Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 27th, 2019

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thanks.

I'll just pick up on that. You mentioned, I believe, that you were looking at a pathway to permanent residency, and there would be maybe less emphasis on the language for the type of work they're doing, as opposed to, say, a more high-skilled area. Can you elaborate on that?

[Philip Mooney]

Currently, the path to permanent residency is the express entry system. The express entry system has a lot of categories where you can get more points or fewer points, but it has a couple of absolute categories, and one is language. It doesn't matter if you have three Ph.D.s and you're working at a job making a million dollars a year. If you don't hit 6 on all four levels of IELTS, you're not approved; you lose.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Ms. Burchfield, I agree with your comment about needing to build a pipeline—it's just that I don't think you were talking about petroleum...more about information.

I think you said that digitalization has impacted 90% of jobs, virtually all jobs, between 2002 to 2016. How is that inhibiting the number of persons we can bring into the country to work?

[Marcy Burchfield]

There are stats. As many jobs as we are losing, there are projections about gaining jobs as well, so the pipeline of talent is still necessary. It's just that in terms of the skill sets and the tests geared to the people who are here now, who have been here, maybe we need to calibrate those tests with what we're going to need in the future, and that means looking at their digital competencies.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Could I get a comment from the Quebec chambers on that as well, in regard to the language? How would it work? What are your thoughts on those areas?

[Alexandre Gagnon, Director, Labour and Occupational Health and Safety, Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec]

About seven or eight years ago, Quebec increased its requirements regarding the knowledge of French as a criterion for permanent immigration. The result was somewhat surprising. The number of French-speaking immigrants began to decline. This confirms an observation by the Fédération. We feel that imposing overly high standards on applicants with respect to the knowledge of French eliminates perfectly valid candidacies. We thus believe that lower requirements would be preferable, while investments and francization efforts in the workplace could be stepped up.

Francization in the workplace is also a matter of partnership, particularly with school boards, training centres and colleges. In many cases, SMEs do not have the in-house resources they would need to organize French classes. However, by creating partnerships at the community level, the provision of francization services can be improved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Gagnon.

I'll continue with Ms. Kwan. You have about seven and a half minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for their presentations.

I think the issue centres on a labour skill void that's happening here in Canada. I think part of the temporary fix is temporary foreign workers. Moving beyond that, though, I am wondering whether Canada should be moving toward a direction of bringing the workers who are required where there is a labour skill shortage as permanent residents right at the beginning—that is to say, to honour the principle that many people have called for, which is that if you're good enough to work, you're good enough to stay.

I wonder whether I could get some comments from our witnesses on this point.

I'll start with you, Mr. Mooney, please.

[Philip Mooney]

That's a very good point.

I think the whole thing you have to look at is that the adjustment period of coming to Canada is a pretty significant one for anyone. If anybody here has ever moved in this country, you know it's a big adjustment just moving from place to place.

When you're moving to a whole new country, there are a lot of things you have to adjust to. There is an argument that if the work permit process allows you to become acclimatized to Canada and to get settled in, then you can become a permanent resident if you wish. That's actually a smoother way to longer-term and better integration.

The difficulty with bringing people in for permanent residence right away, instead of on a work permit.... What happens if they don't have a job? We went through all of that in the early 2000s, when more than half the people in the food bank had a degree and could speak English and French very well, but they were still using the food bank because there was no job for them when they came to Canada. I like the two-step process, from what I've seen with various numbers of immigrants.

There are some people, on the other hand, who could come to Canada immediately as permanent residents. I agree with that. Now the only question is.... We already have three or four of those programs; the only issue is just processing delays.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you for that. That's an interesting thought.

I am from an immigrant family. My family immigrated here, and right away my family put down roots. We established ourselves and became part of our community, as is the story of many immigrants.

If the idea is that there needs to be a period of time in which people can integrate, isn't it then the job of governments to ensure that the resettlement services are in place for them to integrate?

The issue with a temporary approach, of course, is that it's always just temporary. Take, for example, the caregivers scenario. We actually embarked on this process where we broke up families, and people are waiting and waiting to be reunited with their loved ones to get their pathway to permanence. To take another example, there are some workers who come on a temporary basis year after year for 20 years, and still it's just a temporary basis.

