Thank you very much for inviting me here. Although I have a number of concerns that I want to bring up with respect to Bill C-50--in particular part 6, obviously--I'm going to focus on a population that I've spent a great deal of time researching and a on set of migration issues, focused on temporary migration. I want to do this because I believe Bill C-50 could have significant consequences with respect to temporary foreign worker programs and temporary migration in general. I have quite a number of concerns, but I will pour through them kind of quickly, and then we'll have a chance to come back to particular points I make, if you would like further information.
I believe the budget allocations for Citizenship and Immigration and the proposed changes to the IRPA do not address the backlog but instead encourage temporary migration. I see this taking place because the foreign worker program is a faster alternative to bringing in permanent immigrants, but it circumvents the points system. I believe this heightens the possibility for discrimination on the basis of race, country of origin, gender--since the majority of foreign workers are men--political affiliation, sexual identity, etc.
With Bill C-50, more employers may turn to the foreign worker program as an alternative, even more than they have in the last year or so. I'll speak to that in a minute. Employers, I think, will turn to this program instead of waiting, and they are already tired of waiting for the government to admit many high-skilled and low-skilled permanent applicants waiting in the backlog, as they have put it, many of whom are family members of immigrants who are already in Canada. I find it interesting, with such argued labour shortages, that we see the backlog as a problem as compared to a potential resource for the Canadian economy.
I think it's interesting that in 2007 we didn't meet our permanent immigrant targets, while our foreign worker program and the number of temporary foreign workers increased dramatically. We saw more than 150,000 foreign workers entering during that period of time.
I think what's disturbing, actually, is that there's no cap on the number of foreign workers admitted through the foreign worker program, and obviously there can be no backlog because it's employer driven. It's an entirely employer-driven program. According to Human Resources and Social Development Canada, we've seen a 122% increase in employer requests for low-skilled workers, as well as a 39% increase for high-skilled workers, between 2005 and 2007. We're going to see this pressure increase, and if we have a system that is basically pushing employers to look for foreign workers instead of waiting for workers to be processed, we're going to see that number increase.
I also believe that Bill C-50 enables increased private and economic interests driving policy in immigration. As I've mentioned, I think it encourages temporary foreign workers and therefore an employer-driven immigration system. It also creates the potential for a greater number of third-party recruiters and employment agencies, who already play a significant role for employers by locating foreign workers and setting up their contracts. There's a lot of concern about these agencies being unregulated and basically a potential for greater exploitation and criminal behaviour as well. In most provinces, these organizations are not regulated. Certainly, that is the case in Ontario.
There has also been much discussion about using the provincial nominee program in conjunction with the foreign worker program. Although this does provide a small window of opportunity for workers to gain access to Canadian residency, it does nothing to remove private interests from determining who will be Canada's immigrants. It also does nothing to regularize it, standardize it, such as providing a three-year period across the board for all workers. It does vary by program, but generally there is no direct path for foreign workers. This basically means that a foreign worker can be working in Canada for two or three years, and then at the point at which they conclude their contract and they want to stay in Canada permanently--maybe they have a Canadian spouse, or fiancé, as in my case, or they may even have a job offer--under Bill C-50 the minister would be under no obligation to even consider their application. I think that is problematic on a couple of levels.
I think Bill C-50 heightens the vulnerability of foreign workers because of that very problem where temporary foreign workers basically do not need to apply for permanent status because they may only be considered as applicants if the minister deems it so—this comes from my reading of proposed section 87.3, where it will be up to the minister to decide whether to consider that foreign worker or not.
I think it's important to note that many foreign workers apply for refugee status after working in Canada for a number of years, particularly the low-skilled foreign workers. Also, quite a number, if they don't receive any other status, we believe go undocumented or basically overstay, and this leads to a real problem, because we don't see appropriate monitoring and statistics and tracking, so we don't really know where this population is and the kinds of health risks this may pose. With respect to foreign workers, there are different procedures for evaluating health and health screening--with respect to temporary foreign worker programs--than there are for permanent immigrants. It depends on length of stay, and of course there's nothing to ensure that length of stay doesn't in fact turn into a much longer time than anticipated.
With respect to health, one more point I want to make is that really I'm concerned that the minister has not, or Bill C-50 has not, considered the impacts it might have on health screening of immigrant and foreign worker applications. I think it's important to recognize also that foreign workers, especially those in low-skilled categories, will have been foreign workers in many other countries prior to the point at which they enter Canada. This may be a different factor than immigrant populations, so you may be talking about a different set of health risks and a different set of health considerations.
I think, overall, Bill C-50 poses significant challenges to Canadian multiculturalism and social cohesion. As I've said, the foreign worker programs encourage a hierarchical system based on country of origin and often gender, and moving to a system that encourages more temporary foreign workers is problematic. I also think there are a number of challenges if you have a combination of populations working together, with foreign workers, immigrants, and Canadian citizens vying for similar jobs and having difficulty. If you have an immigrant wanting to sponsor a family member and not being able to do so, and instead they see a foreign worker coming in temporarily to fill jobs, I think that creates conditions ripe for conflict, ripe for racism, and potential problems for Canadian multiculturalism.