Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 14th, 2008

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

Since you're a research expert, you've no doubt studied other countries that have a more unitarian government than our two-tier system of governance. In countries where there is a single responsibility, which are responsible both for issuing permits and for labour standards, are solutions easier to achieve and appropriate?

[Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier]

The answer is more or less no. The United States and Europe, where there are millions of unskilled migrant workers, focus on Africa, Eastern Europe and Mexico. It's a completely different dynamic: that of undocumented workers. There are 13 million undocumented workers in the United States and six to seven million in Europe. Those governments are facing other types... Ultimately, they operate through regularization. Canada's case is quite unique.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you very much for your presentation today. Thank you for coming. You've given us a lot of very interesting information. I'm sure it will be quite valuable when we do our recommendations.

We'll take a two-minute break to allow our next panel to come to the table. So grab a coffee, if you wish, or a juice or a cookie.

We'll be back in two minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please.

We're creeping up now to five minutes past two o'clock, so in the interests of staying on schedule, I want to welcome our next panel: Mr. Marc-André Dowd, vice-president, Quebec Human Rights Commission and Youth Rights Commission, and Carole Fiset, human rights educator, education and cooperation; and Yvon Boudreau, representative and consultant, Quebec Chamber of Commerce.

Welcome to all of you.

I don't know if you're aware of how our committee works, but you generally have about seven minutes to make your opening statements, and then we will go to members, who will make comments or ask questions.

Whoever you wish to go first may begin.

Mr. Dowd.

[Marc-André Dowd, Vice-President, Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the basic act passed by the National Assembly in 1975 which our commission is responsible for implementing, recognizes and guarantees the same rights to all persons residing in Quebec, regardless of gender, colour, ethnic or national origin or the length of time they're on Quebec soil.

In recent years, in response to requests for investigations, consultation and legal education activities, the commission was led to take a look at the situation of two groups of temporary foreign workers: the workers from the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and those who came to Quebec under the Live-in Caregiver Program.

With respect to the seasonal agricultural workers, Quebec has had a shortage of unskilled agricultural labour for many years now. We took in 4,237 agricultural workers in 2006 and more than 5,300 in the 2007 season. The demand is constantly growing. The shortage of unskilled labour in Quebec's agricultural sector therefore does not appear to be declining.

As Class D unskilled temporary migrant workers, seasonal agricultural workers stay in Quebec for a maximum of eight months a year. They have very little or no knowledge of either of Canada's official languages. Their knowledge of our society, and of the recourse and services it offers is limited. They work in the regions, far from the major centres. They are dependent on their employer or their consulate in exercising recourse. Despite all the efforts made to inform and support these workers, they constitute a vulnerable group with regard to the exercise of rights, particularly those protected by the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. That is why we offer the following thoughts and proposals.

Point one: Exercising the right of association. I'm referring to clause 3 of the Charter. When evaluating the offer of employment, one of the criteria examined by Quebec's Department of Immigration and cultural communities and Service Canada is to ensure that, and I quite: “The use of a foreign worker is not likely to undermine the settlement of a labour dispute”.

Under section 3 of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, every person enjoys freedom of association. We've recently seen unionization requests highly contested by employers, mainly from groups of workers from Mexico. The commission wants to make the committee aware that employers are trying to use labour from countries other than Mexico in order to circumvent to unionization movement mainly associated with those seasonal agricultural workers. This kind of procedure, seemingly under a neutral rule, could have the effect of introducing discriminatory exclusion based on ethnic or national origin of those workers and undermine the equality rights protected by the Quebec charter. Tolerance of this kind of attitude on the part of Quebec and Canadian employers would also contravene the provisions of the international instruments, including the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Point two: Constitute an independent arbitration body. When a disagreement arises between a seasonal agricultural worker and his employer, the outcome of the dispute may result in the quick repatriation of the temporary migrant worker to his country of origin. Despite the major efforts made by the consulates and Human Resources and Social Development Canada to guarantee the rights of workers and employers in the event of a dispute, this situation establishes an employer-employee power relationship that is generally not seen among other Quebec workers. To ensure equal protection for the rights of seasonal agricultural workers, the commission proposes that an independent appeal structure be put in place with arbitration powers and empowered to rule on disputes between seasonal agricultural workers and their employers.

