Evidence of meeting #34 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was worker.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Rick Clarke  President, Nova Scotia Federation of Labour
Mary-Lou Stewart  Chief Executive Officer, Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board
Carol Logan  Director, Human Resources Branch, Prince George Hotel
Lynn McDonagh Hughes  Manager, Operations, Nova Scotia Tourism Human Resource Council
Cordell Cole  President, Mainland Nova Scotia Building and Construction Trades Council
Gerry Mills  President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies
Kevin Wyman  Halifax Coalition Against Poverty

11:40 a.m.

Halifax Coalition Against Poverty

Kevin Wyman

Well, that's not what I said. I didn't say temporary workers were doing fine. I only remarked that in terms of our experience, that's something that.... I can talk about it in general terms.

As a Canadian, as a person who, like the majority of Canadians, came here through a process of either immigrating or seeking refuge in this country, or coming from the stock of those who do, my community certainly played a big part in that through a good part of Canada's history. We have a feeling—and I think most Canadians do—inside of us to say we want to see people treated fairly. We don't want to treat them as temporary. We want people who are going to come here and be a part of what we are. For those of us who have immigrated here or who have sought refuge here, within our own experience or within the experience of our family, for instance, we want to think about how we would like to have seen ourselves treated as new Canadians or as potential new Canadians. We would like to think about how we would want our government to treat our families, how they would be received and how they would be evaluated, and that's the substance of what we're saying here.

11:40 a.m.

Bloc

Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC

Thank you.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

Thank you, Mr. Carrier.

Thank you, Mr. Wyman.

Ms. Chow.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Ms. Mills, last September the federal government signed a federal-provincial agreement with the nominee program with Nova Scotia. What impact does it have on this? It basically said there is no upper limit to the number of temporary foreign workers who would come in. Is that your interpretation of it? Is it something you folks support?

11:40 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

Of temporary foreign workers?

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Right, and other categories.

11:40 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

The temporary foreign worker stock that's in Nova Scotia right now, I believe, is around 1,300, which is actually lower than it was probably five or six years ago. There was a lot of offshore work then, when there were a lot of people here. In the Atlantic, I think it's around 4,000 or 4,500 people. In terms of immigration, we only get—last year I think it was around 2,400 or 2,500 immigrants into Nova Scotia.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

They would be landed immigrants.

11:40 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

Yes. And the signing of the agreement to have no cap on the provincial nominee program has been good, because the growth is coming through the provincial nominee program. The temporary foreign workers are beginning to see that as the stream to become permanent residents.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Right. So on the 2,400, do you know whether the provincial government here wants to increase the landed immigrant numbers?

11:40 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

Absolutely. They have a goal of 5,000 within the next two or three years.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

What is the goal for the temporary foreign workers stream?

11:40 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

I'm not sure they have a goal for temporary foreign workers.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

So it's basically whatever the employer....

11:40 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

Temporary foreign workers are certainly not very much on the radar screen of the provincial government or even the employers right now, when there's such a small number coming into Nova Scotia.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

You mean the 1,300.

11:45 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

11:45 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Right now there is a debate about fast-tracking higher-skilled workers versus lower-skilled ones in the landed immigrant area. I imagine you would want them all to be able to come as landed immigrants. But since the point system is not changing, any fast-tracking and moving categories of applicants up or down, whether it's in the provincial category or the federal category, would still mean that the lower-skilled folks would come in as temporary foreign workers and the higher-skilled folks would come in as landed immigrants. Am I correct on that? Is that a concern you have?

11:45 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

Absolutely. One of our recommendations is that we need to look at that.

11:45 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

So really, changing the point system is critical.

11:45 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

11:45 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

It's not really moving categories up or down in terms of processing the applications.

11:45 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

It doesn't really matter which category you move up or down; it's still going to be really difficult for the lower-skilled workers to get into the country as permanent residents.

11:45 a.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

I see. Right now, according to the annual report of 2007, under the economic class they're looking at about 138,000. I would think that maybe less than 1% or 2% of temporary foreign workers would fit under this permanent category.

11:45 a.m.

President, Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies

Gerry Mills

It's the whole system that we need to look at. We have the temporary foreign worker system and the skilled worker system, and with Bill C-30 we've been trying to change them around--move these people up, move this group up, move this group down--and it's not working.

I think we need a whole overhaul of the system, and we need to ask, “Who do we need in this country?” We need a balanced immigration program. ARAISA would like to see permanent residents taking the jobs. Find a quicker way and make it easier, notwithstanding the issues of cost, security, and protecting the jobs of Canadians who are here already. I think we need to be careful about protecting those jobs as well, because we all come from an immigration basis and we need to balance our thoughts around that.