Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 21st, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 37 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: Maintain a physical distance of at least two metres from others; wear a non-medical mask unless 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 and I thank you all for your co-operation.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House Order of January 25. I would also 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 or English or French. The “raise-hand” feature is on the main toolbar should you wish to speak.

I remind everyone 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 a speaking list for all members.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, May 26, the committee is resuming its study of the economic imperative and long-term importance for small rural municipalities outside of major cities to retain new immigrants.

I would like to welcome all the witnesses appearing before the committee.

First of all, I'm sorry for the delay. This has been happening especially during the last few days with so many votes. Votes will be happening very soon, whatever time the bells start ringing. I will update you when they do. There might be another vote at 5 as scheduled. Therefore, I just want to inform all members that I suggest that we hear from all six of the witnesses who are scheduled for today for the first and second panels. We will give them five minutes each, and after that we can go into rounds of questioning based on the time we have.

I didn't want to cancel this again because I know that some of the witnesses who are appearing were cancelled once before because of votes.

Is it the will of the committee that we proceed in this way to hear from all of the witnesses and then go into rounds of questioning?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Proceed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay. I see no objections. That is good.

Today we will be hearing from witnesses. Community Futures Central Kootenay is represented by Andrea Wilkey, executive director, and Erin Rooney, rural and northern immigration pilot manager. The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change is represented by Syed Hussan, executive director. Appearing as an individual, Agop Evereklian is a business development and international relations adviser.

The other witnesses are the Canadian Chamber of Commerce represented by Leah Nord, senior director, workforce strategies and inclusive growth; Tareq Hadhad, owner and chief executive officer of Peace by Chocolate Inc., and, as an individual, Joel Blit, professor of economics, University of Waterloo.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for appearing before the committee today to provide important testimony. All of you will be given five minutes for your opening remarks. We will hear from all six of you and then we will go into rounds of questioning.

We will start with Community Futures Central Kootenay. Andrea Wilkey, please proceed. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Andrea Wilkey, Executive Director, Community Futures Central Kootenay]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Can everybody hear me okay?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes.

[Andrea Wilkey]

Community Futures Central Kootenay receives its core funding through Western Economic Diversification and has been supporting small businesses to be successful and our rural region to be economically healthy for close to 35 years.

The West Kootenay communities of Castlegar, Nelson, Trail and Rossland, which I am here representing today, are located in the southeast corner of the province of B.C., and we have very interconnected economies. Frequently, residents work in one community and live in another.

Like many rural regions, the West Kootenay region faces economic and demographic challenges, including out-migration of youth, aging populations and labour market shortages. This makes it difficult for small business owners to meet their labour market needs, which in turn hinders economic growth. This labour shortage has intensified as a result of the pandemic.

The B.C. “Labour Market Outlook” projects close to 20,000 new positions opening in the Kootenays by 2028 due to retiring workers, with another 4,400 anticipated through economic growth. As such, it's crucial that West Kootenay communities have access to a skilled workforce for our businesses to be competitive. Labour force replacement ratios for our region range from 0.5 to 0.75, and a ratio of less than 1 means that an area is unable to maintain the current labour force with local replacement workers.

Business retention and expansion research conducted in partnership with Selkirk College's Applied Research and Innovation Centre has identified that the majority of our employers state that access to a skilled workforce is their biggest barrier to growth. In order to be competitive in the global economy, West Kootenay employers require highly skilled workers in a range of industries, including mining, metallurgy, forestry, manufacturing, health care, transportation, construction, education and technology, as well as entry-level employees in fields like retail, tourism, accommodation and food services.

Our region relies on immigrants to meet labour market demand, and we are very happy to be one of 11 communities across Canada that has been part of the rural and northern immigration pilot. In order to create capacity to implement this pilot, we have secured two separate grants, without which the pilot would not be the success it has been to date. With the funding from those grants, we were able to engage Erin Rooney as our West Kootenay rural and northern immigration pilot regional coordinator, who is going to tell you a bit about how it has gone.

[Erin Rooney, Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot Manager, Community Futures Central Kootenay]

Thank you, Andrea.

Since May 2020, we've had 77 West Kootenay employers use RNIP to retain existing employees or attract new employees. Some employers have used RNIP multiple times. Our community steering committee has recommended 129 primary applicants since May 2020 for permanent residency, and that total rises to 198 people when we include the spouses and children of the primary applicants.

The primary jobs that are receiving RNIP recommendations in 2020 are registered health care aides, transport truck drivers, early child care educators, community support workers, carpenters and welders.

Our first overseas applicant and his family arrived from Austria in early June 2021. He started working as a structural metal and plate fabricator at Traditional Timber Framing Company, located just outside of Nelson. We look forward to continuing to retain and recruit skilled employees and their families to the West Kootenay region over the balance of the pilot, which continues until December of 2022.