Point three: Introduce a worker representation mechanism. Under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, annual meetings are held to determine the working conditions that will prevail in the following year, such as wages, etc. They involve the various decision-makers such as Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Human Resources and Social Development Canada, employer representatives and representatives of the labour exporting countries.

To ensure equal protection of the rights of seasonal agricultural workers, the commission suggests that a worker consultation mechanism be introduced and that workers be granted a right of representation at those annual meetings.

The federal program involves provisions that may be extended in the contract of employment between the Quebec employer and the seasonal agricultural worker. That contract of employment is under Quebec's jurisdiction. Certain clauses cited in the contract are of concern for the commission from the standpoint of respect for and the exercise of rights and freedoms. I am referring, of course, to the residence obligation.

The contract states the worker's obligation to work and live in the place of work or in any other place determined by the employer and approved by the government's representative. That obligation, in the context of the Mexico and Caribbean agreement, also applies in the context of the agreement concerning workers from Guatemala.

Living on the employer's property puts workers in a situation in which, outside working hours, exercising their right to privacy under section 5 of the Quebec Charter could be subordinated to the owner-employer's right to limit access to his private property and lands. In those circumstances, the free movement of the workers or their visitors could be compromised. This limitation could constitute an obstacle to the exercise of their freedom of association and freedom of opinion, which are also protected by the Charter.

This freedom of association includes the freedom to join a union organization or any association working for everyone. The residence obligation does not apply to non-migrant Quebec workers. In that sense, it may undermine the exercise of temporary foreign workers' equality rights, which are protected under section 10 of the Quebec Charter, as a result of their ethnic or national origin.

In the case of Mexico and the Caribbean, the contract provides for the employer's obligation to provide workers with suitable accommodation free of charge. That provision results from the necessity for the employer to check the quality and safety of housing from time to time. Here too, the commission draws the committee's attention to the importance of respect for workers' privacy, but also to the inviolable nature of the residence as protected under sections 5 and 7 of the Quebec Charter. This employer-owner role thus places the farm business in an extremely delicate situation with regard to respect for the rights of housed workers.

Now I'll talk about the detainment of workers' identity papers. In February 2006, we acted on a request by the Coalition d'appui aux travailleurs et travailleuses agricoles to intervene with respect to the retaining of workers' identity papers by their employers.

To guarantee seasonal agricultural workers respect for their right to be helped and their right to privacy and to the free use of their property, the commission made a community reconciliation effort with all the players concerned by this problem. At the end of that consultation, the commission recommended that employers not detain workers' papers and that they take measures for workers to be able to safely retain their papers.

On this point, the commission recommends that this kind of provision be included in the binding contract between employer and employee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I will stop you there, because we've gone on for eight minutes. Maybe you will get a chance in question and answers to make some of your points.

Mr. Boudreau.

[Yvon Boudreau, Representative, Consultant, Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec]

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

As you know, the recourse available to immigrants in their capacity as temporary workers has developed to a certain degree in recent years in Quebec. In 2006, for example, 19,257 temporary work permits were granted to immigrants, and 5,229 extensions of stay for work purposes were granted to foreign nationals. Note that, in that year, Quebec took in 44,686 permanent immigrants. You have 45,000 permanent immigrants on the one hand, and approximately 25,000 persons receiving temporary permits on the other. I hope my figures will be corroborated by your expert. Those figures are obviously those for Quebec. I will only talk about Quebec today.

