

[Roberto Jovel]

There has been documentation done by the United Food and Commercial Workers both here in Ontario and in Quebec. I think it's not surprising that....

We were just in Halifax last week for the Metropolis Conference on immigration. We heard of human rights violations and job abuses within the hotel industry, for instance. Workers come up under a contract that says they're going to be working full time, but then they work only for three out of five workdays a week, and even for a few hours some of those days, not even full days. Or they have included in their contract a line that says they have to go to this certain apartment, and this will be their landlord, and this will be how much they're going to pay. It's difficult for them to get out of a very expensive apartment that was assigned to them before they even got here.

I think this goes on across the country. It's a matter of just getting to talk to the organizations that are doing work in the field, working directly with the workers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You had a lot to say about immigration consultants. We've heard a great deal already about immigration consultants. You mentioned that an arm's-length complaints system should be set up, that the federal government should set up a licensing system as well, and that there should be laws and statutes governing immigration consultants.

We've taken note of that. You're not the first to mention it, as a matter of fact. We'll certainly be making some good recommendations on that.

Do you have any questions, Mr. Telegdi?

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

I do, but I want to give Monsieur Carrier the first go at it.

I've been dying to do that.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you. Thank you for being here, even though this is the last sitting of the day. You're providing us with a fairly complete snapshot of the issue.

Mr. Jovel and Ms. Douglas, I understand from your remarks that you don't necessarily recommend the temporary worker solution; that's not one of your priorities. You can correct me later if that's not the case.

Ms. Zerehi recommends a moratorium on the expulsion of undocumented workers, those whose situation is no longer in order. You also want us to establish a program to regularize the status of those workers.

Those are logical recommendations, but I don't know at what point the present government can make those decisions. I share your opinion. In any case, in the past week and a half, we've come to realize the problem of temporary workers and undocumented workers.

There is still a temporary worker settlement program. What do you think of that? The first time I saw the minister in committee, she boasted that she had increased the number of temporary workers. In her view, that was a success. I think she still views it that way. In view of the problem of temporary workers that must be solved, how should we react to the influx of new temporary workers?

[Debbie Douglas]

We're not against temporary workers, we're against Canada's immigration policy shifting towards “privileging” temporary workers as opposed to permanent residents, family reunification, and protection. That's the cornerstone. That's what our immigration policy really should be about, what we want.

I think we're all in agreement here that we have temporary workers and they need access to services, so we need to look at changing our eligibility criteria. Who is eligible for services, for settlement and integration services? Who should we be paying attention to as a civil society and as a sector that's funded federally and provincially--and in Ontario, municipally--in terms of ensuring that immigration is a privilege? All these things are connected.

One of the ironies for us is that we are not willing as a country to look at regularizing status, but we're looking at increasingly bringing in temporary workers. Do we really think that once these people are here they're going to leave and go back? And Canada doesn't have an exit policy. We don't know who leaves the country.

So at the same time the minister is claiming that this process is about reducing a backlog, it's in fact increasing the backlog.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Would anyone like to speak to that?

[Roberto Jovel]

Yes, I'd like to supplement Debbie's answer. Subsection 3(1) of the Canada Immigration and Refugee Protection Act states the essential elements of the wisdom of Canada's immigration policy, which are being circumvented through the increased use of temporary workers.

Paragraphs 3(1)(b) and (c) state that their purpose is to advance two combined objectives: to enrich the social and cultural fabric of Canadian society and to develop Canada's economic prosperity. We're focusing on one and forgetting the other.

Paragraph 3(1)(e) refers to the mutual obligations of new immigrants and Canadian society. We have shared and mutual responsibilities when we seek to successfully integrate immigrants to Canada. By using temporary workers, we shirk the responsibility of local society to integrate immigrants. In a few years, we will be relying completely on immigration to build the country's future. We think we are completely wrong to continue in that direction.

[Sima Zerehi]

Perhaps I could just add one quick point to that.

I definitely agree with the statements made by both Debbie and Roberto, but I think also that the issue raised by a number of trade unions across the country, including the Canadian Labour Congress, was about whether the crisis of worker shortage is a real crisis or whether we are not looking closely at how these particular positions are underpaid and therefore become undesirable. So is it really that we're lacking workers, or are we creating jobs that are so undesirable that no one in Canada wants to take them on?

The other quick point around temporary workers is the point that was brought up at the Metropolis Conference, with the example of their Brandon, Manitoba, Maple Leaf Foods factory, which was that if industries know that they are going to need these workers for a long time, then why are we bringing people in as temporary foreign workers? Why don't we move from the very beginning, from step one, and give them permanent residency? The success stories seem to be coming into Canada for two years as temporary foreign workers...and then regularizing people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi.

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

Thank you very much.

I'm really glad to see all you folks here.

