Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 31st, 2017

[Louise Levonian]

This is a very tricky thing to analyze, because you're looking at all kinds of reasons and the data, etc. To the extent that we have been able to dig down into these issues, there does not seem to be a wage issue. The wage advertised is supposed to be the median wage for Canadians, so the same wage is being paid. What's being offered to the temporary foreign worker is the same as what's being offered to Canadians.

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

Okay. That's answer enough for my question.

You mentioned that you've put in place an action plan and a quality assurance framework. Could you table with the committee the costs associated with both building out that framework and implementing it?

[Louise Levonian]

All of that work is being done within the existing resources of the department.

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

Were any full-time employees taken off regular duties either to implement the framework or to put the framework together?

[Louise Levonian]

Were they taken off other duties?

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

Yes. You also mentioned that the cost of implementing a higher degree of rigour, rather than looking at just, to my colleague's question, spot testing, to actually look at this in a lot more detail, would require more resources. Is that correct?

[Louise Levonian]

Yes.

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

Do you have an analysis of how much that would cost?

[Louise Levonian]

Just on the quality assurance, there are people who do that on a continuous basis. We have done it more formally and more specifically based on the Auditor General's recommendations. On that front, I would say no.

On the increased inspections, etc. I believe—Paul, correct me if I'm wrong—we actually received additional funding to undertake that.

[Paul Thompson, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Yes.

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

How much was that?

[Louise Levonian]

Do you remember the exact amount?

[Paul Thompson]

There have been funding changes with the policy changes that have been introduced over the years.

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

Would you be able to table that with the committee as well?

[Paul Thompson]

That's all available in the public accounts.

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

Thank you.

I guess where I'm trying to go with this is that we've spent a lot of resources changing a program that I find, even in its naming, pejorative, and frankly I think it probably depresses wages and prevents.... First of all, I find it frankly abusive to the people who come to this country with no path to citizenship through these programs. I also think they're subject to abuse but the program itself is subject to abuse.

Mr. Ferguson, what was the time frame for your audit?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll double-check to make sure I have it right.

It was January 1, 2013, to August 31, 2016.

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

Ostensibly that data—not your findings but the data you were examining—would have been within the department, in terms of high level of usage and whatnot, and the department would have had access to it prior to the Liberal government announcing in March 2016 that they were lifting restrictions on the temporary foreign worker program in Atlantic Canada. Is that correct?

[Michael Ferguson]

The data that we used came primarily from the department. It was the department's data.

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

Fantastic.

I'll note that in the news release around the lifting of the restrictions on the temporary foreign worker program, specifically around seafood processing plants, one of the arguments made was that essentially the companies were saying they couldn't find Canadian workers to do the jobs. Yet you said in your report, with reference to some of the seafood processing plants specifically, that these were cases you found in which the employers said they had actually done everything possible to find Canadian workers but the department was just taking their word for it. Is that correct?

[Michael Ferguson]

A number of different issues in the seafood processing area were raised. In paragraph 5.37, for example, we say that the seafood processing plants told the department that temporary foreign workers were required because some Canadians had quit their positions because of the conditions or difficulty of the work. Also later on we say that some of the seafood processing plants said that they had to lay off Canadians in order to actually prevent them from going to work at other seafood processing plants. At a certain point in time, they wanted to be laid off.

It was particularly complex related to the seafood processing plants, and it seemed to be related not just to the temporary foreign worker program but also to the EI program. I think that's something the department needs to consider as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Ferguson.

We'll now move to Mr. Christopherson for seven minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for your attendance today.

I have to say it's not a very impressive audit. It's not as if we found detail problems and we need to work at that. The whole overall program does not seem to have been given the kind of thought that normally programs of this importance have been given.

By way of some opening thoughts, in the Auditor General's opening remarks, where he talked about the reforms in 2014, the Auditor General said, “However, the department's implementation of these reforms did not ensure that employers hired temporary foreign workers only as a last resort.” Yet, it seems to me, that's the whole raison d'être of the program, so I have real problems as to how seriously this was structured and managed and carried out. I have particular concern about the management culture that would allow what we find in this audit to take place. This is very disturbing.

For instance, on page 18 of the Auditor General's report, under paragraph 5.93, regarding performance measurement strategy, it says, “We found that the Department did not have a performance measurement strategy for the program, so it could not measure or adequately report on the results of the program.”

Look, I don't have a lot of personal education, but I've been doing this business a long time and one of the key things I've learned is that you have to be able to measure your performance. That's a basic fundamental starting point. How, deputy, could you get it so wrong from the get-go, that you didn't even have in place the ability to measure how well your performance was? How could that be?

[Louise Levonian]

We do have performance measures in place that are actually reported publicly, and I can get into the details of what those are, but—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is the Auditor General wrong?