Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 10th, 2008

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

They have? Well, we'll see when the vote comes.

I'm just looking at what you think this committee can do. How long do you think the study...to make sure that all of the recommendations on temporary foreign workers and the moratorium on deportation will actually become a reality?

It's a long question, sorry; and it's a bit loaded.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

Are there any comments, questions or answers?

Mr. Henaway.

[Mostafa Henaway]

To answer some of those questions, one, there was a motion on the table, and why it wasn't supported.... Maybe people would call me too radical or whatever, but I think it's common sense. I don't get what there is to actually study in Bill C-50. It's bad. There's nothing qualitative that you have to weigh. It's bad.

So if people are saying it's bad, then it should be scrapped immediately. I think there is popular opinion, and I think the most shameful elements of Canadian history back why Bill C-50 should be scrapped. The worst moments in Canadian history back why Bill C-50 should be scrapped immediately.

If people want to move forward on the issue of the temporary foreign worker programs and regularization--I think they're tied--that has to be brought immediately into Parliament. There are so many people whose lives have virtually been put on hold because of it. I think there is no time to waste. To actually put an immediate moratorium on deportations, as a first step to a full regularization program, is completely possible, reasonable, and doable.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

I'm going to interrupt you because I want Ms. Osmani to take a few seconds to answer you.

[Farida Osmani]

I wouldn't want us to get involved in partisan debates. The government has signed international human rights conventions. All these programs contravene conventions that Canada has previously ratified. Like our colleagues this morning, we also ask that Canada sign the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights and Welfare of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.

Here's one of our biggest questions: how is it that Canada, for which human rights are so important and which presents such a good image to the world, has not yet ratified that convention?

Ms. Chow, you said that the workers also had families. However, the workers are used as cheap labour. In the case of the temporary workers program, they are completely isolated from their families.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

For members who weren't here this morning or in the past few days, the chairman decided that we would not discuss Bill C-50 since it was not part of the mandate for our consultations.

I allowed the Liberal and New Democratic members to talk about it because I let Mr. Harvey talk about it this morning. Out of a concern for fairness, I had to allow everyone to talk about it. I urge you not to restart the debate because, if it starts on one side, I'll have to allow everyone to speak.

Mr. Harvey, you have six minutes.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Good afternoon, ladies and sir. Thank you for being here today.

Perhaps we're trying to pass Conservatives off as racists, but we don't speak for no purpose; we act.

Among my employees are a Japanese, a Paraguayan, a Bulgarian, a Cameroonese and, more recently, a Senegalese. In addition, my wife is an immigrant. We are here to help you, to understand the problem and to move matters forward.

The delay in processing immigration applications is considerable. The number of persons waiting to be admitted to the country has risen from 50,000 to 800,000. We need to know how many immigrants a population of 30 million inhabitants can receive in one year. I'm not talking about balance, but we also have to allow people to arrive, to integrate, to find a job and to settle. Housing, for example, is one of the important factors that must be taken into account.

Ms. Osmani, does the problem that live-in caregivers face when they arrive have something to do with the lack of information about their rights?

[Farida Osmani]

Structurally speaking, the program is discriminatory to the extent that it restricts their rights and freedoms. Under the Quebec and Canadian charters, everyone must respect their rights, such as the right to dignity. For example, a live-in caregiver may live at the home of an employer who does not close doors. She may live in a basement where there are no doors or she may sleep with a child. She therefore has no right to privacy. That is an injury to dignity, whereas we do not accept that for other Canadian or Quebec workers.

In terms of fundamental rights, we can also consider the example of the right to religious freedom. Some employers require their employees to work on Sundays, when they must go to church, for example. It is their right to practise their religion. So I'm talking first about fundamental rights. There are also all the other rights.

Based on what you said, you are concerned to see how the program is to absorb the newcomers. I would remind you that there are 200,000 undocumented persons in Canada. To date, Canada has not conducted any massive regularization campaign as there are in Europe and the United States. We also favour approaches that could take into account individuals who are already here and who are contributing to the economy.

