Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 21st, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Good afternoon everybody. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting 24 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

The Board of Internal Economy requires that the committee adhere to the following health protocols. Please maintain a physical distance of at least two metres from others; wear a non-medical mask, unless you are seated, and preferably wear a mask at all times, including when seated; maintain proper hand hygiene by using the hand sanitizers provided in the committee room; and regularly wash your hands well with soap.

As the chair, I will enforce these measures. I thank all of you for your co-operation.

Today's meeting is webcast and is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021.

I would like to outline a few rules to follow. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You may speak in the official language of your choice. At the bottom of your screen, you may choose to hear floor audio, English or French. With the latest Zoom version, you do not need to select the corresponding language channel before speaking. The raise hand feature is on the main toolbar should you wish to speak.

I would remind all members that all comments should be addressed through the chair. When you are not speaking, your microphone should be muted. The committee clerk and I will maintain the speaking list for all members.

Before we get into today's meeting, I would like to advise you on audio issues in the committee. On April 14, the clerk distributed a letter from the honourable Judy Sgro, chair of the Liaison Committee, regarding audio issues in committee.

All committees, including ours, face the issue of witnesses appearing without proper headsets from time to time, which results in audio problems impacting our interpretation service. The committee previously agreed that every witness must have a connection test before appearing as a witness.

I have instructed the clerk to take further measures to reduce the incidents of witnesses appearing without proper headsets. The clerk will report to me before each meeting on witness preparation. The clerk will advise communications to convey the committee's requirements more effectively to all the witnesses. Members may wish to set stricter outcomes for witnesses who do not have proper headsets. I can raise this issue with the committee when we next consider committee business.

Today the committee is resuming the study of the labour market impact assessment under the temporary foreign worker program. We will be hearing from the witnesses.

Before we go to the witnesses, I wish to welcome a new member to this committee, Mr. Maninder Sidhu.

Welcome, Mr. Sidhu. We look forward to working with you.

In our first panel, we will be hearing from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada, represented by Derek Johnstone, special assistant to the national president.

We will be hearing from La Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, represented by Charles Milliard, president and chief executive officer, who is joined by Alexandre Gagnon, vice-president, employment and human capital.

Our third witness will be from L'Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l'immigration, represented by Krishna Gagné, lawyer and vice-president for economic affairs.

I would like to welcome all the witnesses, and thank them for appearing before the committee today. We look forward to hearing from you.

We will start with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada. Mr. Derek Johnstone, you have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Derek Johnstone, Special Assistant to the National President, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

On behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers, I would like to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to share our perspective today and for the work of the committee on this important subject.

Before I put forward some of our thoughts, perhaps it might be a good idea to say a few words about who we are.

The UFCW is the voice of Canada's food workers. We are one of the country's largest unions and we are very proud and privileged to represent more than a quarter of a million hard-working people across Canada. About 80% of our membership works in food-related sectors and, as we like to say, you can find UFCW members everywhere in the food chain, from field to fork. Throughout the pandemic, our members have played a central role in holding the front line by providing the food and other crucial products and services that Canadians need in their day-to-day lives.

With regard to the discussion today, I must say that the UFCW is very concerned about the exponential growth of the temporary foreign worker program in recent years. We strongly recommend a more varied approach to the labour market challenges facing particular industries, and the agri-food sector in particular.

Key to a better way forward is the expansion of federal and provincial nominee programs. At the same time, much more must be done in terms of making sure that Canadians are fully equipped to take advantage of the opportunities that exist in the labour market, and government needs to ensure that everyone is treated fairly once they are there.

With that in mind, the UFCW sees the federal government's decision to create an additional 30,000 pathway opportunities for so-called low-skilled migrants as an important step forward. However, we are concerned that this is a one-time offer and that it's more about backfilling immigration targets for the year and less about establishing citizenship pathways as a fundamental element of a reformed temporary foreign worker program.

As we've learned through our experience with the agri-food pilot, a level 4 language requirement is a major barrier to most migrants in the food sector being able to take advantage of PR opportunities. Creating more accessible pathways to citizenship is critical, but so too is the need to develop more inclusive labour markets and more inclusive policy discussions about meeting the labour challenges of core sectors.