Should we not be thinking, then, about how we can embark on this process to make the program into a permanent program in such a way that we can utilize the resources to ensure that they succeed here in Canada? I put that out there, because I do think that's an important component in terms of that perspective.

To the witnesses on video conference, I think there is a different discourse at the moment in Quebec in relation to this question, and Mr. Ayoub actually mentioned it. I guess I'm looking to you for advice on what the federal government can or should do to work in collaboration with our Quebec counterpart in this regard, to ensure that the needs of Quebec are met, both on the resettlement side and on the side of meeting the labour skills shortage.

[Alexandre Gagnon]

I will come back to your question regarding the difference between temporary immigration and permanent immigration.

In Quebec, we have the Programme de l’expérience québécoise, which the Fédération is very much in favour of. This program allows students who have completed their studies and obtained their diploma in Quebec to have easier access to permanent residency. The same thing applies to temporary foreign workers with a work permit. Their selection by Quebec for permanent residency is facilitated.

However, we believe that the Temporary Foreign Workers Program has too narrow a base to allow this program to play its role fully. For example, in the case of unskilled workers, secondary school or vocational school diplomas are not considered by the Programme de l’expérience québécoise. The Fédération considers that it would be beneficial to broaden the scope of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program to allow the Quebec program to fully support permanent residency for these workers, since there is a serious labour shortage, particularly in the regions.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you for that answer.

I'll move on to the question about how to address the current discourse with our Quebec provincial counterpart in regard to this issue. What work can the federal government undertake to address it?

[Michel Cournoyer]

We at least need to be given a hearing and to be able to discuss it. The negotiation phase has to take place. We know it isn’t always easy.

Quebec’s plans are temporary and the selection method has to be reviewed. We may be taking a short break, but we have to ensure that in the long term, we will go back to larger labour pools. You have to consider Quebec’s proposals over the long term, and not solely on what you hear in the short term in the media at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

We're going to stop this now. I'm splitting the difference with the two panels.

I would like to thank the witnesses who have been here.

We have some submissions. If anybody has any submissions they would like to give us in writing, in addition to what you've said today, or any documentation that you think your organization has that would be helpful, we are more than happy to receive it at committee.

We will suspend until we get the next panel on, but don't go anywhere, as we'd like to get this going right away.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

We'll wait for Madame Proulx, who is coming to us via video conference.

We'll welcome the witnesses we have, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Escobar.

We'll begin with Mr. Lewis, from the Carpenters' District Council of Ontario. You have seven minutes.

[Mark Lewis, Legal Counsel, Carpenters' District Council of Ontario]

My name is Mark Lewis. I have the great privilege of being the general counsel for the Carpenters' District Council of Ontario and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

We are a union. We represent all 16 local unions of the carpenters' union across the province of Ontario. At the moment, we have somewhere in the vicinity of 25,000 skilled men and women across the province working in all the trades that comprise carpentry as a whole. Our members work primarily in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors of the construction industry, though they work in other sectors as well.

What I want to say has probably already been said by the speakers just before me. I cannot stress how strongly we as a union, from the workers' perspective, echo the comments that were made by the chambers of commerce about the shortage of skilled workers.

I can speak broadly about the construction industry, but right now particularly about the carpentry trades. We are at record levels of employment amongst our membership across the province of Ontario; we have a crisis now, in certain parts of the province, in finding the labour to meet the jobs. As predicted, that is going to get worse. Forecasting short-term employment numbers in the construction industry can be a bit difficult. Courts can intervene, as can planning issues, weather and financing, but over the medium and long term, we know what the trends are.

The speaker before me from the Toronto chamber of commerce referred to the BuildForce Canada labour surveys. I would commend those, both the national survey and the specific Ontario survey, to all the members of the committee. If you don't have it, let me know, and we will get it to you. Employment in our portion of the construction industry is forecast to grow by 7.5% in the next two years, and by 2.5% over the seven years that follow that. Combine that with the specific and general demographics, and we have a real problem.

Obviously, the population of Canada is aging. The number of potential recruits we have from domestic sources for our industry—we compete with every industry—is shrinking. In construction, generally we don't have the luxury or the possibility as much as other industries of extending out using older workers, because of the extremely physical nature of the job.

