First, I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for giving me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Maria Esel Panlaqui, manager of community development and special projects of TNO, or The Neighbourhood Organization.
TNO is a community-based multi-service agency that has been providing a wide range of community services since 1985, specifically to newcomers to Canada. We are a non-profit registered charity funded through generous donations, government grants, foundation support and corporate partnerships. Our programs, services and activities support low-income, marginalized and newcomer communities across Toronto in more than 50 languages at no cost.
One of the unique programs that we offer at TNO is specifically around providing services and supporting the caregivers under the former live-in caregiver program and those under the new pathways. In addition to in-house settlement services offered at the TNO main office, we also offer them English classes in partnership with the Labour Education Centre, and workshops and information sessions every Saturday at TNO's 1 Leaside Park Drive office.
We also provide weekend itinerant services at the Juana Tejada Lounge, which is at Our Lady of Assumption Church, which is the Filipino chaplaincy office and also provides evening phone services. TNO has demonstrated its commitment in breaking down barriers to improve service provision and to fill the service gaps by adapting innovative approaches to respond to the unique and complex needs of these workers.
Because of our extended and flexible hours of service and greater scope of support services, TNO has become one of the primary points of contact of caregivers and other migrant workers arriving from the Philippines. For the past many years, we have been seeing workers who are victims of illegal recruitment and fraud and exploitation by either recruiters or sometimes immigration consultants and their employers.
As we all know, newcomers with precarious immigration status are more vulnerable to being taken advantage of. These workers are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse largely stemming from the temporary nature of their immigration status as temporary foreign workers. These workers have claimed to have paid their agents tens of thousands of dollars and were released upon arrival or discovered upon arrival in Canada the job was never real.
Most of them are hesitant to file a complaint for unfair treatment to the regulatory body or report fraud to authorities for fear of deportation. Many are suffering in silence. All these things are nothing new to all of us. Abuse and exploitation of these workers has been allowed to become normalized within the immigration system.
The current regulatory body, ICCRC, which is the national regulatory body to oversee regulated Canadian immigration professionals, is not effective in addressing and solving these concerns. We've been continuously seeing recruiters and immigration consultants treat clients and workers and get away with exploiting them.
The new proposed regulatory body is supposed to make it tougher for consultants to rip off clients but we would like to share some of the concerns we have in our recommendations.
First, we have concerns about whether there are provisions in the new legislation to protect victims of fraud and exploitation who come forward to seek help from potentially being deported. How do we ensure that the complaint process and hearing won't be turned around and used against the victims?
IRCC should give special consideration to those workers affected and not penalize them through outright refusal of their immigration application. IRCC should also not blame and punish the victims but ensure that the immigration consultants and recruiters who abused these workers are prosecuted.
A holistic approach in dealing with the victims is also recommended. These are workers who are traumatized and forced to tell their stories over and over. The hearing process is traumatizing itself. Workers should have access to counselling and other support services needed to get them going.
IRCC should also provide regulations for migrant workers who have lost their status or are forced to work without status because of these fraudulent activities or recruitment.
Although most caregivers and their advocates welcome the decision of the federal government to allow open work permits for caregivers and the interim pathway, many still worry about those workers who will be left behind because they don't meet the language and education eligibility requirements to complete their PR application. The vulnerability of these workers is further exacerbated by these additional eligibility requirements.
Most of the workers facing challenges with their immigration status because of fraudulent recruiters or immigration consultants are being referred to various community legal clinics. The availability of legal clinic services in Ontario, as we all know, is currently uncertain after the cuts. That might put these workers in further vulnerable situations.
In the case of other migrant workers, the restricted work permits have also contributed to workers not formalizing their complaints because of fear of deportation. We strongly believe that this precarious immigration status is among the major causes of vulnerability of these workers. It allows recruiters, immigration consultants and employers to abuse them. The policies and labour migration laws in Canada, which are leaning to temporary migration, have contributed to the exploitative nature of the immigration process—from recruitment to actual renewal of work permits, other immigration-related applications and actual work practices.
We would like to recommend that “landed” status be provided to all foreign workers and they be allowed to enter Canada with their families. We would also like to recommend that IRCC extend eligibility for settlement services to people who are living in Canada on a temporary permit. This may include language classes and support for completing and renewing immigration applications. Migrant workers should be required, within a few months of their arrival, to meet with a non-profit organization, informal support groups and networks.
I would also like to mention that the impact of section 91 of the IRPA on settlement agencies is actually what prevents front-line workers from helping caregivers renew their immigration papers and complete basic paperwork. As a result, more caregivers—