Prior to COVID, there were roughly 1.3 million Canadians on social assistance, which represents about 7% of the total labour force. Plus, there were additional millions of Canadians who were either unemployed or underemployed. Yet from 2000 to 2017, the total percentage of Canada's GDP dedicated to active labour market programs shrunk by 77%, going from 0.39% to 0.22%. During that same period, we saw annual migrant worker usage grow by 250%, going from roughly 134,000 to 335,000.

The point is that the approach to sourcing labour has become very passive, and the LMIA process is a good example of this. To access migrants, an employer must post the vacancy to the federal Job Bank. They must also demonstrate two additional recruitment initiatives, one of which could be posting the job on their own website, but there is zero requirement for employers to engage other stakeholders.

With the demise of the federal sector council program, there is no forum in Canada for stakeholders to come together and work towards sector solutions, which is a real shame, because the UFCW, for instance, is very well positioned to help develop engagement and deliver training for a number of NOCs in migrant-reliant sectors. We represent more than 250,000 workers and their families in over 600 communities across the country. Many of our members are underemployed and looking for more standard opportunities. If employers were compelled to work with us on these issues, perhaps through the LMIA process, it could result in better outcomes that benefit, in our case, the agri-food sector as a whole.

In any event, the last thing we want as the food workers union is to see Canada become even more reliant on a temporary, precarious and vulnerable workforce, just like we now have in primary agriculture. To do so would mean less stability and security for some of Canada's most crucial sectors. Plus, if the last—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Johnstone, but your time is up. You will get an opportunity to talk further when we go into our rounds of questions.

We will now go to Mr. Milliard, representing the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec.

You will have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please proceed.

[Charles Milliard, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec]

Thank you very much.

Hello, everyone.

Madam Chair, members of Parliament, thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you the labour market impact assessments that employers must conduct when hiring temporary foreign workers.

This topic is of great interest to the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, but also to the 50,000 businesses we represent across Quebec.

Please allow me to provide a brief and necessary reminder of Quebec's unique approach to immigration. As you know, selection for permanent immigration falls under Quebec's jurisdiction. Quebec employers therefore have to deal with the duplication of numerous policies and administrative constraints. This situation is denounced by immigrants themselves, as the newspapers have recently reported. It is also denounced by employers, community organizations and immigration specialists. The delays associated with permanent immigration processes are extremely long in Quebec. It takes more than 27 months for an immigrant wishing to settle in Quebec to obtain permanent residence, while it takes six months for an immigrant wishing to settle elsewhere in Canada. This makes no sense.

These delays cause headaches for all Quebec stakeholders. A large majority of immigrants therefore turn to temporary immigration programs, such as the one we are discussing today, in order to settle quickly in Quebec and then benefit from the gateways that are the Certificat de sélection du Québec, or CSQ, and the Programme de l'expérience québécoise, or PEQ. With the exception of temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector, the temporary foreign worker program, or TFWP, is used by immigrants and employers with an eye to permanent immigration. This should be kept in mind in today's discussions.

Quebec employers must have their labour market impact assessments approved by both the provincial and federal governments before hiring a temporary foreign worker. Changes to the program in 2014 have caused a great deal of anxiety for Quebec employers. In addition, at the time these restrictions were imposed, Quebec's working age population was declining, there was a prolonged period of full employment and there were a historic number of job vacancies. It is clear that the TFWP has not kept pace with the labour needs of employers in Quebec and that major relaxations are required. Even though we are in a pandemic period, Quebec has more than 148,000 vacant positions, while only 8,800 temporary workers could be hired in 2020, again outside the agricultural sector.

Today, we want to make five recommendations. I will present them to you quickly.

Recent changes to the Programme de l'expérience québécoise, which paves the way for an application for permanent residence, require immigrants to obtain two years of work experience. This involves systematic renewal of work permits and labour market impact studies. Our first recommendation is that work permit extensions be made upon request, without additional paperwork and without the need for a new study.

In addition, employers using the TFWP are almost always the same. The vast majority have long demonstrated that they favour the local workforce and treat immigrant labour appropriately. Our second recommendation is that a trusted employer program be implemented that would allow regular and exemplary users to be exempt from the requirement to conduct labour market impact assessments.