Live-in caregivers are not only domestic workers. Their duties range from housekeeping to care for elderly persons who have been forgotten by their own families. They take care of persons with disabilities and even do children's homework. I note that the level required for live-in caregivers in Quebec is 12 years of education. They are also perfectly bilingual, because they have to know both languages. In Quebec, they must take courses in French in order to integrate in society. They must take those courses after their Saturday program, that is during their resting hours. You see the constraints that are placed on them.

It's a matter of semantics, but I remind you that, when you talk about Japanese Canadians or others, they are also Canadian citizens. We could recall the origins of those persons, but, to prove racism, or the absence of racism, perhaps we shouldn't talk about origins, but rather about access to rights. You can very well be a second-generation Canadian, born here, and suffer the existing problems of discrimination. For example, here in the black communities and among the visible minorities, the situation of an eighth generation of descendants of slaves is not always recognized. Moreover, there are no programs to correct the types of discrimination these people face.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

You talked about fear of reprisals. What are those reprisals? Are they afraid of being sent back to their country if they complain? I'm putting the question to Lisa. You talked about reprisals. What kind of reprisals are they afraid of?

[Lisa Montgomery]

As to what types of reprisals people are having, well, they lose their jobs. They're facing racism in the workplace. They're having all kinds of problems with CSST or workmen's compensation. We have cases of women who have injured themselves in the domestic workers program who can't claim CSST, because to whom are they going to complain?

There's real difficulty for these people in accessing the system. It is our belief that if it continues...and with Bill C-50 there's going to be an absolute exacerbation of these problems.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

Unfortunately, it's the turn of Mr. Telegdi, who has three minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I would revise your numbers on undocumented foreign workers. I think there are probably closer to 500,000 than 250,000.

This is for Mr. Harvey, so he understands.

The problem with the temporary foreign workers, the nannies, and certainly with the undocumented workers is that they totally have no power and they can be abused because they have no power. They can be removed from the country at any particular time.

Unfortunately, we've been dealing with this thing now for.... I've been on this committee for 10 years. Actually, my party, at that time, tried to get me off it, but I wouldn't be moved. But the stories are so much the same. Fundamentally, we have to have immigration policy that lands people, and if they're not landed, it's because their choice is not to be landed.

You take somebody who is good in high-tech, or his or her skills are in real demand. That person has mobility. That person has his or her own power. But to all of a sudden have people who are disposable, it reminds me of what was done way back when the Chinese were brought in to build the railway. We cannot go down this road. I think that is what is so dangerous with this new policy, that we're depending more and more on temporary foreign workers.

Unless you cut me off because I happen to be a Liberal...check the record; I've been fighting for this kind of stuff for a long time, notwithstanding what the powers that be in the party might have to say.

That is the biggest issue we have, and it's so shortsighted. You've all heard of Frank Stronach, of Magna. He would not get into the country today under today's point system. Neither would Frank Hasenfratz, who is the chair of Linamar; and neither would Mike Lazaridis, who invented this BlackBerry.

We have to give our heads a shake and ask, do we want a kind of society where we have people in without their families, with all the stresses that causes, or do we want to build a country that is going to need people at the low end of the job scale as well, just as we need them at the high end? That's the biggest problem I have, when we use people, labour from other countries, and we look upon them as discardable goods. That builds a bad kind of society. There are enough examples when you look around the world of what it does, and that's the kind of society you have.

I just throw that out for a comment.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

Unfortunately, there is no time left to answer.

Mr. Carrier, you have three minutes.

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

Thank you.

I very much appreciated your speech, Ms. Osmani, after that of my colleague Mr. Harvey. We're talking here about people who are exploited by our country. There are approximately 500,000 undocumented workers, as Mr. Telegdi mentioned, and we are taking in an increasing number of temporary workers who have no rights. That's what you emphasized, and you mentioned that that's what we must really attack if we are a responsible government. That's what the clause at the end of Bill C-50 refers to. That's really what is critical. I'm going to work so that we can achieve a result.

Going back to the question of live-in caregivers. In other provinces, we were told more about that. Someone pointed out the problem, for families living in a province that does not have an adequate child care system, in having to depend on this kind of worker to provide partial child care.

From a statistical point of view, or based on what you know, is there less demand for live-in caregivers in Quebec, since there is a good child care system there?

