Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

With respect to actual application to the pilot, do you know how many of the 300,000 have actually gone to the extent of putting in an application?

[Heather Coulombe]

I do not. Probably about 15% or 20% come through saying they already have their application through and they've been accepted.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Have any of them come and spoken to you? Are they in contact with you? What kind of response are you getting from them?

[Heather Coulombe]

Well, I still have 13,000 unread emails. Like, we are totally flooded. I'm running a business. Cape Breton Partnership has been trying to help me out. I actually now have ACOA contacting me, because they're looking at this as an opportunity to bring people to our area. I have a huge resource here, all these people wanting to come to Cape Breton and probably for the right reason.

I do not know about those numbers; we're still trying to get through all the email, and it's been a year. We posted the ad on August 29 last year. It went viral, but really viral. We were getting something like 10,000 emails a day. It went pretty crazy. They're from all over the world.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

That's quite remarkable. I would almost suggest that you take the list to your local member of Parliament and have them sort it out and maybe make the calls.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you very much for doing this. It's quite impressive the work you've done from where you're at. Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Mr. Maguire.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I want to say hi to Heather. I'm the member of Parliament from Brandon—Souris in southwest Manitoba. About last September 5 or 6, I happened to be driving through your community and stopped to have lunch. I met you and your father and your sister that noon hour.

Mr. Chair, I can attest that the lemon meringue pie is even better in person than it is in the video.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

As you said, you just posted at the end of August. I was there about a week later and you were already enthused about the response you'd had in the first week.

There's something to be said, from many of the witnesses we've seen in this committee, about lifestyle and about what we can do. I open this up to the others as well, and thank everyone for the presentations and for being here tonight. Some of it is how we treat people when they arrive at our doorsteps and in our communities and our businesses. Mr. Allen just indicated the work that he's done to try to attract and keep workers who have come to his shops.

You've done the same by the two acres of land for a home, basically. What an opportunity for people to get started. I'm not surprised that you got some responses, but I am surprised that you got 300,000 responses.

In your mind, how important is it? Perhaps you could elaborate on that. You indicated that you work with low wages. You offered off-grid living. You were very honest and upright with the kinds of winters we have and the Internet needs you have. Yet people are coming. Could you elaborate on how important that has been and how we can learn as a committee about being able to support that for other businesses as well?

[Heather Coulombe]

I think it's important because it shows how many people want that. Vice News came up and did a segment on us. They did a really good job. They really stressed the population decrease. Cape Breton Island has 130,000 people and we lose 1,000 a year, but we are still trying to.... I have a business here and I'm trying to keep the people who want to stay here full time, all year round.

Obviously, it's hitting a chord with people from all over the world. We really need to focus on that and try to work our immigration program around that, getting the right people there, not just people who need to come and work. That's why I stressed that people who have successful businesses in other parts of the world want to come here, but they're contacting me. Like, so many people are contacting me when they should be contacting someone a lot easier, someone who could actually help them more. It's how to get that out to everybody.

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

We've been told on this committee that capital investment attracts businesses and attracts both public and private sector funds that are needed to help create immigration and employment in those areas. If you're going to have immigration, you need to have jobs for people. In my rural communities, I know that people have been very good with bringing in refugees. They find homes, they make sure there's work, they get the kids into school, that sort of thing. But we have tax changes here now that are going to affect businesses in Canada and make it a little tougher.

You indicated that there are low wages, the off-grid, those sorts of things. I know that you're developing a very good business. I saw it and stopped, because all of a sudden there it was. I'd seen it on TV. That was the inaugural output of your site.

Can you say how these tax changes would affect you? Would it make it easier? They're looking at capital gains taxes, passive income dealings as well as the sprinkling for businesses. Your family is a fine example. Can you say whether or not you feel these would...? Certainly I don't believe they would enhance your business, but would they negatively impact you?

[Heather Coulombe]

The way we're working right now, with the sprinkling and all that, my kids are coming into that now. They do work for me. But I don't think that's going to affect me too much. The big thing I hear about is possibly doing the staff discounts on stuff. That's kind of how I subsidize my staff; you know, they get discounts. To start possibly taxing them on that, that is a concern for me.

As for the new tax changes, just because of the way we run things right now, I don't think they're going to affect me too much.

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

Thank you.

I want to turn that over to Mr. Allen and Mr. Erjavec and hear from them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I'll just remind the member to stay within the scope of this study on his questions.

Thank you.

[Luc Erjavec]

I think when you're talking about business costs, and it doesn't matter if it's taxation or fees, I guess it speaks a little bit to the processes in terms of immigration. For us as small businesses with 4% margins, we're not choosing to have to hire immigration consultants or paying $1,000 for an LMIA because we want to. It's desperation. We would rather hire Canadians. We're looking for Canadians. We're looking for underutilized pools of labour. Going this route is extremely expensive and frustrating and time-consuming, but it's the last resort, because it is expensive. Some people still use the temporary foreign worker program, but it's $1,000 a pop for an LMIA. If they send it back for some strange reason, which happens regularly, it's another $1,000, or trying to go through that process. Time is money.

Everything's about cost. We want a pathway to citizenship for immigrants. I know that the temporary foreign worker program got a bad rap, but honestly, I have to tell you that it worked well for Atlantic Canada. Someone sitting in the Philippines, or India or wherever, they've never heard of Atlantic Canada. They've heard of Calgary and Vancouver and Toronto, and they all go there.

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

It worked pretty well for southwest Manitoba as well.

[Luc Erjavec]

Yes. They go through the temporary foreign worker program. They came to Aulac or Fredericton or Cape Breton and said, “Gosh, this is a nice place. I want to raise my family here.” We have such a good relationship with the provincial immigration departments that we rolled them into the PNP and they became part of our communities and they stayed.

That's what we hope, that this program will work. It's a great program. We love it: 2,000 extra people. But make it that it's not paper. Have a portal. Have it so that you can move someone within your business. If it's a seasonal business, you have to guarantee them hours. If this restaurant's not busy, you want to switch them to the one down the street. There are so many things to do to make it better and reduce costs, and bring people to a region that's desperate for people and businesses that are desperate for employees.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for their presentations.

I am particularly interested in the notion you were suggesting of a permanent pathway to permanent residence. I'm curious, because we've heard it from other presenters as well that what people really want is for people to come and stay. Instead of even a temporary foreign workers program, would you support an immigration policy change that would actually allow for individuals to come as a permanent resident at the outset, instead of them coming as a permanent resident, being separated from their family, having to go through the process of getting LMIAs and work permits and so on, and then eventually, hopefully, landing toward a permanent residence pathway? We used to have a program for experienced skilled workers, so maybe we should take that kind of program and expand it to a whole range of different skills, medium, high, or low, to fit the needs of the different communities. Is that something that would make sense to you?

[Luc Erjavec]

Oh, absolutely. It's a pathway to citizenship. We want the people to come to our communities and work in our communities and—

[Bill Allen]

Stay.

[Luc Erjavec]

—stay in our communities. We want their families. Bill has families who have been reunited. They love it. We have a great country and a great region.