In addition, the list of occupations eligible for streamlined processing, which is determined by the Quebec government, has grown rapidly recently. It has grown from 37 recognized occupations in 2015 to 221 in 2020. However, we note that these changes are not commensurate with the needs in Quebec. It is therefore essential to expand this list to include semi-skilled and low-skilled occupations for which there is a high demand. This is our third recommendation. These jobs are predominantly in manufacturing or services, and are largely represented among the 148,000 vacancies in Quebec that I mentioned earlier.

It should also be noted that the process in connection with the labour market impact assessment comes with other obligations, including the obligation to submit a transition plan. This requirement may seem legitimate when you look at the initial spirit of the program, but the real transition plan for Quebec employers is to be able to count on these workers in the long term. This requirement seems to us to be superfluous, and it must be reviewed. This is our fourth recommendation.

Finally, we believe that the maximum percentage of temporary foreign workers within a company should be increased to 20% for all employers, as it was in 2015 and 2016. This is our fifth and final recommendation. The problems caused by the 10% limit are widely known. You've heard about them before. The 10% cap imposes undue constraints on employers and limits the growth of many SMEs in Quebec.

As parliamentarians, you have a lot on your plate. However, if we keep in mind the objective of aligning the needs of our businesses and our desire to be a welcoming place, I am convinced that we can make the necessary changes.

I would be pleased to answer your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Milliard.

We will now go to Madam Gagné, lawyer and vice-president for economic affairs, Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l’immigration.

Madam Gagné, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please proceed.

[Krishna Gagné, Lawyer and Vice-President for Economic Affairs, Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l’immigration]

Good afternoon. Thank you for giving the Association québécoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l'immigration, or AQAADI, the opportunity to comment. We are in the field and we see that businesses have several complaints about the LMIA process. So I'm going to get to the heart of the matter.

We agree with several of the observations presented by Mr. Milliard.

First, the 10% limit on the number of temporary foreign workers that can be hired into low-wage positions does not take into account recruitment challenges. I'm talking about the regions, where I mainly practise. The labour shortage there is as acute for high-wage positions as it is for low-wage positions. This limit is detrimental to businesses, their development and job retention. Businesses are asking that this limit be raised, or even eliminated, at least for the next three years, given the unprecedented crisis that is occurring. One of the complaints from businesses is that they cannot sign new contracts because they rely heavily on foreign labour to fill low-wage positions.

This brings me to my next point, which is the 10% limit under Quebec's streamlined process.

The guidelines for calculating the 10% limit are considered inconsistent by practitioners and businesses. Let me give you an example. A welder earning $23 per hour in Quebec is in a low-wage position. However, under Quebec's streamlined process, an LMIA is required for a high-wage position. These positions do not have to be considered in the calculation of the 10% limit. An unlimited number of workers can be hired in this manner, as these positions are not included in the calculation. However, Service Canada tells us that when hiring a low-wage worker, workers who have been approved under an LMIA for a high-wage position but are currently receiving a low wage must be considered. This creates an inconsistency. As a result, the limit is greatly exceeded, while workers approved under the streamlined process are not required to be counted in the calculation.

Businesses and practitioners are calling for an end to the inclusion of temporary foreign workers in low-wage positions under the streamlined process in the calculation of the 10% limit.

Through Quebec's streamlined process, the government already recognizes that there is a labour shortage for many positions. Since this is recognized, the LMIA requirement should be waived. In this situation, the obligation to conduct an LMIA is superfluous for employers. It creates additional costs and delays when employers need employees now, not a year from now. This is when there is a shortage. This process is becoming a drag on hiring foreign workers.

In addition, the length of employment allowed under LMIAs is sometimes random. For the same position within the same company, it can be two years or three years. We cannot understand the reasoning behind the length of time that is allowed. One can take the same LMIA for the same position and get a different length of employment. So employers are asking for three years for all positions.

In addition, the processing times do not reflect current needs. As I mentioned, the needs are immediate. In many cases, employers must turn down contracts until they have hired workers. The entire LMIA process for foreign workers abroad takes about a year or more. During the pandemic, this process sometimes stretched to 14 or 15 months. These processing times do not reflect the current realities arising from labour shortages.

I also want to propose the creation of a trusted employer program, as Mr. Milliard mentioned earlier—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Madam Gagné, but your time is up. You will get an opportunity to talk further when we go into our rounds of questions.

Thanks to all the witnesses for their opening remarks. We will now start with our first round of questions of six minutes each.

Mr. Seeback, please proceed.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Chair, I didn't think it was my round, but that's okay. I will forge ahead.

