Good afternoon.
My name is Kathy Megyery. I am joined by Alexandre Gagnon and Michel Cournoyer.
The Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, or FCCQ, was founded in 1909. It is at one and the same time a federation of boards of trade and a provincial board of trade. Thanks to its vast network of close to 130 boards of trade and its 1,100 member enterprises, the FCCQ represents over 50,000 enterprises that are active in all sectors of the economy throughout Quebec.
Firstly, the FCCQ has for many years been in favour of increasing the level of immigration in Canada. Canada’s demographic context—and this is even truer in Quebec—forces us to count increasingly on strong and well-integrated immigration.
Our population is aging and will be leaving the workforce in droves over the next few years. In Quebec alone, 30% of workers will be reaching retirement age over the next 10 years. This situation is worrying in light of the fact that in the third quarter of 2018, there were more than 118,000 vacant positions in Quebec. That fact forces us to innovate and change the way we do things, and immigration has to be part of that solution.
Since Quebec makes the selections where permanent economic immigration is concerned, we will not discuss this in our brief speaking time, although we are quite open to any questions you may have on the topic. We will thus speak specifically about temporary immigration.
On June 20, 2014, the federal government overhauled the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. The new provisions aimed to severely limit the use of temporary foreign workers, and they were effective. In Canada, the number of temporary foreign workers, aside from those working in agriculture and as family caregivers, went from 800,000 in 2013 to only 29,000 in 2017. As the need for new workers keeps increasing significantly, employers are very concerned by this trend. In Quebec, there are approximately 7,500 temporary foreign workers and close to 120,000 vacant positions. Those figures speak for themselves.
Current labour requirements are not limited to skilled labour. Given the lack of candidates, many employers in the manufacturing and service sectors must hire temporary foreign workers to fill their vacant positions.
Despite certain changes made in the wake of the report tabled by this committee, the program does not make it easy to fill vacant positions. Consequently, we recommend that substantial changes be made to the program.
The administrative burden placed on applicants is demanding and costly. We recommend that costs be largely reimbursed when an application is denied. We also ask that there be a more rational process put in place to examine applications, so as to avoid rejections due to minor points and administrative errors. Application processing times should be greatly reduced and more predictable.
The Global Talent Stream should be broadened, since it makes it possible to meet the needs of certain specific sectors. Let me reiterate that we need to shorten processing times, particularly as concerns labour market impact studies.
The acknowledgment of local shortages of low-wage workers is currently too restrictive. The reference regions sometimes cover vast geographical areas, and it is unrealistic to expect that someone will travel over 50 kilometres to take a low-wage job.
Of course, we have many other recommendations, notably as to the use of the National Occupational Classification, inspection methods, and the necessary broadening of the list of occupations so that semi-specialized or low-skill occupations can be processed more simply.
However, we do want to draw your attention to the urgent need to abolish the limit on the rate of temporary foreign workers within an organization at a time when labour requirements are at an all-time high and will remain so.
Thank you.