Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Chow.

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

In July 2002 there was a pilot project to bring in temporary foreign workers under the lower skills categories C and D, because in the other program, the permanent residence class, they changed the point system so much that if you have lower skills, you probably won't make it, unless you're a parent sponsored by a son and daughter who live in Canada, but that takes eight years.

Putting that aside, have you seen any evaluation on this pilot project? Have you seen any studies on whether this pilot project is effective or not? Have you seen any rationale of whether these lower-skills workers should come in as temporary foreign workers or permanent residents or through the provincial nominee program? Are there any such studies?

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, I'll ask Mr. Flageole to respond to that.

[Richard Flageole]

Mr. Chair, we talk about this program in the report. I think when we mentioned examples of major decisions without sufficient analysis, that was one, in terms of risk and whatever. After seven years, it is still a pilot, so it hasn't been evaluated, but it's part of the evaluation plans for the department. I think an evaluation has been initiated on that project; it should provide all the information about what the key issues are and how effective the program is.

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

When is the evaluation supposed to be finished?

[Richard Flageole]

I think it's planned for 2010-11, unless I'm wrong.... It's 2012.

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

It's 2012. It has really been a 10-year pilot project.

With a large number of temporary foreign workers coming into this area, there is obviously a labour need for lower-skills workers, but there's no queue for them to line up in, so they have to find some way of coming in.

Have you looked at the impact in terms of the numbers of people who are filing refugee status applications in Canada because they want to work here, they have a job here, their manual labour is needed here, and they want to stay here? That's why they're here; they got into the wrong stream. Because there is no stream for them to stay in Canada permanently, they went into the refugee stream.

Have you noticed that? Is that a cause for concern?

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, that's not an issue we looked at. We looked at the selection under this federal skilled worker program; we did not look at what happened subsequent to people being accepted into the country.

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

So you don't know whether they left or stayed because they're temporary, right?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes.

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

And you didn't look at the question of the number of undocumented workers and where that's at?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, we didn't look at that.

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

Might you want to, because this would have a fairly dramatic impact on the underground Canadian economy?

[Sheila Fraser]

We can consider it.

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

Okay.

Does this category, the live-in...oh, so it's a different live-in caregiver program.

You also mentioned that in the live-in caregiver program there had been a departmental report that talks about exploitation, that they had trouble, there are problems that date back to the nineties, and yet there had not been much action, in terms of dealing with the potential exploitation.

In your mind, has the situation got better or worse because of the much larger number of live-in caregivers coming into this country?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

We mention in the report the concern that vulnerability has grown over the years, given the large increase in applications. Some measures have been put in place, but as we mentioned previously, there is no systematic follow-up. In fact, there was some question about whether the department had the authority to be able to do it. There is a new program, which was mentioned earlier, whereby they have to voluntarily agree to do that, and of course new measures have been introduced more recently after this report, which we believe would address many of the concerns that have been raised here.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Chow.

Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I want to give you a chance to respond to the issue around provincial jurisdiction and the relationship we obviously have with the provinces and some of the details involved in trying to run these programs. While they may be federal in nature, when it comes to implementation and review, when it comes to ensuring the implementation, they become a provincial responsibility. And, as you know, the minute the federal government treads on provincial jurisdiction, regardless of how significant or insignificant, there's some pretty strong pushback from the provinces and territories.

I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to that because you have outlined in a number of your recommendations in a number of areas within the report the struggle that relationship has meant to some of the programs we have run.

[Sheila Fraser]

In this case, obviously, there have been agreements with the provinces, and we are certainly not commenting on the appropriateness of that. Quite frankly, it may be the provinces were best able to determine labour market needs. But we would certainly have expected there to be much more coordination, better information, on the part of the federal government to understand the types of programs that are being run in the provinces, what kinds of workers are being brought in, and this overall evaluation.

They're beginning that process, and we would certainly hope this would be done expeditiously. We note in the report that issues have been raised by the provincial auditors general in at least three provinces about how these programs are being managed. Because it is a federal responsibility at the end of the day, we would have expected there to be perhaps more information and more coordination, and that the federal government be more aware of what is happening in the provinces.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Okay. Thanks.

Chair, I know Mr. Calandra has one or two more questions, and then I think we're pretty much ready to wrap up.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

With respect to the paper burden reduction you found at some of the offices.... In my previous life I was executive assistant to the chair of the Red Tape Review Commission in Ontario. We did a lot of great work there, so I was interested in this section in particular, especially as it relates to workers abroad, and if there are other initiatives like this you think we can do to reduce the paperwork. I know the computer system is coming online, but that has to have a huge impact on them overseas.

[Sheila Fraser]

The computer system has been viewed for a long time as the solution to reducing paperwork. The paperwork in the missions is unbelievable, and it's not surprising that documents get lost. It's very hard in this day and age to work with a paper system. This will be critical to efficiencies, or even just to maintaining efficiencies within the department.

We raised a question in here about the processing centre in Sydney, that there should be an evaluation done as to whether that is actually contributing to efficiencies or not, and that is something we would look forward to seeing the department commit to doing.

I don't know if Mr. Flageole wants to add anything more.

I think the computer system will be major.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'll take the question, then. I'll take the Conservatives' time.

I'm looking at your report. You've made another number of interesting recommendations. After each recommendation, as usual, the particular ministry--in this case the immigration ministry--provides a response. Are there any of those responses that you have concluded as not being adequate?

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, no, we noted that the department is committed to addressing the issues we have raised. We certainly had excellent cooperation from the department all through the audit, and we obviously discussed the recommendations with them to make sure they would be doable. What is missing—these are just very short responses that we put in—is the more detailed plan as to how the department will actually do this and over what time period. Some mention time periods, but most do not. We think it's important that the department establish for itself how long it will take to actually address some of these issues and that they be realistic about that. Some may take several years to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Karygiannis.

I'm sorry, Ms. Mendes is first. I apologize.