Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 31st, 2017

[Paul Thompson]

Immigration has its own fees for immigration. For the TFW program, we have a $1,000-per-position fee, which as I said is going to be waved in the future for middle- and low-income family caregivers.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Mendès.

We'll now move back to Mr. Deltell.

You have five minutes.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I congratulate you on your French.

Ms. Boisjoly, Ms. Hébert, welcome to your House of Commons.

Let's get back to square one.

Every government would like to see every Canadian working, a job for every Canadian, every Canadian working hard, proud to wake up every morning, enjoying Friday evening with family and being proud of having worked hard. That's the target. If we can't, there is time to open the door to foreign temporary workers.

I welcome the fact that Madam Mendès raised the issue a few minutes ago of the elephant in the room. Madam Mendès is absolutely right. That's the sad reality of Canada, and it's why I said in my earlier statement that I'm not very proud of that.

What do we do to address that? I think the best way is not to feed the famous elephant, but to instead be sure that every Canadian can have a job and work.

I am going to go back to recommendation 5.41, which specifies that this program is meant to be a last resort for employers. This is what the recommendation says:

[...] the accuracy of employers' statements and that employers use the program only as a last resort.

However, that is not exactly followed to the letter. I would like you to tell me what measures have been put in place to ensure that, when employers call on foreign workers, this is done, beyond the shadow of a doubt, as a last resort. As was mentioned earlier, last March the program was broadened to allow for the hiring of more foreign workers, although in those regions, such as the Maritimes, many Canadians are unemployed.

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you.

I would make a few points.

Labour market information, as we've noted earlier, is essential to our analysis, but at the end of the day, labour market analysis is not going to guarantee that an individual shows up willing to work in the right place, at the right company, at the right time. We'll be heavily reliant on the recruitment efforts, and as noted, we've augmented our efforts to verify recruitment.

As also noted, we're working with these heavy users—a number of the sectors have been referenced here today—to strengthen their recruitment and retention strategies for Canadian workers. Then after due diligence has been shown on individual recruitment and sector-based strategies, the residual demand for TFWs is what the program is here to deal with.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Obviously, that doesn't work, because you have to lower the benchmark, as we saw last March.

[Paul Thompson]

We've seen about a 45% reduction in the program and about a 75% reduction in low-wage workers since 2013. There's been a significant diminution of demand in the program, and we take some comfort in that because we're not seeing a trend in the other direction.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have two minutes left.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I will give it to the next round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Can I jump in here on another question that's just come up?

In the Auditor General's report it says that there are close to 2,000 temporary foreign workers who are on employment insurance. Is that correct? We've talked a little bit about that, or is that only in the fisheries?

[Paul Thompson]

No, that's not just the fisheries sector. I don't have that number in front of me, but we do have data available on the number of temporary foreign workers and foreign nationals.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The deputy minister did state, when we talked about that, that they have to be able to collect EI. I think we understand that. We don't want to bring people here from another country and then see a downturn or something happen, and here they are with no jobs or no opportunities.

Are there other cases where it may not necessarily be a downturn but some employees who are wanting to come back to work? Do you analyze that? Let's say Canadians have been laid off jobs, for example, that are now being filled by temporary foreign workers. After a period of time, the Canadians want to come back into those jobs, and they let the temporary foreign workers go. Are there cases like that? Would that be an abuse?

[Paul Thompson]

That's one of the reasons we impose a time limit on the temporary foreign worker. The labour market impact assessment for a low-wage worker is generally one year in duration. If the business circumstances changed dramatically, and there were unemployed Canadians in that space, the employer would need to reapply. Then we would look at such information as the previous record of employment. As the deputy noted, we use employment insurance data as part of our review of applications, looking back to see if that employer in the recent past has laid off Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

So it is analyzed.

[Paul Thompson]

It is part of the process to look at the next cycle of applications for an employer. We have committed to looking back. We had a limited window that we looked back at. In response to the Auditor General's recommendation, we lengthened that window up to 12 months previous.

[Michael Ferguson]

Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure that people are clear on why we identified this.