We would like to recommend that the Government of Canada extend the rural and northern immigration pilot, as well as provide funding for the implementation of the pilot.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thanks a lot.

We will now proceed to the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and Syed Hussan, the executive director.

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

[Syed Hussan, Executive Director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change]

Thank you.

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today on behalf of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, which serves as the secretariat for the Migrant Rights Network, Canada's only national migrant-led coalition. Cumulatively, Migrant Rights Network member organizations are directly connected to thousands of farmer workers, care workers, international students, refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented residents.

The IRCC deputy minister provided evidence to this committee that only 41 individuals have been selected since 2019 through the rural immigration nominee program. Similarly, the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission stated that it put forward 69 applications last year. These numbers are minuscule. They do not fully represent the reality of immigration in rural communities, which is primarily temporary, not permanent.

Consider again Thunder Bay. In 2018, the last year for which statistics are available, there were 2,725 study permits and an additional 300 temporary work permits issued in just that year. This is true across the country. Each year there are more than twice as many temporary permits as permanent resident visas. The total number of temporary and undocumented residents in Canada today exceeds 1.6 million people. Without permanent resident status, migrants do not have the same rights or protections to access essential services as other residents. This is a policy choice that costs lives and livelihoods and derails any hope of building integrated, strong and growing local communities.

One of the largest groups of migrants in rural communities is agricultural and food processing workers. In the interests of time, I echo the evidence provided by Justicia for Migrant Workers in the previous session. I want to read into the record the names we know of some of the 13 migrant farm workers who have died in Canada just this year, seven of them in federally regulated quarantine: Logan Grant, Victor Paz-Lozoya, Roberto Jacob Baca Gomez, Jose Antonio Coronado, Romario Morgan, Fausto Ramirez Plazas, Aneish Dalbarry and Efren Reyes. These deaths are the result of unequal access to rights and protections, which was dictated by a system of temporary migration.

The majority of migrants are workers, even those on study permits. They pay rent and taxes and add significantly to the economic and social fabric of rural communities and small municipalities. The only way to ensure that they continue to contribute and have equal rights is to ensure permanent resident status for all.

Deputy Minister Tapley also spoke in glowing terms about the role of employers in rural and provincial nominee programs, particularly the Atlantic immigration pilot. This does not reflect the experiences of migrants. I'll give you just one example from Prince Edward Island. Two years ago, a father and son, both migrant agricultural workers, were nominated by their employer—the father in the first year and the son in the second. The father, upon completion of his PR application, made a Ministry of Labour complaint for thousands of dollars in unpaid wages from that same employer. The employer rescinded his son's nomination. The father withdrew the Ministry of Labour complaint, but the employer refused to nominate the son again. His work permit expired soon afterwards and he was forced to leave the country.

This not an aberration. Immigration pilot programs require full-time job offers from employers. That often engenders exploitation and abuse. Workers are forced to compete with each other with promises that the person who works the hardest and the longest hours will be sponsored. Job offer requirements allow employers to dangle the possibility of stability, decent work and family reunification over migrants like a carrot that is really a stick. Many migrants are forced to accept even further exploitation with the promise of a job offer that may not even materialize. Pilot programs such as these are putting significant and unchecked powers in the hands of employers without any oversight or recourse to appeals or justice for migrants.

Another significant issue in these programs is the language test requirements that exclude non-English or non-French speakers. Many migrants, particularly from Spanish-speaking countries, have been living, working and contributing to rural communities for years without needing the English or French level that is required in these programs. The barriers to integration for migrants in rural areas are created by their lack of access to permanent residency, not by their language level or work prospects.

The year 2020 has shown us the incredible centrality of migrant work to our economy and society. Ensuring that all migrant and undocumented people have the ability to protect themselves and assert their rights is necessary. This is only possible with permanent resident status on arrival and for all. Such programs must not be tied to employers and must not require language testing.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Hussan.

We will now hear from Mr. Agop Evereklian, business development and international relations adviser.

Mr. Evereklian, please start. You have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Agop Evereklian, Business Development and International Relations Advisor, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice-President, Madame la vice-présidente, honourable members of the committee and ladies and gentlemen.

My notes will be in French, but I will be more than happy to take the questions in both official languages in the QP session.

Thank you for the invitation to appear this afternoon before this standing committee as it considers one of the most important issues ensuring the future of our country and the economic development of our regions. It is with great humility that I've accepted this honour to come and share with you, in a personal capacity, my vision of the future on what I believe should be a priority for our public decision-makers to ensure the socio-economic sustainability of our regions. My vision is based on a new approach that would consist of attracting new immigrants in a category, succession of existing businesses, that is all new but not, in itself, a new concept.

