Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Jan. 30th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Linklater, and thank you, Madam Chow.

Mr. Komarnicki.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you for your presentation.

Certainly, I have a few questions. Our former Bloc immigration critic, Meili Faille, who we just talked about earlier, had said in reference to this bill:

On the basic objective of the bill, we share the same values. We find it completely unacceptable that, here in Canada, people can suffer degrading treatment, be denied their dignity and be subject to sexual exploitation. We agree that legislation is needed to implement measures to protect foreign nationals.

Quoting another individual who appeared on The Verdict, CTV Newsnet, Richard Kurland said, “The idea is to prevent any degrading, humiliating treatment, including sexual exploitation.”

But if you were to sum up the objective, would it not be the fact of protecting vulnerable temporary foreign workers? If you were to protect one vulnerable worker from the objective of any humiliating or degrading treatment, would that not be the type of accomplishment this might achieve?

[Les Linklater]

Yes.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

There was some comment made that another way of proceeding is through some other legislation that presently exists. Of course, you can think of things like the Criminal Code or perhaps the trafficking provisions of inter-border human trafficking under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, but those, I would suggest, presuppose the commission of an offence. Under the Criminal Code you would require not only the commission of the offence, but you'd have to go through a legal proceeding, a court proceeding, which is extensive and expensive. There would be proof in that case beyond a reasonable doubt and so on, so it is quite a complex situation.

What we're talking about here is not so much applying existing laws but having a preventative measure to prevent the exploitation or degradation of others, which could include things like sexual exploitation.

[Les Linklater]

That's correct.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

The other part that I gather from your presentation is that the issue of dealing with preventing humiliation or degradation or that type of treatment, including sexual exploitation, requires an effort on our part on various levels, at various places, by the federal government, the provincial government, departments and agencies, the police force, the RCMP, and others. It's like a tool box. You have many avenues by which to proceed. This is one part of the bigger picture.

Would you agree with me that this bill is a partial answer to a bigger problem that we're dealing with at various levels? Is that an approach you think is something we should proceed with?

[Les Linklater]

With the growth of the temporary foreign worker program over the last number of years, we really do need to look at a suite of measures to ensure that while the economy gets the skills it needs, we are putting in place the appropriate checks and balances to make sure that workers are not going to be abused or exploited by unscrupulous employers or recruiters or agents.

Bill C-17, as I said, is one of the pieces of that tool kit, if you will, that would allow us to provide that extra measure of protection when, all things being equal, the person might be able to do the job but because of their own circumstances--poor language skills, lack of supports, their own personal experiences--they would be at risk of abuse once here in Canada.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

It seems to me, from what I heard you say earlier, that really the instruction is based on some objective criteria, that there must be some research, and there must some basis, and there must be some connection between the instruction and what you're hoping to achieve. It would seem to me that there would be certain types of employment more likely to have the potential for the type of treatment that foreign nationals might find themselves facing, so that's one aspect of it.

Another aspect that plays into this is that a foreign national comes into a country and perhaps doesn't have the language skills they might otherwise have. They might not yet be integrated into our mainstream economy or community. You might find that they don't have the support systems that are in place to ensure that they don't have to face that type of abuse. We're looking at a situation in which you take into account a combination of factors--the type of employment, the type of person you have coming in--and you might, in that circumstance, decide that you ought not to have that person come in because you know what the propensity might be. As I understand it, up until now the minister would not have had the discretion to deal with it if they otherwise qualified, while, the reverse of that--if they hadn't qualified--you could override. This sort of balances the scale.

Is that the bottom-line proposition of the essence of the instruction?

[Les Linklater]

Mr. Chair, I explained earlier the scenario of two workers from different countries and with varying backgrounds being offered the same job. If there was any evidence that would suggest there was risk in performing a certain job in a certain situation, given the individual circumstances, an officer might, even with instructions, decide to issue a permit to someone because the individual did have the language skills and the resources to be able to manage as opposed to refusing an applicant who might not have those personal attributes to allow them to avoid being placed in a situation of abuse.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Just to follow up from that, dealing with the tool box approach, this instruction is, as I said, one of many steps taken at various levels, but more recently I recall that the minister introduced a policy or instruction whereby temporary resident visas were allowed when people were thought to be either trafficked or exploited for various reasons, including sexual exploitation, to give them an opportunity to get on with rehabilitation, receiving counselling or in fact even dealing with the trafficker or to testify in that situation. Wouldn't this sort of round out that kind of aspect?

