Evidence of meeting #75 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employers.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
No, no, Mr. Arya. Your time is up.
Thank you.
Ms. Rempel, please, you have five minutes.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
I'll try to continue with the line of questions that I had before.
Going back to the March 2016 announcement on lifting the restrictions on TFWs for seafood processing plants, one of the rationales for this laid out by my Liberal colleagues was by my colleague Sean Fraser, when he said, “North Nova is a perfect example. These guys bent over backwards trying to fill jobs.”
I was just wondering if you can table with the committee any data that was provided to the Liberal government to back up that particular claim in justifying the lifting of the restriction of the temporary foreign worker program for seafood companies, especially in light of the findings that Mr. Ferguson has laid out in this report.
9:40 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
[Inaudible—Editor]
9:40 a.m.
A voice
Yes.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
I'm also wondering if there has been any effort made by your department, especially given the high level of humanitarian immigration that we've seen this year and the high levels of unemployment in humanitarian immigration this year, to match people who are coming to Canada through those streams with jobs that may be filled by temporary foreign workers right now. Are there any programs specifically designed to do that?
9:45 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development
Sorry, specifically designed to protect—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Are there any efforts to match unemployed people who have come in through humanitarian immigration streams over the last two years, who are currently unemployed, with positions that are being filled by temporary foreign workers?
9:45 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
There are a number of actions in place with the fish and seafood sector and other heavy users of the program to tap into those very groups.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
How many positions have been filled through that?
9:45 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
One example is that we did a project in Prince Edward Island with youth. I believe there were 50 youth who were brought in for summer work experience, which filled jobs. There's outreach to one of our service providers for indigenous programming in New Brunswick, and there are efforts to—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Specifically, what I had asked is, for people who have come in through the humanitarian immigration stream in the last two years, how many of those people, through programs in your department, have been linked with jobs that are currently being filled by temporary foreign workers?
9:45 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
I was speaking to your previous question. On the current question, there's outreach. I don't have data on asylum seekers or Syrian refugees.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Would you able to provide that? Are you tracking that?
9:45 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
There's work being done in conjunction with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to work on Syrian refugees, for example, and settlement. That's a shared responsibility with IRCC.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
What I'm looking for specifically is how many people, through any efforts that your department has, who have come in through humanitarian immigration streams, including asylum seekers or PSR and GSR programming, have been matched with jobs that are currently filled by TFWs. Can you provide that to the committee?
9:45 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
We will look into providing it. There's certainly an action plan to do it. I don't know if there's data available yet on the results of those types of efforts.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
The actual outline of that action plan would be useful too, as well as any associated funding that's been allocated for that.
Just again, going back to the exemption or the restrictions that were lifted in March 2016, how many more temporary foreign workers are there? What's been the year-over-year increase in temporary foreign workers utilized under that particular exemption?
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.
Just in terms of clarification—I'm a new member to this committee—are we supposed to be focusing on the audit per se? I know that Ms. Rempel wants to touch on perhaps the actions that have been taken afterward. I'm just curious as to—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I think her questioning is still on the subject of the temporary foreign worker program. Her question specifically was about a certain stream of people coming in on the humanitarian side. Are there temporary foreign workers who are hired? I think it's still in line here.
Ms. Rempel, you still have a minute and a half.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, related to the Auditor General's finding around abuse of the program and specifically since the Auditor General did focus on abuses within the seafood processing industry, I'm wondering if you can provide to the committee the number, year over year, since the lifting of the exemption on the temporary foreign worker restrictions, on TFW usage in that industry.
9:45 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Those data are completely available by industry sector and by province. There's no problem providing that. We currently have just fewer than 1,400 temporary foreign workers in the seafood processing industry in 2016.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Since the restrictions have been lifted, can you provide us with a year-over-year analysis?
9:45 a.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Yes.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you.
I'm also just wondering if you could provide us with a comparison of the amount of resources that are expended on managing the TFW program writ large as it relates to the amount of resources that are spent matching people who have perhaps come in through humanitarian streams with jobs.