Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 17th, 2014

[Earl Dreeshen, Red Deer, CPC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Leung. And Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to this.

I've gone to many budget implementation act technical briefings. It's an extremely important thing to do so that you get a chance to see how all of this ties into the budget and how things are going to work. I assume that you or members of your staff would have been to the technical briefings that have taken place previously. I want to tie back in and talk to what Mr. MacDonald presented, where he talked about answering these technical questions that are associated with part 4 and division 5.

Mr. MacDonald, some of the discussions in your presentation had to do with the block transfers to provinces under the Canada social transfer, but also there was discussion about the Canada health transfer. I believe I heard from discussion back in 1995 that we were talking about $20 million being required to be repaid by the Province of British Columbia because of issues they had of going sort of offside, if you like, with some of the different acts we have.

I was a hospital board chairman for a number of years in Alberta, so I know some of the things that are associated with the Canada health transfers. You described portability issues, but of course, for any charges for health care services that they felt were offside, the governments were expected to pay for that as well.

That brings me to the other part you were discussing. In the presentation you spoke about the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, which states that in order to receive full CST funding, provinces and territories must not impose minimum residency requirements for social assistance. If they do that, then of course they are going to be subject to some clawback or some issue there. From what I can gather from listening to the descriptions, you're trying to develop something so that the provinces will be able to deal with this without actually being clawed back.

Am I on the right track here, that this is what you mean when you talk about a facilitative amendment so that provinces can be assured they're not going to end up with the clawbacks, as has happened under previous situations when they have found that some of their decisions have been offside?

[Daniel MacDonald]

Yes, I can clarify that.

In my remarks, I described the withholding process within the FPFAA with respect to the CST, which is that if there is a minimum residency requirement placed in the laws of the province, the Minister of Employment and Social Development is required by statute to go through a process that's set out in the statute to determine what the violation is and the degree of the violation and to make a report. If he is then of the opinion, at the conclusion of this dialogue with the province, that it is a violation of the minimum residency requirement, the act requires that the matter be referred to the Governor in Council. Where the Governor in Council has the discretionary power, they may impose a withholding on the transfer to that province as they see fit.

This amendment, rather than requiring the Minister of Employment and Social Development to enter into that process automatically when there is any minimum residency requirement imposed, is permitting the provinces; it's a facilitative amendment that allows provinces to put in place a minimum residency requirement as long as it satisfies the description in this bill, without triggering the withholding process that is then entered into by the Minister of Employment and Social Development.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Devinder Shory]

Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. Sandhu, you have up to five minutes.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We've already established that when visitors, students, and other temporary foreign workers come here, they should be able to demonstrate financial backing and all of that to make sure they can live here, and we've already established that refugees don't have to do that when they come to Canada. Are refugee claimants able to get a work permit right away when they land in Canada?

[Matt de Vlieger]

I will consult a colleague, because I'm not working directly in the refugee area, but I believe the answer is that they cannot get a work permit immediately on arriving in Canada. Resettled refugees come as permanent residents, and I believe that means they can obtain a work permit.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

All right. Maybe I'll put the question out there. If refugees cannot legally work in this country, how are they able to support themselves? Did the government look at who was going to provide that support to them or were they supposed to be left out on the streets?

[Matt de Vlieger]

We might be able to go back to your earlier question, if you don't mind.

[Caitlin Imrie]

Yes, if you don't mind...? It's a bit unusual, but I was previously in a role in this area.

To add a bit of precision, it's actually only members from designated countries who cannot access work permits, so others can access work permits.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

How many of those work permits are given? If a hundred refugees apply for work permits, what percentage of work permits are given?

[Matt de Vlieger]

We'd have to look that up.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

For those who couldn't get the work permit, did the government look at how those people were going to survive?

[Matt de Vlieger]

That falls into the category of some of the considerations that the provinces, if they wanted to bring in these kinds of measures...the kind of social benefit regime they'd want to look at is what kinds of services are provided to residents or persons who are in their jurisdiction. Internationally, some countries provide financial assistance, while other countries provide in-kind assistance. Some countries, such as the United States, don't provide either in-kind or financial assistance.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

Would you be able to provide that information to the clerk?

[Matt de Vlieger]

The information about work permits?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Right.

[Matt de Vlieger]

Yes.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

We've already established here that there was no consultation done with the provinces and the provinces did not ask for this facilitative measure to be put in place, so my question goes to your professional opinion. If the provinces have never asked for it and if you've never had any discussions with them, why would the provinces want to have this measure in place or restrict social assistance to the refugees?

[Matt de Vlieger]

That is a good question to put to the provinces. I wouldn't speculate. I would say that the condition that was placed on the Canada social transfer is a federal condition. It's a condition that's built into the federal act that we're talking about, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. The object of this amendment is to narrow that condition, providing extra flexibility to provinces in their own area of jurisdiction.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I guess you're not providing your professional opinion.

[Matt de Vlieger]

Not on behalf of the provinces I'm not.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Do you have any indication from any of the provinces that they would actually do this?

[Matt de Vlieger]

We haven't had any indications from any provinces that they are looking to implement such a measure, no.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Okay. I don't know if you talked about it. I think Mr. MacDonald talked about this. One of the tenets of Canada's social transfer is that people have the ability to move from one province to another and that the payments would follow through with that.

My point here is, would that tenet of Canada's social transfer erode some of that when refugees are moving from one province to another and they're not able to get those—

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Devinder Shory]

Mr. Sandhu, your time is up.

Mr. Opitz, you have up to five minutes.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you, the U.S. and the U.K. provide social assistance supports to asylum claimants and temporary residents, do they not?