Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 1st, 2011

[David Manicom]

Yes, the federal government's role is to encourage the recognition of these credentials, to improve the transparency of the process, and to convey information about it to potential immigrants.

There is a process; in various places abroad, immigrants who have already been approved attend individual sessions for the purpose of facilitating their integration into the labour market before they actually come to Canada. A large part of these sessions is devoted to explaining the process so that they understand it, and to explaining to them how to go about having their qualifications recognized. We are in the process of gathering up all of the information needed to help immigrants. We particularly encourage them to begin the process before arriving in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Merci.

Mr. Leung.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question relates to the matching of manpower requirements with our immigration policy. In the province of Ontario we have a program whereby we go abroad and bring in farm workers who have the skills to pick maybe 10 bushels of tomatoes and so on, whereas the federal policy deals with a points system where we look at people with more professional skills.

Can you reconcile two questions I have? How does the business or the industry of a particular province reflect its need and requirement to the province to meet those labour needs? How does the province reflect that to the federal government to reconcile that the two immigration selection criteria are not exactly in step with each other? The federal government requirement looks at a broader skill set, whereas some of these lower skill sets are also very much needed in areas like agriculture and the mining industry.

[David Manicom]

Thank you. It's a very good question, and a very interesting question from a policy point of view.

There are two elements to it. There are the temporary foreign worker programs and then there are permanent resident programs.

We have specific temporary worker programs, as you may know. The seasonal agricultural worker program is a long-standing and, by many measures, a very successful program that's been going on for many years, primarily for workers from Central America and the Caribbean.

That brings in on the order of 20,000 to 30,000 temporary workers to Canada each year, the large majority in the province of Ontario, and recently some in British Columbia and Quebec. That's to meet immediate short-term needs, although most of those seasonal agricultural workers return to Canada many times. There's a very high retention rate, if you will, in the program.

With regard to permanent residents, the federal government does not have a permanent resident program for low-skilled workers at this time. The provincial nominee programs, in effect, are designed to deal with local needs that aren't national needs, and that's one of the philosophical reasons behind them. So if a province has a specific need in their province, whether it be low skilled or high skilled, that is often what they choose to use provincial nominee programs for.

A low-skilled permanent resident program is something that would certainly be worth discussing. We would have to understand, of course, that if we built a stream for low-skilled permanent residents under a federal program, we would have to take spaces away from an existing program at the present time.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

What I'm seeing is a bit of a redundancy here because we are bringing in low-skilled seasonal workers in the program for agricultural requirements, and we also have a provincial nominee program that nominates workers who are needed for that type of skill. Could these two perhaps be blended together so that we don't have two separate programs?

[David Manicom]

They could be, but they have, I would suggest, different purposes. One should not presume that the people who come under the seasonal agricultural worker program want to immigrate to Canada. They have families in their home countries. The money they bring back to their host societies has been demonstrated to improve education outcomes for children, and so forth. Some percentage of them may wish to settle in Canada.

We do have to remember, though, that in some of those occupations, once they become permanent residents they will generally, like Canadians, not be ready and available to do that work. The seasonal agricultural worker program brings in people to do jobs that Canadians have chosen not to do. All the evidence would suggest that once permanent resident status is obtained, they are not likely to remain seasonal agricultural workers. They will migrate to other permanent occupations.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

My concern is looking at the long term with respect to the experience of other countries, like Germany and France, where there is a perpetual pool of guests, workers. And the guest workers, in turn, over the long term, because of their non-integration into mainstream society, cause a silo effect and issues with the overall population. Perhaps you wish to address that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Unless Mr. Opitz agrees, you'll have to wait for another round.

Mr. Opitz.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll share my time with Mr. Leung.

Carry on, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay. I'll make it 10 minutes, then.

[David Manicom]

It's certainly an issue that the federal government is engaged in and looking at, not so much with regard to the seasonal agricultural worker program, perhaps, where individuals are coming for certain months and then returning on a seasonal basis. But the low-skilled pilot, which began about 10 years ago, grew dramatically in size during the economic boom of 2006-07, especially in western Canada. There you have low-skilled workers who are in Canada for multiple years on a continuous basis, who are not returning to their home country.

The growth in that program stopped in 2008, for evident economic reasons, and it has subsided a little bit. Nevertheless I think it is a policy preoccupation for the reasons that you laid out, sir. In addition to the provincial nominee programs, which do use about a quarter of their spaces for low- and semi-skilled workers, and therefore do provide a pathway to permanence for some of those low-skilled workers, it does raise the question of whether or not we should have concerns about developing those sorts of problems.