[Samia Ouar]

No, not at all. Quebec innovated again by creating $5 daycare centres, which is quite interesting and advantageous for families that cannot have access to live-in caregivers. We should not forget the shift to ambulatory care and the social economy market, which is rapidly expanding. The shift to ambulatory care is resulting in the de-institutionalization of sick and elderly patients, who wind up in homes. These individuals have to be taken care of, and the government is turning to the program for live-in caregivers, who earn a much lower wage than qualified workers from Quebec. It is false to say that demand is declining. On the contrary, it is increasing with the years.

[Farida Osmani]

To give you an order of magnitude, temporary immigrant workers earn minimum wage. Our association conducted a study, and they should be paid between $13 and $17 an hour for the duties they perform. We see that they are totally exploited. Even when it is stated in the contract that they must do a particular type of work, that is virtually not complied with because there is always additional work. Sometimes workers simply play on the live-in caregiver's feeling of belonging to the family in order to ask her to do a little more.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

All right. Thank you very much.

We have one week left in our trip. Before moving on to the last address, I'd like to recognize the work of those persons who help us, as I do every week. I see Diane leaving the room. She works on logistics and won't be back next week. I want to recognize her work as well as that of Bryce and Mona, two of our interpreters who won't be back, if my list is correct. A committee is more than a dozen MPs. It's also a lot of people who work on logistics, translation and a number of other things. We need their work. I wanted to recognize it publicly.

So the last three minutes belong to Mr. Harvey.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Ms. Osmani, Ms. Ouar, we are taking note of your seven recommendations for live-in caregivers. They are all the more important since, as we know, the population is aging virtually across Canada. There's also the work that you do with students. You very often babysit children. That's very important, and we are taking note of the seven recommendations that you've made here today.

We're not promising you that we'll solve the problems, but I do promise that I won't be like Ms. Folco. In 10 years, I won't be telling you that we'd think we were still at the same point. I hope we'll be able to do justice to your work.

As for my other friends, I hope we'll be able to make them understand more clearly what Bill C-50 is. Ensuring that someone who works here no longer needs to leave the country to file an immigration application, reducing the cost of an immigration application by half, making the matter easier through all kinds of ways, these are major challenges. There are nearly 500,000 undocumented workers in Canada. These people have nothing, no references; they do not exist, but they are here. As you'll understand, we have to do some housekeeping. I'm obviously not talking about sending them back to their countries, but about regularizing the situation. That's an important challenge, and it's with you that we have to work. You are our partners in this matter. We've come to see you here today because we are aware of the problem. We have to work together to advance this. I take note of that and I want you to be aware of that.

Mr. Henaway, you made some comments. I understand them, but I would like to be able to sit down with you and to explain to you properly what is going on, what our aim is. If my Liberal colleagues and those from the other parties don't agree, they can vote against this bill and defeat it, since our government is a minority government. Everything we're telling you is thus conditional on the bill's passage. I would appreciate that the truth be told everywhere, and that's the situation.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

We have time to hear one brief comment.

Mr. Henaway.

[Mostafa Henaway]

I just want to respond quickly.

There's been a lot of discussion about the complexities of regularizing people. Somehow it seems to be very complicated, yet under the low-skilled pilot project and the temporary foreign worker program, it takes a week to bring somebody here. In five days, with an LMO in a federal job bank, you can bring someone here. But then somehow the issue becomes that it's too complicated to regularize them, or to actually deal with the backlog. Somehow, under the low-skilled pilot project it takes five days, yet we have a 600,000-person backlog.

The other question around that, the other point, is the issue of security checks and family reunification. Somehow, after you're accepted there is no time limit for the background check. So you have families.... I want to speak about the Sri Lankan community. The average is supposed to be eight to twelve months to deal with somewhere around 50% to 60% of the applicants. With the majority of people we see it takes three years and onwards to actually deal with the issue of family reunification and sponsorship.

The role that the security apparatus plays in terms of CSIS being involved in these supposed background checks gives them this unlimited time. It think it's a huge part of this backlog, and that's something that hopefully will be addressed through this committee as well. There are ways to deal with this.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Thierry St-Cyr]

The committee takes note of your comments. Unfortunately, we have gone well beyond the allotted time.

Thank you very much for taking the time to come and meet with us. This will definitely help us considerably in our discussions and in our report. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.