Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Jan. 30th, 2008

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

You are telling me that we want to protect someone who is at risk of exploitation, a situation that is already illegal in Canada. No one is entitled to exploit someone, to put a person in degrading or humiliating situations.

[Les Linklater]

It depends on the context, but in general, yes.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Right. How is an immigration officer going to go about determining whether the person will be subject to exploitation at the place where he or she will be working?

[Les Linklater]

This bill gives the Minister the power to develop and issue instructions to immigration officers, with objective evidence that makes a connection with situations involving exploitation or abuse, so that they can use those instructions to determine whether the worker's application is genuine.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I understood that part. What I am asking is how those officers will go about determining, based on those criteria, whether a person will be exploited at the place where he or she plans to work after applying for a work permit, since a work permit relates to a particular place. Do they know where it is?

[Les Linklater]

If I may, I can provide you with a few scenarios that will help you understand the steps.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Go ahead.

[Les Linklater]

Take the example of an immigration officer who receives an application from a young American who wants to come to Canada to work as an unskilled worker in the construction industry. This is someone who speaks mainly English, possibly French, but someone who speaks one of Canada's two languages. It is someone who has worked in a fairly highly developed labour market, who knows about labour standards, who probably has sufficient resources to go back home without someone else's support and who could create a support network here in Canada. When this young American's application is assessed, even if there is information to suggest that there is a risk of the worker being exploited, for example in the construction industry, the officer may decide to issue the work permit anyway, given that the person's individual characteristics indicate that he has the resources he needs to make his way.

But we can imagine a different situation. Imagine the case of someone coming from a country where they don't speak English, who has little education, who has no support network in Canada, who does not have a lot of personal resources, who wants to work in an industry where he or she does not know either what the employers' responsibilities are or what the workers' rights are, and so could be fired by the employer. Admitting that person would probably be more risky than admitting the young American.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll have to pursue that on the second round. We are at seven and a half minutes.

Ms. Chow.

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

Thank you.

The go-betweens, the recruiters, that's usually where things go wrong. Is it possible that you legislate and say that the recruiters cannot receive funds and actually ban the recruiters from taking a hefty profit? These are the overseas recruiters who bring in these foreign workers, some of whom are strippers. Have you considered that, or that maybe the recruiter has to be approved by the country of origin? If they are coming from Ukraine, for example, the recruiters have to be signed off by the recruitment country. Would that be one way to deal with unscrupulous people bringing in workers to get exploited?

[Les Linklater]

We're looking at unscrupulous recruiters. Certainly the western provinces, Alberta in particular, have legislation on the books that prohibits recruiters from charging fees to the workers they recruit. As part of our broader work on temporary foreign worker reform, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we're looking at ways, with HRSDC, Service Canada, and the Canadian Border Services Agency, to work with the provinces to ensure that we're working with recruiters who are above board.

One of the issues we find with recruiters is that we learn about their presence only if the applicants themselves tell us or have a complaint to make about them, and if they're receiving a benefit it's unlikely they are going to come forward with any complaint about a recruiter.

We feel that with Bill C-17 as part of our tool kit we would be able to limit the exposure and, as part of the assessment of the overall application, tell the individual that we think, given the evidence that we have linking the particular occupation or the situation the person is destined to, that with the person's individual characteristics, he or she might be at risk of abuse.

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

Could you not say in the public policy consideration that is issued by the minister, be very clear, that recruiters cannot accept any financial...? Your officers overseas can ask people applying to come into the country, is the person recruiting you for this job receiving funds? That would get rid of the people who are enslaving women, because, by and large, they receive hefty funds. So would it be possible to write that into this document?

[Les Linklater]

We would have to look at the evidence we might be able to gather linking that directly to abuse and exploitation. We haven't yet got to the point—

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

What kind of evidence would you need? I mean, if it is exploitation or sexual slavery, usually the person who brings these women into the country ends up getting a lot of money, and then sells these people to others in Canada, who make money too, but it's mostly, I would imagine, the people overseas who stand to gain a lot financially.

[Les Linklater]

I think part of the question you're asking relates to the issue of human trafficking. There are penalties in the Criminal Code for human trafficking as well.

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

I'm talking about immigration policy, which is what is in front of us. I'm not talking about the Criminal Code.

When your officer interviews a foreign worker, could you not ask that question of the foreign worker? Could you not ask, did someone recruit you and did they take money? If they say someone did, that should be one of the grounds for them not coming to Canada.

Would that make sense?

[Les Linklater]

That could be a question our officers could ask, but again, it would depend on the response from the person they're interviewing and who wants to come to Canada, and if they do not provide that information.... Even then, to be able to go after unscrupulous recruiters, unless we have the cooperation of local authorities, it is very difficult for us to shut those activities down.

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

Who actually would have the authority to deal with these unscrupulous recruiters? Is it the RCMP or is it CSIS? Who actually has the power to deal with them?

[Les Linklater]

If we receive evidence of wrongdoing, we can refer that to the Canada Border Services Agency for investigation, and they can work with the RCMP to move to criminal proceedings, if they're able to determine enough evidence.

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

Can you make it a job offer for the job itself, rather than for the employer, because right now, the way it's written, the job—the contract, the visa—is given to the employer? So if that worker leaves that job, that worker will have to be deported, or they'd have to change the visa.

[Les Linklater]

As part of the broader reforms we're looking at, where a worker finds themself in a situation not of their own making, where they may have been threatened by an employer or fired, we are looking at mechanisms to be able to deal with them so that the worker is not penalized, but there are some sanctions placed against the employer.

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

So this bill deals with 17 people who came in 2007, or something of that nature.

[Les Linklater]

It was 21 in 2006.

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

There were 21 in 2006.

Why wouldn't we actually look at this bill and have a fulsome discussion about some of the issues I was raising and have this as part of that package, and have a bill that has all aspects of this, rather than just this one that impacts on 21 people?

[Les Linklater]

Yes, a lot of the authorities around monitoring and compliance can be done through regulation. One missing piece that Bill C-17 does move to fill is the whole issue of negative discretion based on the individual circumstances. So even though the employer may have a legitimate job to offer in Canada, if in fact there is evidence that the person in their individual circumstances could be abused, or is at risk of exploitation, we would be able to refuse the work permit for their protection.