So far the order of scale is relatively small. I think the low-skilled pilot numbers peaked at about 25,000 in 2008 and have come down somewhat since. But I would agree with you that it's a serious policy issue worth discussing.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Sir, the Auditor General's report made a strong recommendation that the federal government has to do a better job of screening for security and medical admissibility of entrants and immigration and refugee applicants to Canada. The opposition has stated that they agree with the Auditor General; however, some people still say that the federal government should not have the final say on whether a provincial nominee gets into the country. In other words, if a province nominates an individual, the federal government should not be able to overrule that decision if the individual is found to not meet the law under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

This really doesn't make sense to me, since the provinces do not have the resources or the ability to check for criminality, security, or medical issues.

Can you please explain why it is so important that the federal government maintain the responsibility for having the final determination as to the eligibility of a visitor or an immigration applicant already in or outside of Canada?

Mr. Manicom, go ahead.

[David Manicom]

The federal government has responsibility for the borders of Canada, and that's a fundamental federal role constitutionally. In the current immigration act, none of the provinces has authority to deal with what we call admissibility processes relating to the health and safety of Canadians and security and criminality. It would be a very profound change if we were to begin to introduce varying provincial responsibilities in that regard, given internal mobility.

Any person admitted to the country is admitted to the country. So if you're looking at local labour market needs, I think it makes a lot of sense for the provinces to have a very significant role in selecting persons to integrate into their local labour markets. But when we're talking about the health and security of Canadians, having 13 jurisdictions with roles there might be a recipe for considerable difficulty.

The Auditor General pointed out the challenges of the current system in ensuring good communications between differing government departments responsible for screening of immigrants and visitors, so that would be a very significant constitutional and legal change.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Great. Thank you.

You commented about the success of some provinces like P.E.I. and others that have very high levels of immigration; however, I'm looking at a table provided, and Ontario in particular. Can you comment on why Ontario is kind of at the bottom of this list right now? Obviously the minister redistributed some of the settlement funding recently to reflect greater immigration to other parts of the country, but I'd like you to comment on why Ontario is so low in this, and whether they are effective or ineffective in what they're doing.

[David Manicom]

I wouldn't want to comment on whether or not Ontario's provincial nominee program is effective or ineffective, although when the basic data comes forward it will suggest an extremely high retention rate. The Ontario provincial nominee program has historically been very small, so data on economic outcomes and so forth would be very preliminary at this time. You always need a number of years of data to see how people are doing. The Ontario provincial nominee program is very new and very small, so we probably wouldn't have meaningful statistical data.

Why Ontario chose not to begin a provincial nominee program in earlier years when other provinces did is best asked of the Province of Ontario. We have to remember that at that time Ontario was far and away the largest destination for immigrants under federal programs. Ontario still receives a far higher percentage of immigrants than their percentage of Canada's population. That has been changing a little as migratory patterns have shifted in the country, primarily toward western Canada, as has the Canadian economy, investment, and other things. Immigrants tend to follow jobs, as we want them to.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Kellway.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To our guests, thank you very much for coming today.

From listening to the discussion—and I don't mean this in a critical way—the provinces seem to be using the program to kind of plug holes for almost near-term labour shortages. Is that fundamentally your view on how the program is being used by the provinces?

[David Manicom]

They're being used in very different ways. The provincial nominee programs are so diverse that it is difficult to generalize.

Some provinces use them very directly for immediate labour market needs. Other provinces have taken a long-term larger view about developing immigrant communities, building demographics, and attempting to build self-sustaining immigrant communities.

I spoke earlier about the very large proportion of immigrants who have traditionally gone to Ontario. Immigrants tend to go to places where they know someone, or at least know someone who knows someone, and they get their foot in the door. So provinces such as Manitoba, for example, have focused on building an immigrant community, which will then become self-perpetuating.

So I think all I can say is that the programs range from very small and very specialized—and indeed Ontario's program has tended to be small and specialized, because they were getting large volumes of immigrants through the federal program.

So they're very diverse, sir.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

In your comments earlier—and I think it was Natasha who mentioned this in her part of it about developing a multi-year levels planning approach—is that what you're talking about, what those provinces are doing, or were you talking in those terms of something completely different?

[Natasha Parriag]

Multi-year levels planning is...we're moving towards an approach of consulting with the provinces and territories on a longer-term horizon—for example, three years—so that annual levels planning has this longer-term approach to it.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

So three years is the horizon you're working towards?

[Natasha Parriag]

That's what we are working towards.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

What exists now under the federal program for a planning horizon?

[Natasha Parriag]

Right now it's on an annual basis.