Our membership—and this goes to an emphasis on academic education and changes in immigration that have occurred in the last 25 years—in our union locals across the province is aging, as indeed is the membership of all the trades across the province. You can't exactly tell when our members will retire, because it's a factor of how many hours they work plus their age, but by 2030, 40% of the membership of our unions in Ontario could possibly retire. Hopefully they won't, but from trends, we're still looking at about 25% of the membership of the carpenters' union in the province of Ontario retiring by 2030.

We are the largest source of apprenticeships for carpentry in Ontario, and we are training as many young Canadians as we can get. I don't want any member of the committee to have the impression that we won't take people. We are looking for them everywhere. All of our local unions have relationships with their local school boards to try to draw people into the trades. We have relationships with the Canadian Armed Forces to try to get veterans who are transitioning out. Through our contractors, some of whom have relationships with provincial and indeed federal facilities of incarceration, we try to see if we have some people who have maybe gone wrong at some point in their lives but showed some inclination towards carpentry while they were incarcerated and might want to pursue it.

We obviously realize that the construction industry in the past has excluded certain groups or has not done a particularly good job at recruiting certain groups. We have a real emphasis right now on trying to get young women into the trades. Although it's a physical job, it has become less physical. There are aspects of carpentry that women could be particularly interested in, and we're trying to get more of them, along with aboriginal people, indigenous groups—anybody we can get.

However, there will not be enough skilled carpenters from domestic sources 10 to 15 years out to meet the need. It takes us somewhere from three and a half to six years to produce a skilled carpenter, and they are at their most productive about five years out, after they've completed their apprenticeship, based on what we see amongst our workers. That's a long time.

We need workers from overseas. Traditionally, for most of the 20th century, Canada got large parts of its skilled workforce from overseas. We stopped doing that, but we have to try to reach out.

There are particular problems with the construction industry that make us something of a problem child within the immigration system. I cannot tell you which employer is going to have a job for which worker two years from now, because I don't know which construction company is going to get the next contract to do something. However, we as an industry know we need workers. We as an industry, with our employer association partners, can predict that.

Instead of employer to employee-based immigration, we would like some consideration given to a broader, industry-based approach, with the industry associations and the relevant unions attracting the workforce. That way, all the employers can be utilized, depending on who gets the contracts. If the unions are involved, we can guard against some of the problems people have raised about lesser-skilled workers.

We'd ask you to recognize the importance of experiential-based education, as opposed to formal education through institutes of higher learning. Apprenticeship is of value and contributes to building this country.

Lastly, anticipating some of the questions that might come, if anything could be done to reduce at least the reading and writing portions of the language test for our workers, it would make us so happy. We have people working in Toronto who have worked here for two, three or four years. They earn $150,000 a year. They have no chance of passing the reading and writing portions of the test, but they're really good at building your subways and your offices. You see the work of our members on the scaffolding around this building.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Escobar to keep that theme going, and then we'll go to Montreal.

[Santiago Escobar, National Representative, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada]

Thank you, Chair.

On behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada, I would like to say thank you. I welcome the opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

My name is Santiago Escobar, national representative with UFCW and a front-line worker with migrant workers. UFCW Canada is the leading force for workers in the retail, food processing, hospitality and health care sectors and many other areas of the economy. We are one of Canada's largest unions, and we are proud and privileged to represent more than a quarter of a million hard-working people across Canada. Among our members, many are migrant workers who are working in Canada as permanent residents and as temporary foreign workers. I was a foreign worker myself and just got my PR.

Regarding best practices with migrant workers since 2002, our union, in collaboration with the Agriculture Workers Alliance—which is our banner, the UFCW banner for agricultural workers—has handled more than 60,000 cases, files, on a wide range of issues that touch on immigration, including human trafficking, workplace regulations, benefits and workers' compensation entitlements. We have about 13,000 migrant farm workers who are members of our association. All services are supplied in the language of the workers at no cost.

Last year, we held in-person consultations between migrant workers and senior federal representatives in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. as part of primary consultations with temporary foreign workers in agriculture. In March of this year, a consultation with senior federal representatives and migrant workers will take place in our support centre in Leamington, Ontario on how to implement open work permits for vulnerable migrant workers. We salute that the federal government has acknowledged that migrant workers are facing abuses. We think this tool will certainly help migrant workers to leave abusive employers.