For everyone on the panel today, I have certainly had experience as a former member of Parliament in a riding where there were a lot of temporary foreign workers. I repeatedly heard from employers that the LMIA process was difficult, was costly and took a long time to process. For our panellists today, what would be the biggest thing that you would suggest we could do to improve the LMIA process?

[Alexandre Gagnon, Vice-president, Employment and Human Capital, Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec]

I can begin, if I may.

There are some things that should be implemented with particular urgency, including the trusted employer program. Employers should demonstrate that they are using the program appropriately, that they have had experience with it, and that they are treating temporary foreign workers well.

There should therefore be a program to allow labour market impact studies, or LMIAs, to be suspended regardless of the position within these trusted companies, so that there is no need to require an LMIA.

Limits on the number of temporary immigrants per company should also be higher. If a priority had to be identified, it would be the establishment of such a program.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Does anybody else want to jump in on that?

[Derek Johnstone]

I would just add that I don't think it should be made easier, quite frankly. I think as long as the conversion numbers become a reality in the program, especially in the so-called low-skilled stream of the program where you have very low conversion numbers of migrants to permanent residents and Canadian citizens, I don't think a feature of the program should be making it easier to sustain and grow a system that doesn't allow people the opportunity to become Canadian.

I think when we're talking about looking at the LMIA program and reforms there, we need to be mindful of looking at the TFWP as a whole and questioning some of the fundamental objectives of the program and the impact that program is having on labour markets, especially when you have large concentrations of migrants, and what that means for domestic labour sources. To date, the barriers for low-skilled workers are immense, and until that's addressed, I don't think we can in good conscience talk about making it easier for firms to bring in vulnerable migrants.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Do you want a little more time to say what those changes are that you would make? I know you've touched on some of them.

[Derek Johnstone]

For the program overall, as I said in my opening remarks, the government's recent announcement about allowing 30,000 low-skilled migrants to achieve PR is a good first step. We need those significant numbers annually. However, we have to be realistic too. Canada's whole story is about hard-working folks coming here and having the opportunity to advance their dreams. Did they all speak level 4 English when they came here? Absolutely not. We all have stories in our families about when our ancestors or our parents came here, or about coming here ourselves. I wonder how many of them could have passed the level 4 English exam. It's probably not many.

We have to be mindful of our own narrative as Canadians, and that needs to be reflected in all programs that have a pathway to citizenship. The temporary foreign worker program is increasingly becoming the predominant gateway to this country. We can't have a system that gives preferential status to—let's face it—an elite set within the labour market and we let thousands of people every year, in some cases for 20, 30 or 40 years, be on a hamster wheel without ever having the opportunity to lay down roots and really invest themselves in this country and help build our country for the future. It needs to start there.

In terms of the LMIA, I think there's an opportunity—and we've seen this in other industrialized economies—to involve some key stakeholders, such as trade unions, in trying to fill these spots. UFCW has some leading training programs. I have no doubt that many of our members would love to work in certain sectors that are becoming reliant on migrants, but employers are not compelled to work with us. There is no doubt that employers would prefer in many cases to work with the existing TFWP than to collaborate with some other stakeholders in trying to place domestic labour sources in those roles.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I think that's it for my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes. Thank you.

We will now move to Mr. Schiefke.

Mr. Schiefke, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. Please proceed.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses, Ms. Gagné, Mr. Milliard, Mr. Johnstone and Mr. Gagnon. We are very grateful to them for being here today as part of our study.

Mr. Milliard and Mr. Gagnon, I want to begin by thanking you for the hard work you do for the 50,000 businesses in the province of Quebec that are counting on you during a very difficult time for them. You answered my first question. I wanted to ask you what can be done concretely to improve the immigration process in Canada.

I thank you very much for the five recommendations that you presented to us to improve the system. I would also like to thank you for talking about the labour shortage in Quebec and the fact that 148,000 positions are currently unfilled. It is important to mention this in the report that we will publish on ways to improve the immigration system. People don't understand the current effects of the labour shortage on businesses in Quebec.

Here are my two questions, Mr. Gagnon and Mr. Milliard. I hope you can answer us in four and a half minutes and give us some examples.

What does this lack of labour, this lack of skilled or semi-skilled workers, mean for entrepreneurs and businesses in Quebec? Can you give us concrete examples of the affected sectors?