For us, we felt it was something that the department needed to look at in case it indicated whether their original decision—that a job needed to be filled and therefore a temporary foreign worker needed to be brought in—was the right decision in the first place. If you bring in a temporary foreign worker and then you have to lay off that temporary foreign worker, does that indicate that there was not a job there in the first place or a job that was going to last?

That's the issue we're trying to get at. When there is that indication that the job was not going to last as long as it was originally intended, then is there something to learn from that in terms of how decisions are made in approving the temporary foreign worker positions in the first place?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you.

We'll now go back to Ms. Mendès and Mr. Arya on a split.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'm sorry, because I don't think we mentioned this before, but thank you to all of you for being here. It's good that we are able to dig a little more into this subject.

One of the problems we are facing with the program right now is that for many years now, we've stopped offering a path to permanent residency through the foreign workers program. A foreign worker who comes here to fill a temporary work shortage in whatever industry and for whatever reason may not necessarily have any intention of living here permanently, but yes, they do come. I think in agriculture more than any other sector, that's what we find. They come here for the summer, for the period when they are needed, but they do want to go back to their own home countries once the season is over. In other circumstances, they probably come to Canada to fulfill the contract they were hired to do, but they also have every reason to believe they could make a life for themselves here and contribute to Canada, the way so many of us have done in the past. I think that's another issue with this program, that we are not providing a path to permanent residency or citizenship.

To Mr. Wheeler or Mr. Ferguson, I know this doesn't touch your department or have to do with your department. It would be much more with the IRCC. But perhaps you could tell us whether, in all the contacts you had with the department, this was an issue with the employers and with the employees through the analysis you did of the program.

[Michael Ferguson]

We didn't specifically look at that, and we say in the audit that we didn't deal with the IRCC side of this. One of the things the temporary foreign worker program has to deal with is that a number of issues that arise in other areas seem to coalesce in the temporary foreign worker program. What I mean by that is things like the situation with employment insurance, fish plants saying that workers ask to be laid off, and that whole retention problem.

When that happens, there's something not happening in the EI program to make sure that jobs are available. Why are those people still not working? There's something going on in the EI program and when the EI program doesn't deal with that issue, the issue lands in the temporary foreign worker program.

I think you can say the same thing for the under-represented groups. If those under-represented groups are not being well prepared to join the labour force, then that lands with the temporary foreign worker program again.

I think there's the whole question about whether the temporary foreign worker program is being used for family reunification. Again, and that's probably closer to your question, if people are trying to get family members into the country and if this is a way they do it, then again it's a problem that lands in the temporary foreign worker program.

I think there are a number of those types of peripheral problems, significant problems that are happening in other programs, and a lot of them tend to coalesce in the temporary foreign worker program. It needs to figure out how to deal with it.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Would this warrant a more in-depth audit of the program?

[Michael Ferguson]

As this whole conversation indicates, this is a very complex issue. There's the need for employers to have people to do the jobs and then the need to give Canadians the first right to jobs, and there still seems to be the problem of lining up those two things.

I'll have to think about what else we can do on it, but I think there are additional fundamental issues behind this program that perhaps we haven't gotten to yet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We're going to have to come back to Mr. Arya after, and then you'll get the full five minutes.

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll just pick up on some of my colleagues' questions, and with your comments, Mr. Ferguson, I couldn't agree more. A lot of the topics that I think exacerbate problems within the TFW program are difficult political questions, like why people elect to go on EI rather than go to work at a seafood processing plant. It's not an easy question to be asked, but it's one that we have to address, as well as if there are backlogs in other economic immigration streams that are preventing people from coming to Canada.

While I have a moment to pontificate, Mr. Chair, I think that the low-skilled TFW program shouldn't exist.

Nonetheless, on to data to prove my case. I'm just wondering, to the departmental officials, if there is any data or if any work has been undertaken to understand people who are on EI in Atlantic Canada who might be affected by TFWs coming in to work in seafood processing plants, and at what wage they would go to work at that plant. Has there been any analysis of the wage that would be acceptable to do that work for people who are on employment insurance?

[Paul Thompson]

The way the wage requirements work in the program is that we look at the prevailing wage in the seafood processing sector—