It is also important to mention that, in August 2018, a group of migrant workers from Central America reached out to us, as they had been recruited from their farms in southern Ontario with false promises and were exploited for over a year and living in inhumane housing conditions. We have assisted these workers by providing a holistic approach to navigate the system, and we were able to get them temporary resident permits, known as TRPs, with considerations specific to victims of human trafficking, which has been a very long and complicated process. The Crown and the OPP are currently investigating this case.

We have recommendations to improve the well-being of temporary foreign workers. We believe that, today more than ever, with strong collaboration with the federal government, we can improve the well-being of migrant workers and prevent labour exploitation and human trafficking among the migrant communities.

Empowering migrant workers through location is a key part of the solution. We would like to suggest that the government partner with UFCW Canada and AWA to assist migrant worker communities in raising awareness about their rights and ways to maintain a safe and healthy workplace free of abuse. We are in a unique position, unlike any other organization across the country, to deliver on the government's mandate of making migrant workers aware of their rights and protecting them from abuse.

As a national organization with established support networks across various Canadian jurisdictions, we stand ready to engage the government on delivering rights awareness, health and safety training, and human trafficking provisions to migrant workers.

I have some notes regarding health and safety. Compared to other sectors of the economy, agriculture is one of the most hazardous and fatal industries in Canada. There are an average of 100 fatalities each year. The economics of agriculture-related injuries and fatalities are also significant. In 2004, agriculture-related injuries in Canada cost the economy $465 million.

Furthermore, Canada's agricultural workforce is largely composed of temporary migrant workers who, for a number of reasons, are especially precarious. As such, they are far less likely than permanent residents or Canadian citizens to exercise any health and safety or labour rights that may theoretically exist.

Our members have voiced that they don't have or receive health and safety training. Therefore, we claim that this training should be mandatory for all migrant workers in order to prevent accidents at work. Trained workers will be able to identify occupational hazards and teach other workers how to establish a safe workplace.

Such a model would also benefit employers by reducing costs associated with injuries, lost time claimed and fatalities at work. As occupational health and safety training and education have been proven effective, we believe that a “trusted employer” status is necessary. To incentivize employers' participation in the program, our union recommends that the federal government establish a “trusted employer” certification process, whereby employers who participate in health and safety training are formally recognized as trusted employers by the Canadian government. Benefits associated with the “trusted employer” designation could include relaxing certain temporary foreign worker program requirements, such as annual labour market impact assessments.

I'd also like to note some things about tackling human trafficking. UFCW Canada and AWA are implementing an advocacy campaign that aims to provide training to migrant workers coming under the temporary foreign worker program and the seasonal agricultural worker program. The tool is to prevent and stop labour exploitation and trafficking, as well as assist survivors with a holistic approach and facilitate access to legal remedies.

This concludes my remarks. I would like to thank you again for your work, and for the opportunity to be here today.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Escobar.

We'll now go to our two witnesses by video conference: Ms. Véronique Proulx and Ms. Isabelle Limoges. They are from the Manufacturiers et Exportateurs du Québec.

Go ahead, please, for seven minutes.

[Véronique Proulx, President and Chief Executive Officer, Manufacturiers et Exportateurs du Québec]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for having us.

My name is Véronique Proulx. I am President of Manufacturiers et Exportateurs du Québec, which is a part of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.

I will be presenting our brief in French today,

but I will gladly take any questions and answer in English following this presentation.

I am joined today by Isabelle Limoges, Director of Public and Governmental Affairs. Together we have over 20 years’ experience in supporting manufacturers with their various issues. I am very pleased to be here today to present our brief.

Our presentation will explain our point of view on labour supply and demand in the context of voluntary migration. We will only speak to this point, and more specifically to the situation in Quebec. I do apologize, but given the short deadline we did not have time to send you our brief; but we will send it to you afterwards, individually if need be.

Manufacturiers et Exportateurs du Québec represents 1,100 manufacturing enterprises throughout Quebec, of all sizes and from all sectors of activity, which reflects Quebec’s industrial makeup.

I will give you some context for our intervention. There are more than 23,000 manufacturers in Quebec, and 1,000 of them employ 100 people or more. They make up a network of SME manufacturers in Quebec. These enterprises employ close to 500,000 people.

In Quebec, the manufacturing sector accounts for 89% of exports, which is comparable to the rest of Canada. Our largest market is also the United States; 70% of our exports are sent to the U.S.