As a young immigrant myself who arrived in Canada 45 years ago this year, I have been privileged to live, grow and thrive in one of the best countries in the world after fleeing civil war. In recognition of this second chance that life has given me and in gratitude to my host society, I joined the public service at a young age. I've had the honour and privilege of serving under three Canadian prime ministers from 1993 to 2010, including two immigration ministers as their chief of staff. That experience, coupled with my professional background in the private sector and my recent role as executive vice-president of the Centre de transfert d'entreprise du Québec, CTEQ, have allowed me to see first-hand the strengths and gaps of our Canadian economic immigration programs.

I'm appearing before the honourable committee today to submit an idea based on established facts and to propose an innovative solution to an issue that is of great concern to our society, especially our remote regions, in terms of our country's economic development. I'd like to talk to you about business succession as a new economic vector to attract future Canadian immigrants to our regions so they can contribute directly to the economic development of these regions and to the underlying entrepreneurial communities. Therefore, we must review our immigration programs to promote SME succession via acquisition by immigrants, as well as integrate and help those immigrants to settle in our regions.

As you've already seen these next few points in my summary brief, I will simply name them for you. I'd like to look into the demographic context in Canada, Japan's experience that could serve as an example for Canada, the context of the pandemic and its impact and, of course, I'd like to make a recommendation to you: through this committee, the Government of Canada should implement a new visa program, the entrepreneurial acquisition visa, to encourage business succession and the integration of entrepreneur immigrants in our regions. This visa program could be managed jointly by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and an organization whose mission and activities are similar to those of the CTEQ. I therefore humbly propose to the government, with the support of the CTEQ, a concrete solution to promote economic immigration so that investors can come and settle in Canada, live here and contribute in a concrete and direct way, unlike some who do so only to obtain a Canadian passport.

It's therefore essential that our immigration strategies refer to public policy and initiatives that support business succession, and it's all to ensure that we can maintain and develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Canada's regions, as is already being done in Quebec.

Implementing a program like the entrepreneurial acquisition visa would make the succession market more fluid and increase the number of qualified takers, given the growing challenge of our aging population, which also affects the business community. What's more, the entrepreneurial acquisition visa will appeal to many skilled immigrants and encourage them to set up shop in one of Canada's regions and, in doing so, contribute to our economic development.

Thank you for your attention. I sincerely appreciate the invitation, and I remain at your service to work with your committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thanks for your opening remarks.

We will now proceed to hear from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Leah Nord, senior director, workforce strategies and inclusive growth, will be giving her opening remarks.

Ms. Nord, you can please start. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Leah Nord, Senior Director, Workforce Strategies and Inclusive Growth, Canadian Chamber of Commerce]

Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, vice-chairs and committee members. I'm speaking today from Ottawa, the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which represents 200,000 businesses across the country, across sectors and across sizes, with a network from coast to coast to coast of over 450 local chambers and boards of trade.

Immigrants play an important role in the inclusive growth and diversity of Canadian workforces in communities. The Canadian Chamber has a series of recommendations that promote innovative and effective policies and programming to support new Canadians with labour market and community integration.

In regard to labour markets, and as we start to consider Canada's recovery post pandemic, the Canadian Chamber believes that what is critical is demand-side labour market analysis for immigration planning levels. I can say more about that in the question and answer period.

Further, we appreciate and fully support the need to accept permanent residents under the family and humanitarian classes. Having said this, we recommend, as we did prior to the crisis, that there be a concerted focus on the economic class of immigration. For all, regardless of entry classification, it is imperative to focus on labour market integration, as this sets new Canadians, their families and their chosen communities up for success from the outset.

Committee members, hope is quite simply—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Nord. I have stopped the clock.

I want to inform all the members that the bells have started ringing for the votes.

Do I have the unanimous consent to proceed for another 20 minutes? It's a 30-minute bell, so we will suspend the meeting 10 minutes before that.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

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

Yes. Go ahead, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Seeing no opposition....

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Sorry, Madam Chair, but I think it's a 15-minute bell. I have a simultaneous—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Clerk, can you clarify?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Leif-Erik Aune]

Yes, Madam Chair.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

It's not even 15 minutes. As long as the whip shows up, that's it.

Ms. Kwan is perfectly right.

[The Clerk]

Yes. It was 30 minutes on the website. They've just corrected it.

Thank you, Ms. Kwan. It's 13 minutes and 39 seconds and counting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Would the members like to proceed and finish with Ms. Nord?

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

Yes, please, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay.

Ms. Nord, you can please go ahead.