This situation obviously isn't unrelated to the improvement in the Quebec labour market. In a number of regions in the past two or three years, we've experienced a situation close to full employment, and we've begun to feel labour shortages at various qualification levels. I would emphasize this point: there are problems of recruitment and labour availability at various qualification levels, and not only among highly skilled workers. This phenomenon can only become amplified in the foreseeable future. Starting in 2011-2012, more people will leave the labour market, mainly to retire, then new workers will come into the labour force. And 2011-2012 is virtually the day after tomorrow. Using immigration is thus unavoidable, despite the productivity gains that we must achieve in other areas.

In recent years, the federal government has softened entry rules for temporary workers. In particular, it has increased the period for these foreign workers' stay from 12 to 24 months. The Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec hails this initiative. We all know that the temporary worker recruitment process is much simpler and quicker than the immigrant selection process, since the country's commitment to candidates, and vice-versa, is obviously not the same in both situations.

Thus far, most temporary workers welcomed in Quebec have been skilled workers coming to fill positions requiring certain skills that are hard to find in Quebec and Canada. There are two exceptions, of course: agricultural workers and domestic workers. When these sought-after skilled workers come on a temporary basis, they also enable certain businesses to respond to non-recurring intensive work periods for which it would be hard to hire permanent staff.

The unions have been very watchful of immigrant worker programs, fearing that the influx of large numbers of workers will lower wages and working conditions. In the present circumstances, we recognize from the outset that businesses must make the work attractive for people from here, particularly in terms of wages and working conditions. The fact nevertheless remains that some unskilled jobs find fewer and fewer takers among Quebeckers. There has recently been a lot of talk about seasonal agricultural workers, which clearly illustrates this situation because it has been around for a number of years.

Theoretically, at harvest time, there are enough students, unemployed workers, and welfare recipients able to work and other unoccupied individuals. So enough people are available to do the harvests, but that is not how it works in real life. This balance is entirely theoretical. In actual fact, if we didn't bring in nearly 5,000 Mexicans and other South Americans every spring and summer, the crops would rot in the fields. Last year, there were more than 5,000 of them. A distinction must therefore be drawn between the theoretical fit and the real possibility of recruiting workers, even in reasonable market conditions.

The question will soon arise about unskilled jobs that Quebeckers clearly do not want to occupy. Think of manual jobs in slaughterhouses, restaurants, hotels, warehouses and transportation. The response to these needs will inevitably come, at least in part, from immigration. We acknowledge from the outset that temporary workers are more vulnerable, due to the fact that their dismissal generally means immediate repatriation to their country of origin. As a society, and as members of the government, we therefore have a responsibility to put in place conditions in which the fundamental rights of these workers are respected and they are offered working conditions and a welcome that preserves their dignity and safety.

With that premise laid down, Quebec, like many other developed societies, can use the foreign method, on a temporary or permanent basis, to occupy jobs that are very hard to fill here at home for all kinds of reasons.

The businesses that we represent consider it highly important that they be able to resort to, call upon skilled and unskilled foreign workers in order to continue their development and wealth and job creation in Quebec.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Boudreau.

Madam Folco, you have seven minutes, please.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Boudreau.

My question is for all three guests. There is one thing that I can't understand. I've been working in immigration for a long time and, as Ms. Fiset reminded me, I've had an interest in the issue of temporary workers for a long time as well. I would like someone to explain to me clearly the difference between an Italian immigrant who arrived in Montreal in the 1950s, and who worked at the Port of Montreal or building roads and highways in the province, and a temporary worker who comes from Mexico or Guatemala and who works on Quebec farms for six or seven months.

In the first case, the Italians, Greeks and all the immigrants in that wave arrived and were able to reunite their families immediately. They settled in Quebec and are now on the third or fourth generations. In the second case, people have trouble even finding a telephone to call their families. I would like someone to explain to me the logic behind the difference between those two cases, if you can do that.

[Carole Fiset, Human Rights Educator, Education and Cooperation Department, Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission]

The logic is that there is an unskilled temporary workers program that is extremely restrictive with regard to the exercise of rights. We didn't have the opportunity to complete the presentation, but there is, in particular, the fundamental freedom of every individual to move—

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Pardon me for interrupting you, but time is very strictly allocated to us. The logic isn't basic logic, but rather an instrumentalization logic.

