Industry Committee on June 17th, 2022

[Philip Somogyvari]

Thanks for the question.

I think that's in relation to inspections under the temporary foreign worker program. I am not privy to those details particularly, but I can undertake to get a response to the committee, if that's okay.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Mr. Masse, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have two quick questions.

The first is for the Competition Bureau. This committee had a recommendation against the Shaw takeover by Rogers. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are with regard to your position and how that might affect SMEs with less competition.

I then have a second question, please.

[Anthony Durocher]

Thank you for the question.

The Competition Bureau, after a thorough review of the transaction, brought forward an application to the Competition Tribunal to block the merger on the basis that it would lead to a substantial lessening or prevention of competition in wireless services. Of course, I think our action speaks for itself, and the matter is now before the courts.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

To go over to IRCC, with regard to individuals coming to Canada and then finding out that their skilled professional education is not qualified or is different, why do we continue to have that as a problem? Why can't we get that fixed?

For me, in my riding here, if I went out and assembled a team from our taxicab drivers and those working at variety stores, I could probably get a group that would rival the Manhattan Project group. I just want to know why people continuously arrive in Canada and find out to their shock that their qualifications and credentials do not count. How do we fix that problem?

Thanks.

[Philip Somogyvari]

Thanks, Chair.

First off, I'd just acknowledge that, yes, foreign credential recognition is an issue, and it can be a barrier for the integration of newcomers and to having newcomers working in their chosen occupations, especially in regulated occupations that represent roughly 20% of all occupations.

IRCC works really closely with the leads at Employment and Social Development Canada, and, in turn, we work with the provinces and territories—either through them or their devolved regulatory agencies that have primary oversight over regulated occupations. Having said that, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has recently taken strides to provide more, I would say, pre-arrival or pre-landing information and pathfinding to newcomers so that they're aware of what the rules are before they come to Canada and, in some cases, are able to start the pathway towards accreditation.

Then, lastly, in budget 2022, there was $115 million over five years starting in 2022 and 2023, and $30 million ongoing to expand ESDC's foreign credential recognition program and expand supports, particularly to train health professionals. Again, just to recap, it is an issue, and we're quite aware of it. We're working to resolve it with provincial and territorial partners and ESDC.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

I will now turn to MP Hallan for five minutes.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for joining us today.

I would like to direct my questions to IRCC. My first question is to follow up on what Mrs. Gray was asking.

Do we have numbers as to what percentage of capacity each processing centre in Canada is at right now with regard to employees who are working inside of those processing centres?

[Sarah Hayward]

We are working at full capacity when it comes to actual processing. All our employees are working and working hard to reduce our inventories. It doesn't matter whether they are sitting in an office, at a distance or at an overseas office. We have an integrated processing network, and we move our cases around to where we have capacity to process.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you.

Do we also have the number of employees who were laid off or fired due to the vaccine mandates?

[Sarah Hayward]

Unfortunately, I'm not privy to those types of statistics.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Is there anyone from IRCC who can provide that information in writing to the committee?

[Philip Somogyvari]

We'll undertake to look into it.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you. If the committee can have the numbers of those IRCC employees who were laid off or fired due to vaccine mandates, that would be helpful.

The reason I bring that up is that we obviously have this historic backlog of 2.4 million. It just keeps going up, and processing is a huge issue right now. What we know is that everywhere else people are getting rid of these mandates. In some cases, like Service Canada, they're not bringing back some of those employees, and training employees takes that much more time, effort and money.

Is anyone on this Zoom meeting right now able to answer how long it typically takes to train a new employee in IRCC?

[Sarah Hayward]

I can only answer in generalities, but all our decision-makers are appropriately trained on IRPA and processes. As I understand, the vaccine mandate is being lifted on June 20, and I can't speak to how many people were put on leave without pay due to that.

We are working very hard to increase our staff, using the money that was given to us to reduce inventories, and we are in a constant state of hiring and training our staff to better meet our processing demands.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I have just a quick question. With respect to the vaccine mandates prior to June 20, did those same vaccine mandates apply to processing centres that were not inside of Canada, so the ones that were abroad?

[Philip Somogyvari]

We don't have that detail. We can undertake to get that to the member.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Yes, could you please get us those numbers? Also, could you please let us know whether there were vaccine mandates and how long those took.

Also, is there a general figure on how much it costs, per employee, to train them? I'm asking these questions because if it's taking that much more time and more money to train people because of these vaccine mandates, which have obviously been proven now to be unscientific, we could catch up on some of this backlog, in my opinion.

[Sarah Hayward]

Thank you very much for the question.

Unfortunately, I do not have a specific answer regarding how much it costs to train each employee, but IRCC takes training seriously and makes sure that every employee has the proper tools and training in order to do their job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, MP Hallan. As much as I appreciate your line of questions, we have to move to our last questioner. Your time is up.

We'll move to Mr. Fillmore for five minutes.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today.

I want to go backwards to touch on a few items that have been raised and go a little bit deeper on them.

The first is the question on the limit of hours per week for foreign students. I guess I was a little disappointed to hear that there doesn't appear to be any ongoing or current discussion at IRCC about changing that 20-hour limit. There are a couple of reasons. I don't think it's the role of government to act like a parent to foreign students to protect their study time when they're largely adults and are asking, very articulately and clearly, to have those hours increased so that they can meet the growing cost of education and the cost of living. Also, in the midst of a labour crisis there are people who really need to be hiring, and hiring those students. There are job vacancies, as we've heard.

I just want to put on the record for our committee that I think it would be very appropriate for a finding of this study to include a recommendation to amend that 20-hour limit or to eliminate it entirely.

I don't know if IRCC wants to add anything to that or if I misheard. Is there currently anything going on to look at that figure?

[Philip Somogyvari]

I would say in general, given the labour shortage, which we've identified, we are looking as much as possible into facilitation measures that would balance the needs of the Canadian labour market and the ability of students to come here and actually study and to acknowledge the fact that.... One of the requirements for students to be here is that they already have the funds for their studies, but certainly, with respect to those flexibilities, there were multiple ones put into effect during COVID with respect to facilitation of international students and some of the rules around virtual study, post-graduate work eligibility and permit extensions.

With respect to the 20 hours per week that the members have mentioned, certainly such would be considered, among other facilitation measures that may be under discussion at this point, with respect to students but also with respect to other streams, including workers and non-permanent residents.

Thanks.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you very much for that.

I'm going to switch gears now to another thing that was already raised, which is the business of working from home, working remotely.

In many cities in Canada, primarily the provincial capitals, there's a large concentration of public sector employees, including federal employees, who are in part responsible for the health of the SME ecosystem in the downtowns, keeping restaurants busy, galleries open and dry cleaners going. This is evident in Ottawa and evident in my hometown of Halifax. Buildings are sitting empty, and restaurants are sitting half full.

I understand that much of the decision-making on whether or not people are asked to return to work in person is devolved to the regional director level or managerial level, but I want to hear from each of the four offices that are represented today. Is there any centralized program from the top down, not devolved to regional, to get people back—the word on the street is “bums back in seats”—to activate the SMEs?

Maybe I'll just start with IRCC. Is there anything happening centrally?