Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 15th, 2008

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

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Madame Folco.

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

I hate to be very negative here, but in fact the immigration department has no responsibility in this matter, as they will tell you very easily. All they do is stamp the visa saying that an individual can come to Canada for a given time to work for this person.

So in fact the contract does not include the immigration department. The contract has three parties to it: the employer, who in this case is you, Mr. Stewart; the employee; and this entrepreneur, or middle man--that's the word I was looking for before--with whom you obviously didn't deal. You thought somebody else was going to be able to answer your needs without going through all that.

So there is no legal responsibility on the part of the department. We might want the department to have legal responsibility, but at this time they don't have it.

Obviously we have no answers for you, Mr. Stewart, as an individual. However, I think the importance of your being here this afternoon is to point out this aspect to us, to show us that in fact these people can disappear out in nature, as we say in French--and then nothing is done.

I would have thought, for example, the RCMP might have been interested in a number of Sri Lankan people coming to Canada and disappearing, given that--I think I read about this only this morning--the RCMP raided a place in Montreal that was raising money for the Tamil Tigers. We know that a lot of people are involved in this. I would have thought the RCMP would have been involved in that. You tell me that they had already gone through security; I don't know.

The important thing here is that you have identified a problem. This is something that we are going to look into, certainly. We're going to get the numbers, just as Mr. Telegdi suggested, and see whether or not there's anything we can recommend to the government by way of giving some protection to the employers. Recommending to government is what this committee is supposed to be doing.

We've looked in the past at giving protection to employees, because in many cases they do need protection, but you've brought up the opposite point of view, that employers also need protection. I think this is something we must look at.

[Stephen Stewart]

One last thing I'd like to point out is that I've met since with probably three or four different companies in the business of providing workers. Regardless of whether you use an individual, as I chose to, or you use a company, the workers can still take off and disappear. One thing the companies bring to the table is that they guarantee you--by whatever means, I don't know--that these people will not leave, and if they do leave, you will have somebody else to replace them immediately.

So the system still applies. There might be better protection to use a company that will guarantee, somehow, that they will not leave, but the same system is there. The same loopholes exist.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Andrew, do you have a question? Go ahead.

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

Just as my colleague said, yes, until you came forward, we weren't presented with the other side.

One thing I thought about as I listened to you--so this comes off the top of my head, certainly--is that it seems to me we could issue conditional visas. I mean, if somebody is allowed into the country to work, they're allowed into the country to work. Obviously if the person gets sick or they're taking a legitimate holiday, that's fine, but the main reason the visa was issued to the individual was to come in to work. The conditions of the visa could be amended to make sure they comply with the purpose of their visit.

So if they say they are coming to Canada to be a tourist, then the determination is made on that basis when they're issued a visa. The visa officials try to ensure that they have a way of supporting themselves while they are in Canada so that they don't end up on social assistance.

[Stephen Stewart]

In my area there are quite a few people from Mexico who are working on different farming operations. A lot of people have asked me, “Why wouldn't you bring people from Mexico? They're great workers.”

I tried to bring people from Mexico. I was informed that they were not approved to work in my industry, that it was a Mexican government law that they could work only in industries where they could gain knowledge and take it back and apply it at home. So I was not allowed to have Mexican workers.

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

There's aquaculture in Mexico. They have a lot of coastline.

[Stephen Stewart]

That's what I was told at the time.

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

I think it's one of the possibilities we could be looking at so we don't give an open-ended reason, as such. The last thing we want is to have the programs that are designed to bring in temporary workers abused, just as much as we're concerned that the rights of the workers when they get here are not abused.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Go ahead, Mr. Carrier.

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

Given the information we have obtained concerning the response that the department gave to Mr. Stewart, that is that this happens frequently, that it was of no great concern, I would like to have statistics from the department on the number of temporary workers who leave their employer before the end of their contract.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You mean the employees, yes.

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

I would like to have the statistics on workers who leave their job in this way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

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

This is the first case we have heard of but it would be interesting to find out whether or not this is a real problem, a situation that occurs throughout Canada. Could we obtain that information?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You're right. Stephen has put a new twist and a new perspective on what we've been hearing on this. We need to check it out from the employer's point of view.

[Stephen Stewart]

I think a lot of people just don't want to acknowledge the fact that they've been burned.

There's a big lobster processing company in P.E.I., Ocean Choice International Inc. They're based in Newfoundland. They've had workers who have disappeared. There have been numerous cases in the news of people from Russia heading back home and not getting on the airplane. They leave the airport, and where are they? It's in the news.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

Mr. Carrier, we're going to make every effort to get that information for the committee.

In the meantime, I believe Mr. Telegdi asked you to get the committee a copy of the contract you were operating under.

[Stephen Stewart]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The clerk will give you his card so you can send it off to us. What you've told us today is very interesting, and we thank you for it.

[Stephen Stewart]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Hopefully we can make some good recommendations to help you with these problems.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.