[Carole Fiset]

That's it. And one of status. These workers, as a result of their status, are restricted in the exercise of their rights and freedoms.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

The purpose of the question I was asking was to determine the difference between a person in the 1950s and another person in the 2000s.

Mr. Boudreau, you have something to add?

[Yvon Boudreau]

I'm not a historian or an immigration expert, but what I can say is that, in the past 15 years, Quebec has sought to grant highly educated immigrants a distinct priority. That's a longstanding policy.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

To French-speaking immigrants?

[Yvon Boudreau]

Who speak French or who are francophiles. That's among the major criteria. Quebec long resisted the temptation to use to temporary workers. We had a high unemployment rate and we thought that, by making the necessary efforts, we would manage to find unemployed workers to do the work. We had our own Mexicans, of course.

It's really in the past few years that we've realized that temporary workers could be a solution. I would say that's related, in particular, to the fact that, rightly or wrongly—and I'm not making any judgments here—the immigrant recruitment procedures are quite slow. Unlike the Ontarians, who for years brought in tens of thousands of workers, we resisted that trend. We proceeded very gradually.

Furthermore, in highly skilled sectors such as data processing, among other things, labour needs were felt, and it was quite easy to show that personnel could not be recruited quickly here. We began to consider the possibility of a better match with labour market needs.

We are now at another stage, but I don't think the situations can be compared. However, I wanted to express a wish—

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I'm asking you to convince me, Mr. Boudreau. For the moment, I think they compare.

[Yvon Boudreau]

I believe that there will be a need for various classes of labour in the labour market in the near future. I would say we'll need technical workers, not highly skilled, just highly qualified workers. The number of university graduates that Quebec has produced in recent years is too high relative to the number of workers trained in technical fields. In addition, immigration amplifies this phenomenon. We'll have to set aside the idea that immigrants with university training can adjust to the labour market more easily. That's a highly theoretical point of view.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

They adjust very well to the labour market for taxi drivers.

Ms. Fiset.

[Carole Fiset]

I'd like to add to Mr. Boudreau's remarks by saying that, when they arrived in Canada, the Italian and Greek immigrants from the 1950s were welcomed as immigrants. They had to fit into Quebec society, but, as the hearings of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on accommodation practices showed us, work was the best way to integrate individuals into their host society. Those individuals found work, could bring their families into Canada and so on. Their rights were fully recognized.

Migrant workers, for their part, don't have any status except that of temporary workers. Seasonal agricultural workers, in particular, don't have to learn either official language because they only have to perform unskilled work. Most of the time, the employers learn their language, Spanish in this case.

As regards Quebec's policies, I quite agree with Mr. Boudreau that we'll one day or another have to recognize the shortage of unskilled labour. Recently, announcements by our Quebec government stated that it would once again make it easier for members of the families of skilled or unskilled temporary workers to come. Although those announcements were really recently made, there's no talk about making it easier for the families of temporary migrant workers to come here or, consequently, to facilitate their integration into the host society.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

This is your last question--one little one.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I understand what you're saying, but perhaps I worded my question poorly. I meant that, in my view, the individuals who came from Europe and, among other things, built roads in Quebec and Canada during the 1950s and 1960s met a worker shortage. At the time, Canadians could have done that work, but, for all kinds of reasons, they didn't.

The present situation can't be identical, obviously, but certain aspects can be compared. That's what I was trying to bring out. On the one hand, there are immigrant workers, and, on the other, temporary workers, but that's a result. Perhaps I'm venturing too far, I don't know, but it seems to me that, on the whole, conditions are not that different with regard to the arrival of immigrants and that of temporary workers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Let's have a brief response.

[Carole Fiset]

You'll note that temporary immigration currently comes from “poor” or developing countries.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

[Inaudible - Editor]