Good morning.
Thank you for the opportunity to present on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. As mentioned earlier, I am the director general. With me is Katie Alexander, who is responsible for program operations at Service Canada.
The objective of the program is to provide employers with access to foreign workers on a temporary basis when qualified Canadians or permanent residents are not available. It also aims to ensure that foreign workers are protected while in Canada.
In 2019, Employment and Social Development Canada approved approximately 120,000 positions under the program. The program has a very small footprint in the labour market in general. Less than 2% of all Canadian businesses use the program and temporary foreign workers comprise less than 1% of the Canadian labour force.
However, it is very important to certain sectors that tend to face recurring labour needs, including the agriculture and agri-food, tourism and hospitality sectors. It is also important in supporting the growth of emerging sectors, such as digital media, environmental technologies and artificial intelligence.
The global skills strategy, for example, which became permanent in 2019, seeks to streamline the process for businesses to be able to attract and retain the talent they need. To date, more than 60,000 people have come to work in Canada under this program, with many in key information technology and engineering occupations.
In seeking to address labour and skills shortages, the program also strives to balance the interests of Canadian workers and the protection of foreign workers. To ensure that Canadians continue to have the first opportunity at available jobs, employers must submit an application for a labour market impact assessment before being permitted to hire workers through the program.
Applications are reviewed to ensure the employers and job offers are genuine, and that employers have complied with program rules and applicable labour laws. Applications are assessed against a number of labour market factors to ensure that the hiring of temporary foreign workers will not have a negative impact on the Canadian labour market.
Among these factors, employers are required to demonstrate they have advertised to and recruited Canadians and permanent residents, for example, through common online platforms such as Canada's Job Bank. This includes targeted efforts to reach out to under-represented groups who may be underemployed in the labour market.
In addition, employers must certify that the hiring of foreign workers will not lead to offshoring or job losses for Canadians or permanent residents, and will not negatively affect the settlement of labour disputes.
To ensure temporary foreign workers are protected while in Canada, the program has a comprehensive compliance framework in place and continuously works to enhance the protection of vulnerable workers.
The cornerstone of the compliance regime is the authority to conduct inspections, including unannounced inspections.
When an employer fails to meet program conditions, a range of consequences can be imposed, including administrative monetary penalties ranging from $500 to a maximum of $1 million, program bans of various lengths from one to 10 years and permanent bans for egregious cases.
The government is also making greater efforts to support workers more directly. For example, the government launched the migrant worker support network pilot in British Columbia in the fall of 2018, which brings together a diverse group of stakeholders involved in the protection and support of migrant workers, including workers themselves. The goal of the network is to better support workers to understand and exercise their rights, as well as supporting employers, and understanding and meeting program conditions and requirements.
Finally, service to clients is a key priority area for the government. The program is committed to reviewing its operations to ensure that it provides eligible employers with efficient and timely access to foreign workers. Beginning in April 2018, the department experienced a significant increase in employer applications for workers, which led to the creation of an important backlog and processing delays.
To improve service delivery, the government is investing additional funds to reduce inventories and improve processing times, including $8.1 million this fiscal year, and an additional $5.1 million in each of the next two fiscal years.
The department is also investing in a new online application system that will reduce administrative burden, and also accelerate the process.
Because of these investments, the application inventory has been reduced by 38%, and processing times have decreased across all program streams since April 2019. For example, for the seasonal agricultural program, processing times fell from the peak of 17 days to 10 days in February 2020. For those applying in the low wage stream, it went from 144 days to 52 days for employers currently applying for the program.
We're hopeful that these times will continue to decline as the impact of these investments is maximized, and that it will make it easier and faster for employers to use the program to fill their shortages.
ESDC is committed to continuing to improve the program to ensure that it works for employers, workers and the Canadian economy.
I would be pleased to answer your questions.
Thank you.