[Charles Milliard]

I thank the member for his kind words.

Before the pandemic, the lack of labour was the main problem in Quebec. I think it was in Canada as well. That's one thing that the virus hasn't changed, and that remains the sensitive issue that nobody wants to talk about right now.

The lack of manpower will slow down the development of many regions in Quebec, because it means that we won't be able to use all the generous programs offered by the federal and provincial governments. We are talking about digital transformation, innovation and the ability to do more online, and international trade to close the gap between our productivity and that of other countries.

It's the whole fabric of the recovery that is being hurt by this labour shortage. We are having a lot of discussions with the Quebec government right now. In our opinion, the immigration thresholds set in Quebec are not the right ones. Unfortunately, the government is not going in the right direction.

Interesting announcements have been made by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, but entrepreneurs are caught in the crossfire of the political debate, which is not a success factor for the recovery.

I will let Mr. Gagnon continue on this topic, as he is our expert on labour.

[Alexandre Gagnon]

Thank you.

Workforce issues are obviously very consuming, particularly in the areas of health and education, which are under provincial jurisdiction. Currently, in the health care community, for every 10 people retiring, only three are available to fill those positions. In this pandemic year, the aging of the population continues. We won't even be able to replace every other employee who retires. That's very unusual.

This is happening not only in education, but also elsewhere, such as in manufacturing. There, too, there are many vacancies. These are positions that are not necessarily considered to require special qualifications or higher education. By the same token, they present additional barriers, in terms of temporary immigration, in terms of filling those positions and attracting those workers.

We were talking about expanding the list of positions leading to streamlined processing, i.e., employment positions exempt from the LMIA. It is critical that manufacturing companies be able to access this workforce. This should be one of your priorities right now.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you.

Every week, I speak with entrepreneurs in my riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges. They always tell me the same thing: they say that they need workers, that they are short of manpower, that they cannot continue like this and that something must change.

Once again, I thank you very much for the work you are doing to help Quebec entrepreneurs. I also thank you for being with us today.

Madam Chair, I'm done with my questioning.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Schiefke.

We'll now proceed to Madam Normandin.

You will have six minutes for your round of questions. Please proceed.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank the panel of high quality witnesses that we have with us today. We could easily spend two hours with them, and there would be more to discuss. A lot of things have been covered in their opening remarks. I will try to address other topics or ask them for clarification on what they have already announced.

To get things going, I have a question for Mr. Milliard and Ms. Gagné.

Mr. Milliard and Ms. Gagné, is it accurate to say that while unemployment is currently high, there is a labour shortage? Although it may seem paradoxical, is it possible that these two realities coexist?

[Krishna Gagné]

I will answer part of your question.

It's entirely possible, because the fact that there is a labour shortage, which is mostly caused by the pandemic, does not create more jobs or skill requirements. For example, companies that needed welders don't have more welders because people are out of work. These people are not qualified for this type of position, but they are probably qualified for positions where there is less of a shortage of workers. I can't comment on that.

In summary, the fact that there are more unemployed people does not make these people available and qualified for positions where there is a critical labour shortage.

[Charles Milliard]

I agree with Ms. Gagné. In Quebec, the unemployment rate is somewhat enviable right now. Just because people are looking for a job doesn't mean the right job is available. The needs of the employer and the position that the unemployed person is looking for do not necessarily meet. They are two rather different issues.

Mr. Gagnon, do you have any other comments on this topic?

[Alexandre Gagnon]

Yes.

I will be brief so as not to take up all your time, Ms. Normandin.

Unemployment is sectoral. We are talking about unemployment in tourism, in restaurants and in the hotel industry. Those sectors are particularly hard hit. The majority of other sectors have surpassed their pre-pandemic employment threshold.

As Mr. Milliard said earlier, we have reached an all-time record of 148,500 vacant positions in Quebec. So the labour shortage is very prevalent and will persist for many years to come.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

In this regard, the government has issued policy directives to consider unemployment at a uniform rate of 6% across Canada's administrative regions, even though that is not necessarily representative of what is happening in each region. As a result, LMIAs are no longer being conducted for certain types of jobs because the unemployment rate is considered to be too high.

Is that something we should potentially abolish because there is, despite everything, a labour shortage, regardless of the unemployment rate?