Evidence of meeting #28 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was workers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Leif-Erik Aune
Eric Dubé  Chief Executive Officer, Toundra Greenhouses
Casey Vander Ploeg  Vice-President, National Cattle Feeders' Association
Jolayne Farn  Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association
Sheri Somerville  Chief Executive Officer, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce
Brandon Ellis  Senior Manager, Policy, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Schiefke Liberal Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC

Thank you all.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid

We will now proceed to Madam Normandin.

Madam Normandin, you can please start. You will have six minutes.

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

My thanks to all the witnesses for their presentations.

My questions go to anyone who would like to answer. The first also goes to Mr. Dubé.

I would like you to tell me about a myth we often hear, that foreign workers are often cheap labour. You might say that it's something we hear even more often in connection with agriculture.

Mr. Dubé, I have spoken to my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, who has helped with the arrival of some very qualified foreign workers, from the Netherlands, if I recall correctly. I know that there's a lot of very qualified labour. So I would like your comments on the quality of the labour.

Mr. Vander Ploeg, you also said that you are not looking for underqualified workers, but qualified workers. Can you comment on that?

4:30 p.m.

Vice-President, National Cattle Feeders' Association

Casey Vander Ploeg

I'll elaborate very quickly for you. Thank you for that question.

Across the country, governments have been raising minimum wages. I remember receiving a call from a reporter about the situation in Alberta and whether we were concerned about that. My answer was that we were not concerned about that at all, because cattle feeders pay way above and beyond minimum wage. It is a true living wage, and there are opportunities to be promoted and move up within an operation.

Jolayne is very familiar with Cristo, who came in as a foreign worker from Mexico and is now in a supervisory managerial role in one of the largest cattle-feeding operations in the country. It's a tremendous success story.

Jolayne, do you have anything that you would add on the wage side?

4:30 p.m.

Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association

Jolayne Farn

Every one of our temporary foreign workers who has come in has excelled and is surpassing...and has very much increased wages. I would not say that they are cheap labour in regard to that.

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you very much.

You also said that it is sometimes difficult to make your needs clearly understood, with Service Canada specifically. You often have to turn to members of Parliament to obtain information.

Would a dedicated phone line, specifically to answer your questions, be of any use to you?

4:30 p.m.

Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association

Jolayne Farn

That service would be incredibly helpful—very helpful

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Along the same lines, would it be more useful to have the support of agents with access to your workers' files, rather than office staff giving out general information?

4:30 p.m.

Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association

Jolayne Farn

Yes. That would be very helpful. They would know and would understand how the entire process works.

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Does anyone from the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce want to comment on that?

4:30 p.m.

Senior Manager, Policy, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce

Brandon Ellis

We would agree.

If there's one area of government that we would recommend expanding, we would recommend expanding the resources in Citizenship and Immigration. I think that would be a fantastic idea.

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you very much.

4:30 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce

Sheri Somerville

If I may add to that, with concierge services like a dedicated phone line, if you look at what Nova Scotia did in their office of regulatory efficiency, ORASE, they developed that one-stop shop where businesses can go to one person and then government deals behind the scenes with everything it needs to do to get the right response for people.

That is incredibly helpful to businesses. The time that you have to call around or find information is time well spent to get you where you want to go, but it's time that's needed.

4:35 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you very much.

This is for the National Cattle Feeders' Association. You were talking about financial support during the crisis. We know that the amount being provided is up to $1,500 and it will go to $750, starting on June 15.

Is that amount sufficient in the current crisis?

4:35 p.m.

Vice-President, National Cattle Feeders' Association

Casey Vander Ploeg

I'd ask Jolayne about that.

4:35 p.m.

Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association

Jolayne Farn

I would say no. It's not enough support.

4:35 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you.

I would like to hear what you have to say about an issue parallel to the one involving temporary workers: animal welfare.

Does predictability in terms of the temporary workers, meaning always having a good complement of employees, help with animal welfare?

4:35 p.m.

