My name is Jessica Smith. I'm here before you as a member of Unifor Local 4606, where I represent 1,300 members in the health care sector, predominantly in long-term care. Unifor also represents 30,000 members in Atlantic Canada and 310,000 across the country.
I came to Canada as a temporary foreign worker. I moved here from the United States because, as a country, Canada more closely mirrors my beliefs and ideals, with our universal health care, labour relations, and environmental concerns. All of these things are at risk from the TPP, but what I'm here to talk about specifically is how the TPP relates to being a temporary foreign worker.
It's a stressful time of uncertainty when you work this way. I've heard it called “modern slavery” many times, including by our own media. When you work as a temporary foreign worker, the company that has hired you and paid for your labour market impact assessment controls your future. We tend to be very subservient, and I use “we” because I am past this part of my history, but it's something that's not forgotten. If we rock the boat and our employment is terminated, so is our ability to remain in Canada. It's because of this that we do things for our employers that our Canadian counterparts would speak against. We tend to be moved around our job sites more. We're asked to work overtime more frequently. We work more when short-staffed and even when we're sick for fear of losing our jobs and, in turn, our Canadian future.
Immigration is an important key to the diversity of our nation, and diversity is a huge strength. When developing trade agreements, labour must be a key factor in these talks. Job security is economic security. As economic globalization occurs, we need to progressively look at what this means to our workforces and how we can actively work to get these trade deals to bring all people into the deal while lessening the economic divide that continues to grow apart.
Free trade deals, especially the TPP, actively work to widen that divide. Chapter 12 of the TPP, which the U.S. opted out of, specifically gives rights to the multinational corporations that allow them to completely circumvent Canada's immigration laws. It completely negates the labour market impact assessment, while also lifting the percentage of temporary foreign workers they are able to employ.
Let's start with the labour market impact assessment. This was created to ensure that companies bringing in temporary foreign workers don't abuse the system. It requires that they show proof of an attempt to hire a Canadian first.
As an immigrant, I understand the need for this. No immigrant is coming to Canada to take a Canadian's job. We come to seek opportunities for our future, a future that lets us walk beside Canadians and not see them unemployed. By allowing multinational corporations to ignore the labour market impact assessment, this will not always be the case.
To borrow an example from the report of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, “Migrant Workers and the Trans-Pacific Partnership”, Japanese automakers could easily move engineers from Japan into Canadian operations under the intra-corporate transferee rule. This could happen even if there's a Canadian engineer, with experience, currently on unemployment. The labour market impact assessment may have its flaws, but it's put in place to prevent this from happening.
Then there is the fact that the TPP lifts restrictions on the percentage of temporary foreign workers in a workplace. This aspect is at particular risk of being abused at places that often “contract-flip”, such as airports or the oil industry. Corporations ought to award these contracts to the companies whose proposals are the cheapest. If the company is from a TPP nation, especially Japan or Australia, they would be able to not rehire any of the workforce that was employed by the previous contract winner and doing the job. Instead, they could bring in temporary foreign workers at a much lower pay rate, with decreased benefits. This makes the employees more beholden to that corporation.
I feel that the TPP is a missed opportunity. We should be looking to negotiate a progressive fair trade agreement that does not allow companies to circumvent our labour laws but enforces and equals them by making corporations truly look at the labour market impact assessment and by offering permanent residency options when a need is truly found for employee migration.
Thank you.