Sima, I remember we were battling under the Sossa family. I think it's an opportunity to let my colleagues know and let the record show that the Sossa family came from Costa Rica. Their children were doing exceptionally well in school. Immigration officials went into the school and held the children hostage to try to lure in their parents so they could pick them up and deport them. It was just reprehensible. I took that back to the House at the time; I raised it in the House. Anyway, the minister said that no more of this will be happening.

I point this out because here we have again a bureaucracy in action that tends not to be accountable and really points to the need of having good political accountability, transparency, and oversight. We spent a lot of money and effort in getting the Sossa family out. Their kids were doing great. They were established in the community. The father was a foreman on a construction site in this city and the wife was working very hard at another job, I think. It was cleaning or something like that that other people didn't want to do.

It seems to me that here we have the perfect candidate to come to Canada. So what do we do? We ended up sending him out of the country and then we ended up bringing him back. So a lot of money, time, and effort was wasted going through this exercise. There are undocumented workers like this all over the place. It would have been so much simpler to go through a regularization process. As mentioned before, we have people living in the shadows. Do a regularization, which the previous government was on the verge of doing but they got defeated. Then you know what happened: the bureaucrat said, oh, here's our opportunity to put this off again, because we're against it; essentially, these people are the result of the mistakes we made by changing the point system on the Immigration Act in 2002.

I mention it to committee members because it's a perfect example of how we could have saved a lot of money. We could have saved a lot of effort. We could have saved a lot of heartache. We could have dealt with some more of the backlog but instead we chose to expend our moneys in this way.

Ms. Chen, I agree with you in terms of what you're talking about in Bill C-50, because what we end up doing is giving more control to the bureaucracy, taking away even oversight from the courts as well as from the politicians, from this committee, from the minister, which makes the whole thing very dangerous. So when you say that, yes, we racialize our migrant farm workers, it's certainly the same thing we did with the Chinese. We brought them in, they built the railway, and we got rid of them under the Chinese exclusion act and put on the Chinese head tax.

You guys are doing a remarkable job on probably not a very popular topic. How do you keep going? I really want to know. I commend you for what you're doing, but how do you keep yourselves going, as advocates?

[Debbie Douglas]

We show up and have conversations like this--and hope that you are really listening, that these will be brought forward as recommendations, and that our governing parties are listening.

[Sima Zerehi]

We also, every day, see people like Kimberly and Gerald Lizano-Sossa, 14- and 15-year-old kids, stand up and fight and try to explain why they want to be Canadians, why they want to go to school here, why they want to work here, why they want to live here. If people in those kinds of conditions have the courage to stand up and speak out, then certainly we have an obligation to try to do our best to represent them.

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

Tonight the House is having a vote on Bill C-50. Obviously we're not going to be there. I want Bill C-50 to pass tonight, because if it were defeated tonight, there would be no debate on Bill C-50. I think it's important to get that bill debated as much as possible.

We're going to have the debate both in this committee and the budget committee and in the House of Commons. If that bill were to be defeated tonight, there would be no debate. I just want you to be aware of it.

I myself, if I were in Ottawa, would have supported the passage of this bill, because I think we need to get it into committee so that we can expose the shortcomings and have people come in and talk about the implications of this bill.

When Bill C-50 goes through third reading, I will vote against it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We have five minutes left, and we really have to cut it off at 4 o'clock sharp because we have a train to catch to Montreal. So if you could be very brief, Ms. Grewal, I would appreciate it, and I'm sure the clerk would too.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I always have short questions.

I would like to thank all of you.

What are your recommendations for improvement, or your suggestions on the current temporary worker program? Could each of you just answer?

[Debbie Douglas]

There are a number of issues here in terms of the temporary workers program.

We know that we have a number of undocumented people here in Canada. Let's look at a regularization system.

Let me take a step back. I think we all agree that we need to revisit IRPA, right? There are huge issues from the changes made in 2002. So in terms of the temporary workers program, we need to look at regularization.

Bringing in people to work in Canada on a temporary basis is morally wrong. If Canada is going to grow economically and as nation builders with immigrants, we should bring people in permanently.

We need to deal with the backlog by ensuring that there are more resources in the places that immigrants are coming from. We know that we've had a change in demographics over the last 10 years. It makes no sense that Europe is over-resourced, and not Asia and Africa. Canada has identified French immigrants, for example, and they're hanging out in Belgium. So those are the kinds of things we need to look at in terms of where our resources are going.

The $50 million that's in this budget to bring in temporary workers should be spent in our visa posts abroad, in Asia and Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm sorry, but we're right at four o'clock.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Chair, could you just give them one or two more minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'll allow one more comment.

Roberto, do you have a comment? And then I'm going to cut it off.

[Roberto Jovel]

I'm totally in support of what Debbie just said. Maybe I would just add that, in the meantime, while the temporary workers are coming here, until the big policy picture is arranged and properly addressed, we need the services to be provided, we need to make them eligible, and we need to make sure that their human rights, under all the Canadian legislation, are properly protected.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Sima.

[Sima Zerehi]

Access to unions: I would just add that to Roberto's comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Ms. Chen.