Public Accounts Committee on April 13th, 2010

[Sheila Fraser]

Absolutely.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson and Madam Fraser.

Now Mr. Saxton, please, for seven minutes.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, on behalf of the government, I'd also like to thank Mr. Flageole for his many years of service, and I wish him many years of happiness in retirement as well. Thank you.

My first set of questions will be directed towards Mr. Yeates—or his colleagues, to give him a break. First, I note that the backlog of the federal skilled workers has been reduced, as my colleague mentioned earlier, from 641,000 to 400,000. This is a 40% reduction, and that's not insignificant. I'd like to find out how you accomplished that, please.

[Neil Yeates]

Basically the short answer, I think, Member, is by a lot of hard work from the missions overseas and here in Canada.

We have set up a centralized intake office in Sydney, Cape Breton, to try to have a more efficient process for the first level of determination of the applicability for the new instructions. Our sense so far is that that's working well. They come into Sydney and then are sent out to missions around the world for further processing if they meet the criteria. That's on the new applications.

On the old, we've continued to process those as quickly as we can. Essentially, it has just been a lot of, as I say, discipline and hard work, churning through all of these cases. We did meet our level plan target for 2009. We were pleased to do that because it was a year with various challenges around the world in trying to meet those targets.

We feel we're reasonably on track. We certainly feel the weight of trying to get rid of that backlog as quickly as possible.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

You still receive more applications than you can process. Can you explain to us how you're going to be dealing with this going forward?

[Neil Yeates]

Yes. Perhaps I can just pick up on what the Auditor General has said.

The number of new applications that we have received under the ministerial instructions is somewhat higher than we expected. Of course, as I said, many people are looking to come to Canada, so they look for ways to fit their applications into whatever categories we propose. That's just the reality of the immigration business.

We will be looking in the future, with a second set of instructions late this spring, to how we can further moderate that supply. That's the discussion we're having now with the provinces and territories and others, because it really needs to be tied to labour market demand.

The first set of instructions was issued just before the recession in 2008. The work that had been done was during 2008, and of course now the economic situation is quite different. We're emerging from that recession. So to what extent are those occupations still in demand? We've been working with HRSDC, using what's called the Canadian occupational projection system—COPS, for short—that looks at all of these different occupations and over a five-year period which ones we're expected to be in need of over that period of time.

So we're doing that kind of analysis, which we think is a reasonably robust kind of analysis, as much as it can be. This kind of work is never perfect. There are many variables and factors out there. Trying to predict specific occupations is challenging. There are many different factors, but we are basing it on the best analysis that we have available. We have shared that with provinces and territories and are seeking their input into what they see as their specific provincial labour market demand relative to the occupational categories.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

Is there an optimum level for a backlog? Is it zero, or what level do you think is optimum? Is the wait time perhaps another issue?

[Neil Yeates]

We think it's optimum that people be processed within less than a year. Given everything that's involved, we think it's what we should be aiming for. If you can excuse our somewhat arcane language, we would prefer to have no backlog and only a working inventory of cases. It's what we would prefer.

We really need to moderate the supply of applications we have to give us a six- to 12-month working inventory. It's essentially what we have now with the new applications. We are keeping up with it, but there's going to be a trade-off in terms of how much work effort we can put towards the backlog versus the new inventory.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

Can you please discuss your visionary exercises with the provinces and territories?

[Neil Yeates]

Yes. We picked up on the advice and recommendations made by the Auditor General's office to work with the provinces and territories to try to develop a common vision for immigration. It's a little unusual in that it's an area of shared jurisdiction.

We met with the provinces and territories over the last few months. As you can probably appreciate, it's never easy to get a large group of people with somewhat different interests to agree on a common vision, but we're making progress. We'll be having further meetings this spring, which we expect will culminate in a meeting of ministers in June. Our intent is to have something we can present to ministers for their approval.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Yeates. We'll give you a break now.

My next question is for HRSDC. Can you please explain your relationship with the provinces and territories?

[Janice Charette]

It's an interesting question. I presume you mean our relationship with the provinces and territories in this area.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Yes.

[Janice Charette]

We have a table called the Forum of Labour Market Ministers, which is supported by a deputies' table and a senior officials' table. It's the table where we talk about labour market challenges. As you can imagine, the last year or so has been dominated by a discussion on how the provincial, territorial, and federal governments are reacting to deal with the impact of the recession and the downturn on the Canadian labour market.

