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.