Human Resources Manager, Van Raay Paskal Farm Ltd., National Cattle Feeders' Association

Jolayne Farn

Absolutely, yes, because animal welfare is huge. You want to give them the best life that you can while they're here, and you need the people to do that. It's a 24-7 business. They need to ensure that they are fed and watered, and especially that they're treated. If they have lameness or a disease, they have to be treated. We want to keep them alive.

Yes, we need these people to ensure that the animal welfare is there.

4:35 p.m.

Bloc

Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC

Thank you very much.

As I do not have much time left, I would like to ask a question that I may go back to. It is about the duration and predictability of work permits and labour market impact assessments.

I would like to know whether the same workers always come back to the same employers. This would be a justification for extending work permits and labour market impact assessments, given that, year after year, the positions to be filled are the same.

I don't think I will have the time to hear the answer, Madam Chair, but I will come back to it on my next round.

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid

Your time is up. You can go again in the second round.

We will now proceed to Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan, you will have six minutes for your round of questioning. You can please proceed.

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I was particularly intrigued by the comment that what the IRCC needs to do is to really have a stream for, perhaps, lower skills or different skills for permanent residents, immigrants coming to Canada. Then also it needs to particularly target those who are seasonal so that we can actually have a wider range of PR application processes and better management of the needs today.

Canada used to have an immigration stream that targeted the full range of labour skills—high, medium and low—but right now our system is primarily targeting the highly skilled level. Would you support Canada's bringing back an immigration stream that targets the full range? I suspect there are a lot of people who actually want to work in different fields as well and would want to get permanent resident status here in Canada.

I wonder if any of the witnesses want to comment on that.

4:35 p.m.

Vice-President, National Cattle Feeders' Association

Casey Vander Ploeg

I think that is a very important question and a very important comment.

We think—and we've long thought about this too—that we need a long-term, enduring solution for this issue. This is just the first nip of the ringer. Baby-boomer retirements are happening. We think that there is going to be increased pressure to grow the Canadian labour force.

One of our recommendations to government is to secure a long-term solution by establishing an economic immigrant stream within the immigration system that meets Canada's diverse and multi-faceted labour needs—whatever those jobs are—and by, as a way to move forward with that, resurrecting the concept of employer sponsorship of immigrants.

That's how my parents came to this country. My dad was an electrician, but he came in as a farm worker because Canada needed farm workers and my father needed Canada. It was an awesome match.

We think that there are certainly some lessons to be learned from how we managed this in the past.

4:40 p.m.

Senior Manager, Policy, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce

Brandon Ellis

We would just simply say that there are areas for all skills in Atlantic Canada and in Canada as a whole. There's room for everyone.

As I mentioned earlier, in the Tim Hortons in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, 37 of the 40 workers they are employing there are immigrants. They are newcomers to our country. The Labradorian population is now 1.2% Filipino. They are doing wonderful things up in Labrador for international recruitment and immigration. We need skills across the board to come to our country and to build it.

May 5th, 2021 / 4:40 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Thank you very much indeed for that. I would agree. Actually, I think it would benefit Canada in every sense of the word to have the full range of skill sets by way of an immigration stream to come to Canada.

I want to turn to the new announcement that the government made on the 90,000 TFW PR stream. The details of that program are going to be announced tomorrow, and already we know that there are going to be problems with it.

It's going to be first-come, first-served, as I understand it, and people have to have language testing. There's a backlog of people trying to get that language requirement met, amongst other things. In the face of this, I'm quite worried about how this is going to unfold down the road.

What do you think the government should do to address this current announcement to make the program better?

The other issue that I know some workers have already indicated is that they don't have access to the technology to make that application, because they are out on a farm or in a place where they don't have good broadband. If it's first-come, first-served, they may actually miss out.

Are you hearing any of those kinds of concerns from your workers or from an employer's perspective?

4:40 p.m.

Vice-President, National Cattle Feeders' Association

Casey Vander Ploeg

Go ahead, Jolayne.