Evidence of meeting #148 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ramez Ayoub  Thérèse-De Blainville, Lib.
Daniel Mills  Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Finance, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Marta Morgan  Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Murray Rankin  Victoria, NDP
Harpreet Kochhar  Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Paul MacKinnon  Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Salma Zahid  Scarborough Centre, Lib.
Matt DeCourcey  Fredericton, Lib.
David Cashaback  Acting Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Philippe Massé  Director General, Temporary Foreign Worker Directorate, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Katie Alexander  Executive Director, Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Program Operations, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development

5:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant

You said something in your testimony, and it caught me by surprise, about the number of temporary foreign workers who had gotten permanent residency. Could you just repeat what you said? Because it was a new number and a new thing, and I just want to make sure we have it correct.

5:50 p.m.

Acting Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Cashaback

Looking at the multiple pathways that a temporary worker has to staying permanently, when we look at the number of workers who transitioned to permanent residency in 2017, it was 50,000.

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant

Okay, it's 50,000. I thought it was 15,000.

5:50 p.m.

Acting Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Cashaback

It was 50,000 who transitioned in 2017 from having whatever status they had as a temporary worker to being a permanent resident.

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant

Historically, is that unusual?

5:50 p.m.

Acting Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Cashaback

There's been a rise. I don't have the historical data. We'd be happy to provide it.

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant

I think it would be helpful for us if we had some kind of a historical picture on that, because it was news to me.

We will have Mr. Tabbara for about five minutes, and then we'll be done.

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here. I just want to read a little bit of this article that came out in the spring. It's a CTV news article. The title of it is “In Canada, labour shortage is the 'new normal'”:

Canada's small and mid-sized companies must find ways to adapt to a “new norm” of worker shortages that will likely persist for a decade, says Pierre Cleroux, chief economist for the Business Development Bank of Canada....

The BDC's survey of 1,208 people from small and medium-sized businesses, with at least $500,000 in annual sales, found 39 per cent of them were having difficulties hiring the types of new workers they required.

I just want to get into the global skills strategy. We initiated that about a year and a half ago, I believe, now. Can you tell us why we brought this initiative in? I believe in your testimony you said that we've allotted 21,000 work permits for foreign talent. Is that correct?

5:50 p.m.

Acting Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Cashaback

To come back to the 21,000, it's not an allotment; it's just the volume that we've seen since the program was introduced in June 2017. Under the banner of global skills strategy, 21,200 work permits have been approved since June 2017.

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON

I'm reading this article that talks about the labour shortages. Has the global skills strategy been successful in closing the gap on these shortages?

5:50 p.m.

Acting Director General, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

David Cashaback

It's one of the tools in the tool box. I think when we talk about temporary and permanent, the global skills strategy.... One of the reasons the GSS was put in place was to create the conditions for companies to access the top talent they need when they need it, hence the pillars of the global skills strategy: two-week processing for certain workers and dedicated service for firms and employers to attract that investment and that business to Canada

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON

You just mentioned top talent. If the global skills strategy is getting talented foreign workers to work in my region, for example in the high-tech sector, what are we doing about skilled workers in the trades? I often hear from individuals in my riding that we're really short in the skilled trades, whether electricians, millwrights, plumbers, pipe-fitters, etc. Employers are often applying through the LMIA program, but they're often seeing that it's cumbersome; it takes a lot of time.

I understand we have to advertise to ensure that Canadian workers have access to these jobs first. But if we have such a gap in the skilled trades, is there any room to refine that LMIA program to see if we can speed up skilled workers who can come into this sector so we can reduce the gap, similar to what we've seen with the global skills strategy?

5:55 p.m.

Director General, Temporary Foreign Worker Directorate, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development

Philippe Massé

One thing I didn't mention is we do have some categories that are allowed some priority 10-day processing. One is those coming under the global skills strategy, global talent. But there is priority processing for skilled trades as well, so there is a list of 20 or 30 trades—I don't know how many there are—that would be eligible for 10-day processing. They must still submit an application and it must still be reviewed, but they will be prioritized under the current policy.

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON

Can you send the committee a list of those trades? It would be very helpful for us to consider that in future meetings as well.

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant

You can take two minutes.

5:55 p.m.

Conservative

Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

I can use the last 30 seconds if you want.

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

Marwan Tabbara Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON

I'll let Nick go ahead.

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

We've all been dancing around this whole notion of labour market impact assessments being needed for industries where it's already clearly known that there is high labour market demand. Generally there is high labour market demand across all sectors, and we would ultimately prefer that Canadians get the higher-paying jobs rather than the lower-paying jobs.

I'm wondering what sorts of changes would need to be made to the rules to put more of the opportunity with employers to determine their own labour market needs and remove some of the bureaucratic and time-consuming hurdles that are preventing it. What legislative changes would we need to make to fast-track workers into the country in lower-skilled job areas?

5:55 p.m.

Director General, Temporary Foreign Worker Directorate, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development

Philippe Massé

You'd need to change the regulations to remove some of the requirements that employers must meet to be able to access the program.

The thing to remember is that the program's purpose is yes, to provide access to employers, but it also must be balanced against ensuring that Canadians have opportunities for those jobs as well. The appropriate test is ultimately the thing that Canadians will look for, ensuring that those Canadians have access to jobs.

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

It's our understanding from previous testimony that the number of jobs created per immigrant is net positive, so allowing immigrants to come in and take jobs creates more jobs. If you bring in 10, you create an extra one for a Canadian anyway.

I fail to see the logic of why we still adhere to this non-evidence-based requirement for a labour market impact assessment at all.

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant

It's a good point. No reply. I'm going to give Mr. Maguire a chance.

This may be an unfair question. Do you know what year those regs were written? It just feels to me as if they were written in a time that's not like today.

5:55 p.m.

Director General, Temporary Foreign Worker Directorate, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development

Philippe Massé

I think the basic regulations would have come in at the time IRPA was written. I don't know exactly what year that was. There were significant reforms brought to the program in 2001.

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant

In 2001, and the labour market has changed dramatically.

5:55 p.m.

Director General, Temporary Foreign Worker Directorate, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development