I want to speak to the digital transformation of enterprises. We know that in Quebec and in Canada, we are lagging behind with respect to the digital shift. It will have to happen eventually to ensure that the manufacturing sector remains competitive. I am mentioning it because the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector will have a very direct impact on the skills and competencies employers will seek in tomorrow’s workers.

What are the labour requirements of the manufacturing sector? The labour shortage has a very direct and very concrete impact on manufacturing enterprises. In the third quarter of 2018, there were 18,000 vacant positions. Of these 18,000 vacant positions, 60% required that applicants have at least completed the fifth year of secondary studies. These are low-skill positions, or, in the jargon of immigration, low-wage positions. For 40% of those positions, a CEGEP diploma was required, or more advanced studies.

What is the impact of the labour shortage in Quebec? I have met businesses that have to turn down contracts. We were in Plessisville recently. An enterprise that employs 600 people in the manufacturing sector had to refuse orders for lack of workers. Two weeks ago, on the Radio-Canada/CBC program 24/60, we heard about the case of Rotobec, which chose to settle in the United States because it could not find the necessary workers here in Quebec. Not only is it investing elsewhere, but it is doing so to the detriment of its Quebec and Canadian plant.

Once again, the labour shortage has a very concrete impact on the competitiveness and growth of the manufacturing sector.

At Manufacturiers et Exportateurs du Québec, we are working on five potential solutions with our members to resolve this shortage.

The first is immigration. It is very clear to us that immigration is a short-term solution to the labour shortage. We have to be able to receive more immigrants who meet the requirements of the labour market.

There is a second potential solution. In Montreal, there is a pool of workers who are here as a result of immigration. The unemployment rate is much higher among those who arrived in the country less than five years ago. We have to be able to let them know about the employment possibilities that exist in the regions, to connect them with employers, and integrate them in a sustainable way in the various regions of Quebec.

The third potential solution, and not the least among them, are women. Women occupy 28% of jobs in the manufacturing sector. If you exclude the administrative sector or office work, that rate is probably even lower. We have launched a national initiative called Women in Manufacturing, and its objective is to attract more women to that sector, notably in this context of labour shortage. The objective is to go from 28% to 33% of women in that sector over five years.

Young people are the fourth potential solution that deserves to be explored. They often turn their backs on the manufacturing sector, or they know little or nothing about it. It would be to our advantage to let them know more about it.

Finally, the fifth solution, and not the least of them, is automation and robotization, which would certainly allow manufacturers to increase their productivity and competitiveness, and to reduce their need for lower-skilled workers. It will also allow for the creation of more value-added positions.

After having spoken to you about these five potential solutions, let me repeat that immigration is the solution that will allow the manufacturing sector to alleviate the labour shortage. Of course, there is temporary immigration and permanent immigration.

In light of the speaking time at my disposal, I am going to speak about temporary immigration and the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, or TFWP. This program makes it possible to fill 18,000 vacant positions, 60% of these being skilled worker positions. The TFWP allows us to alleviate the labour shortage and reach full employment. It also allows enterprises that have seasonal requirements to have access to the workers they need.

In a full employment context, an employee will not choose a four- or six-month seasonal employment contract, which is very normal. An enterprise that has access to a big contract will need a certain number of workers for a year, but in a full employment context, workers will not choose to work on contract. They will choose permanent jobs. The TFWP allows employers to meet that need, particularly in Quebec.

The program is relatively complex for employers. It is cumbersome and complicated, which brings us to these four recommendations.

Our first recommendation is to eliminate the 10% threshold of low-skill, low-wage jobs per site. Let me take the example again of an enterprise that needs seasonal workers. In fact, in the appendix to our brief, you will find several examples of enterprises we documented, without naming them. That appendix provides the concrete reasons why the TFWP is useful to those enterprises, and lists the improvements that need to be made to that program. During the high season a business may need to fill 20% of low-wage, low-skill positions. However, currently the program limits that rate to 10%.

Our second recommendation is to adjust the labour market impact study mechanism—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I am sorry to interrupt you, but your speaking time has elapsed. Perhaps you could send your other recommendations to the committee?

[Véronique Proulx]

Of course.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You could also speak about them in your answers to questions.

[Véronique Proulx]

We have four recommendations and I will be pleased to discuss them with you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Ms. Proulx.

Ms. Zahid, you have the floor.