[Les Linklater]

Mr. Chair, Bill C-17 would build on some of the things that have already been done. In June, the minister announced an extension of the temporary resident permit for victims of trafficking from 120 to 180 days. This allows them to have access to services, including trauma counselling.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

That completes our seven-minute rounds. We'll now proceed to five-minute rounds.

Mr. Telegdi.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First, let me just put this in context. A lot of this is driven by the former minister, Judy Sgro, and what was referred to as Strippergate, if you will. The reality was that a person, who happened to be a stripper and who was no longer a stripper, married a Canadian national and asked the minister for a permit so she could remain in the country while her case was being handled. That's essentially what the case was about. It happened because the department refused to grant this permit. They passed regulations and they put it on the minister. So they set up the minister. The minister lost her job. Nobody in the department lost anything. That's one.

The other issue is that I think Mr. Karygiannis raised a very important issue. I want to see stats and I want to see how they apply.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

That would be .0006.

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

I want to see a breakdown. In some ways, when we're talking about those skilled workers, which the government is going to ramp up in letting into the country, we want to make sure they are not exploited. I know there are problems with farm workers and what have you. But let's deal with the reality of the bill. Anyway, I want to see those statistics.

My problem is that the parliamentary secretary talks about a tool box approach. The reality is that officials overseas have virtually unlimited powers to turn people down on visas.

I will refer to a particular case in P.E.I., your part of the world, Mr. Chair, which I read about in the media. One of the fish plants applied for foreign workers; they were approved. They happened to be from Russia and the visa officer turned them down. I don't know what happened with the fish plant, if it closed or did not close.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

What fish plant? There's no fishing.

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

I would like to get some answer to it.

The other thing, and what this committee knows is happening, is that there is a huge area of exploitation, and it pertains to undocumented workers. These folks are really open to huge abuse. The government's answer is to try to get these folks deported, while we have thousands of criminals whom we should be deporting but we cannot because they can get a hearing before the Immigration Appeal Division.

I want to put those things in perspective, and I really want to make sure we get the stats.

In terms of vulnerable workers, we have laws that should protect all vulnerable workers. Whether or not an immigration official is able to do this in an overseas post, I am not sure. I want to be very careful with this particular legislation. But we cannot deal with this separately from the undocumented worker question. If we want to talk about exploitation, the undocumented workers, who number in the hundreds of thousands in this country, are helping to build this economy. We've got a huge worker shortage in your part of the world. In northern Canada, Sudbury, if you want to do some construction, it takes you two years before anything is going to get done. It's the same thing on the west coast. So we have a huge problem. I just don't see how this in particular has a priority over that. Notwithstanding that, I would like to have statistics in front of us.

The other issue is that immigration officials have huge powers in denying people entry into this country. Trying to appeal those decisions is unbelievable. So to give more unfettered powers to front-line officers to say no causes me a great deal of concern. I see it in my office day after day after day when we can't get legitimate visa applications approved because an officer overseas turns them down. I do happen to believe that if you happen to be a Canadian citizen born elsewhere, a naturalized Canadian citizen, you should not be denied being able to see your relatives in your new country because of the discretion these officials have.

I really worry about giving more powers to the visa officers to be turning people down.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. Mr.—

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

Can you assure this committee that you are going to get us the statistics on all the foreign workers, showing what categories they are in, and give us some targets indicating by how many we are going to be increasing those?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

That's for the last five years.

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

I want the last five years, but I also want the projection, because the government has been talking about increasing the low-skilled worker category.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'd like to be able to give....

Okay, Mr. Linklater, maybe you can give Mr. Telegdi a response. It was a six-minute question, but anyway....

Mr. Linklater.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, we should make Mr. Telegdi our marathon runner for questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, I think we should.

Mr. Linklater, may we have a brief response, not five or six minutes?

[Les Linklater]

Mr. Chair, we would be happy to provide statistics on the temporary foreign worker program.

The difficulty we have with projections is that the program is completely demand driven as employers ramp up their need. We do not set targets for the number of temporary foreign workers.

On the issue of refusal of applications under the authority proposed in this legislation, Mr. Chair, I would reiterate that what we are proposing is a two-step refusal. Any refusal that a front-line officer may wish to make will have to be concurred in by a senior immigration officer.