We had a discussion prior to that on the impact of the immigration program as a supplement to the domestic labour market. In fact, one of the pieces of work that deputy ministers asked to be done is a joint meeting of the immigration federal-provincial table and the labour market table. I hesitate to guess the time, but it occurred about 18 months ago. It was last November, about 18 months or so ago.

At that time, we were trying to sort it out, because there are two different tables. We look at the labour market and our immigration colleagues look at the immigration side. Throughout the federal-provincial dialogue, we wanted to make sure we were looking at the issues in a consistent and coherent way and there wasn't anything falling between the two sides. I think we found the discussion to be very useful, very productive, and very constructive, and it continues.

I suspect that as we see the recovery occur and there's again an emergence of pressure to increase temporary foreign workers in some parts of the country, the conversation will come back to the labour market table.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. Saxton.

Thank you, Mr. Yeates and Ms. Charette.

Ms. Ratansi.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, and welcome all.

As you heard from my colleagues--

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have five minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Yes, yes. I'm very short and sharp.

As you heard from my colleagues, immigration is a large irritant of any MP's office because people are quite concerned about backlogs, about the fact that they do not get visas on time. You have reduced it from up to 400,000. The professionals especially decide Canada is not really the place to be, if Australia is giving it to them. You said 42 million people want to come, but the world population is six billion. Even one quarter of Africa doesn't want to come here, and we need the people. So really let's be realistic about what we're looking at.

When I look at the temporary foreign workers and at what the Auditor General has said--that a number of key decisions have been made without benefit or risk analysis--I wonder whether temporary foreign workers are regarded as a panacea to overcome that backlog of permanent residents. That's number one.

Number two, do you have any data as to how many temporary foreign workers we have in the system? We had a recent incident in Toronto where five people fell to their death. These were temporary foreign workers with no security. As the Auditor General has rightly pointed out, they're vulnerable. They do not get the right checks and balances. They do not have security when they are doing construction work, and that's what we're hiring them for.

Do you have any data as to how many we have in the system and what the issues are? Madame Charest talked about the checks and balances and regulations. How many people do you have to ensure that the regulations are in place? How do you put in safety measures when you don't have the number of people? You're not there to police them on a daily basis.

If you could just help me understand this, perhaps we can have a discussion further on.

[Neil Yeates]

Very good. Perhaps I can start.

There are approximately 200,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada. There is a balance and certainly a relationship to the permanent immigration stream. Some of those do make their way into permanent immigration. A number of provinces in particular are having temporary foreign workers come in to the provincial nominee programs, and there is also an avenue through the Canadian experience class.

So in terms of the protection of foreign workers, as we talked about earlier, we have been moving forward on improving the regulatory system. We talked about the need to better assess the genuineness of job offers, making sure that employers are following through with their commitments. All of those things, I think, are important in ensuring that temporary foreign workers have the protections they require.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

But how do they get protected when they're hired on a construction site and they have no checks and balances? They probably have a language issue, and I do not know whether that's being checked when foreign workers come in. Does anybody check their linguistic skills? Is there a requirement to understand rules and regulations, safety procedures? Is there something there? These are people who are working. It's not bogus; I'm talking about genuine workers who get killed, and there are a lot in the construction industry. What is happening?

[Neil Yeates]

I'll ask Les to speak more specifically to the requirements for temporary foreign workers.

[Les Linklater]

As HRSDC mentioned in their remarks earlier, when an employer approaches them to determine whether or not they can hire a foreign worker, the employer has to lay out very clearly the requirements of the job. Quite often, official language ability is one of the requirements, but it's not necessary for a job offer to be validated by HRSDC.

When it comes to processing the actual workers' applications, CIC at the mission overseas does take into account what the job requires and the skills of the individual before the officer. They will make a decision based on the individual's demonstrated ability to meet the requirements of the job.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Then who goes and checks on the employer to ensure that he or she is providing that safety after they have arrived, after they have been approved? Then they're on the job site. Who checks?

[Les Linklater]

We have to remember that immigration is an area of shared jurisdiction and occupational health and safety is an area of provincial jurisdiction. So one of the key issues that we want to strengthen through our new regulatory package is to be able to work better with the provinces.

Deputy Charette mentioned the need for information-sharing agreements between jurisdictions so that we can share better information on employers to allow that spot-checking to happen more systematically. Certainly when we become aware of an infraction or a potential infraction on the part of an employer, we would refer that either to the relevant provincial authorities or to CBSA for an investigation.