We found that when you looked at the application that was presented by the potential employer, the application contained information that we felt the department should have questioned before they approved the hiring of a temporary foreign worker.
For example, we talk about the fact that there were Canadians who were laid off from fish plants. We looked at about 500 records of employment of Canadians being laid off from fish plants, and 80% of those had claimed EI during the period of time when those fish plants were hiring temporary foreign workers. That should have been an indication to the department that perhaps there were Canadians available who had worked in that industry, who had experience in it, and who were collecting employment insurance at the same time that temporary foreign workers were being hired.
Similarly, we indicate a particular example that showed up in our sample of an employer who applied to hire a caregiver and said that they needed to hire a temporary foreign worker because they were looking for someone who was trustworthy and had the ability to work without supervision. The department didn't question that application and say that there were Canadians available who would fit that description. The issue we had was that the department wasn't challenging some of the requests, to make sure there truly was a labour shortage and that there were no Canadians available to fill those jobs.