Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 27th, 2025

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Parton, I'm interested in discussing something with you.

As you know, Canada lags behind quite substantially in productivity in the G7, and that is a result of the lack of capital investment. You made some earlier comments about temporary foreign workers and wages that are much lower than what would normally be the case.

Have you noticed an impact on productivity since the changes to the temporary foreign worker program? What would you recommend to the government going forward for improvements for capital investment related to trades and the changes in immigration?

[Doug Parton]

That's a mouthful.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

I'm sorry.

[Doug Parton]

We have seen a lack of productivity, specifically in the field of ironwork and in the rebar sector and specific to the residential and commercial sectors, where you have your million-dollar condos being built in downtown Vancouver, Burnaby and throughout the Lower Mainland.

Of that, when the TFW reaches their permanent residence status or is lucky enough to be on an IEC visa.... I had 665 people walk through my door from October 24 to October 25. We took them out and assessed them. They were supposed to be here for the skilled worker shortage that we hear about, but when we assessed them, they couldn't even put the rebar belt together.

They've been used as—pardon me; I hope I don't offend anybody—pack mules, and it's not right. We've done a disservice to the TFW and we've undercut Canadian wages, and now I'm left with a decision of whether to keep the permanent resident and upskill them or invest in Canadians.

We're in this endless circle, and this problem is not going to be resolved overnight.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Parton.

Thank you, Mr. Davies. Yes, two minutes go by very quickly.

Mr. Fragiskatos, you have two minutes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

For the analysts who will be preparing the report, it will be very helpful if each of you could give, in one or two sentences, your main recommendation here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

We'll start with Ms. Madhany, please.

[Shamira Madhany]

We have to have a holistic approach to immigration and immigration planning. It can't be just about numbers. It has to be a systemic, thoughtful approach with coordination between the federal and provincial governments and the licensing bodies. It's really important to have a coordinated, system approach.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Next is Mr. Parton.

[Doug Parton]

Real quickly, I would say if and when the time comes that we need temporary foreign workers in the field of construction, I would say pay them accordingly and even potentially pay them higher. That way we're not going to undercut the Canadian apprenticeship system and we're going to ensure that if it is only a temporary issue we're going to solve, that the employers would take care of that. If it's truly nation building, then we're going to get the best of the best from around the world.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Mr. Copeland, you have 30 seconds.

[Peter Copeland]

I would say that we need to rebalance our system toward the promotion of social cohesion, coherent national identity and shared values. To do so, we could explicitly legislate...or through regulation, promote measures to strengthen integration, make various types of residency conditional upon meeting certain metrics, and ensure that we are linking our levels to absorptive capacity, whether that's economic, housing, social services, capacity, language acquisition or civic knowledge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much, Mr. Copeland. That's two minutes. Perfect.

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.

I want to thank the witnesses for their excellent testimony and for their great recommendations. We had two great panels today with very important testimony and great recommendations that we're going to talk about next year. Thanks, witnesses.

I'm just going to take one second for committee business.

The clerk distributed a new calendar on Monday. The clerk has written here that we have four meetings, but I think we have three meetings set up. We have one this Thursday and next Tuesday and then the last one. We've determined we will not be sitting on December 11. Do I have that?

We have next week, which is the 2nd and the 4th and then there's the 9th. We have three more sessions left, but not the last one. I hope that's okay with everyone. We will not be sitting on the 11th. Mr. Ma will be disappointed.

I think you all know this. The minister and officials will appear for two hours on December 4 on levels and supplementary estimates.

We do have panels set up for next Tuesday. Please, Conservative team, get in your witnesses ASAP today, so that we can make sure that we add a couple of your witnesses to the panels on Tuesday.

We have the minister next Thursday and then, of course, you'll give us some additional witnesses, hopefully shortly thereafter, so we could get them in for December 9, which is our last meeting.

With that, there's nothing else on our agenda.

I call this meeting adjourned.