Public Accounts Committee on March 31st, 2022

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I have a bit of preamble before I go into my questions.

Deputy, I want to express my empathy to you, your department and all of the public service during these very difficult past two years. I know some of the questions have been pretty blunt and hard today, but they've been asked with the best of intentions.

I completely understand. The people in the public service are human beings too. Inspectors are human beings too. At the beginning of COVID, none of us knew how severe it was and how to deal with it. All we knew was it was dangerous and it spread pretty quickly.

At the same time, Canada had to function as a country. The government has the most important role to lead and to provide that sense of security. When I say “security”, that includes food security as well. That's why I think in previous reports, including the CERB report, the Auditor General wasn't as critical as she was in this one. I think some of it has to do with understanding the circumstances that you guys had to work under, with a lot of operations being done from home and with extended hours.

I wanted to put that on the record.

The second thing is that Canada is a country known to have very good rules, laws and detailed regulations, thanks to the hard work of politicians and legislators, but they're also carried out by our public service. COVID presented a rare opportunity for us to look at some ways to be more nimble and results-based in our future practices. All of today's questions—and later on, the report recommendations—are taking us to a higher level, so that we can be ready for any future crisis as big as COVID.

I know it might not be within our scope, but I keep hearing about a 73% increase to 80% later in COVID. I know this question may be out of the scope of this report, but can you give us some sense of a percentage pre-COVID under normal circumstances, from your previous practices and inspections? Do you have that number?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I would turn to Mary, because it would not be the inspections for quarantine, but more the usual ones.

[Mary Crescenzi]

Pre-COVID, we had an equality assurance program that looked at the quality of our inspections. I don't have that figure in front of me. I'll see if I can find it before the end of our time here today, or I can table it with you at a later time.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Please do. To me, it's important to have the background number to know how bad or good the system was before.

They're like two sets of practices. One is during normal times and one is during emergency times. We can't be in the emergency mode forever, because that will draw a lot of resources. I think we should have two levels of response when it comes to inspections.

My second question is for the Auditor General.

I know it looks very bad and we—myself included—are quite concerned about this.

In your findings, was there any obvious difference between provinces? Were some provinces better and some provinces very bad? Were there any findings about that?

[Karen Hogan]

When we started to see the results—and they are quite negative, when you start to hit over 75% to 80% where you see issues—we started to look at whether or not we could disaggregate the information that we had to see if there were any trends by inspector, by employer or by location.

Unfortunately, we didn't see a trend. It was systemic. It was everywhere that we looked and in everything that we reviewed. The majority of inspections that were completed and that we were able to review were in three particular provinces, I believe, but not one set off a flag more than the others. It was really systemic across the entire inspection regime process.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

That is time. We're now moving into our fourth and last round.

MP Epp, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This question is for the department.

In the development of federal programs, the Auditor General states that departments “are expected to factor in and respond to systemic inequality considerations using a gender-based analysis plus lens.” I'm assuming that you will comply with the United Nations sustainable development goal number eight in the implementation and in your actions.

Can you provide this committee with an overview of what that means for the temporary foreign worker program?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I can turn this over to Brian, but before I do, I have a few points that would help, I think.

First of all, we do that through education. All of the sessions we have with employers are good examples of how we make sure that people understand the rights those workers have when they come to Canada. If you look at the regulations we're working on, they precisely mention items for making sure that temporary foreign workers are told about the rights they have, and that employers are prohibited from taking reprisals against employees.

We also work with the organizations I mentioned before to make sure that we have community organizations that offer what we call wraparound services and ensure workers have people to talk to and have resources if they feel they are not treated appropriately. That's also one of the objectives of our tip lines.

Those are the kinds of measures from GBA+ and anti-racism perspectives that you try to integrate into your program as much as possible, in order to avoid those situations.

I can turn to Brian to provide more information on GBA+ in the context of the TFW program.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, but I want to get to another section here.

At the beginning of the pandemic, back in March 2020, our riding, as I mentioned earlier, had over 12,000 temporary foreign workers. What we found to be a challenge, and it has come up.... Ms. Hogan, you commented on this dynamic of the program a few minutes ago.

I ended up chairing some meetings locally among all three levels of government. When COVID entered the bunkhouses, we were all in uncharted territory. What we also found is a great deal of trouble. The estimates locally are that we have between 2,000 and 3,000 undocumented workers in our region, as well. That brings in the federal CBSA. That brings in the provincial department of labour, and all those situations.

I'm assuming this is outside the scope of the audit. Did you run into any situations where...? We often find in the press disturbing images of housing situations. Quite often those are traced back to labour contractors. They're traced back to situations that are not under the jurisdiction of this program.

I'll start with the Auditor General.

Did you run into any such situations?

[Karen Hogan]

No, we did not.

As I said, our review was limited to looking at the inspection files and the implementation of the immigration and refugee protection regulations around COVID, so we didn't extend that far.

Now, I do want to give you some assurance that, if we had seen something that we felt was not appropriate, we would have followed up on that and inspected that, but within the work we did, we did not see any issues like those you mentioned.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'll extend that question to ESDC.

As you administer the program, have you run into similar situations?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Please go ahead, Mary.

[Mary Crescenzi]

I will answer this question, Mr. Chair.

We have run across undocumented workers, unfortunately. You are right in saying that this is not part of our mandate. We immediately contact the enforcement officials who are required to follow up on those sets of circumstances. Of course, we would be looking at the credibility of the employer moving forward with our program, and completing the inspection against all of the conditions associated with this type of activity.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You would contact the appropriate authorities. Who is that? Is that CBSA? That also crosses over into provincial labour jurisdiction. Do you have a coordinating mechanism with the proper provincial authority?

[Mary Crescenzi]

Yes, you are right. CBSA is one of the enforcement officials we would be working with. Also, through our escalation process in these types of situations, we would be escalating across to our provincial counterparts immediately on this. Oftentimes, they are the ones who first alert us of a situation, as well, having built those relationships on the ground.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid that's your time, Mr. Epp.

We'll turn now to Mrs. Shanahan.

In your first exchange, there was talk of provincial numbers. Did you want the department to present numbers province by province? It was a little unclear, so I thought I'd ask you about that.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Actually, that would be very helpful. I was looking online at the website that looks at the non-compliant employers. It's very interesting, but of course it's employer by employer. It would be nice to have some disaggregated aggregate numbers.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Monsieur Tremblay, could that information, province by province, be provided after this hearing?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

We will provide disaggregated aggregate information.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Monsieur.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you. We're really immersed in statistics.

I also noticed that the employers gave something in the order of 24 reasons. There's a whole range of reasons. In some cases, they say that a document was missing. In other cases, they say that the person was no longer eligible. I want to see a chart regarding this issue. I think that it's necessary to look at this matter. These inspections aren't just about health. They also include all the documents and the labour market analysis, meaning the initial priorities for the program 10 or 15 years ago.

My question is for Mr. Forbes from Agriculture and Agri‑Food Canada.

Mr. Forbes, do you speak regularly with the organizations that represent agricultural employers, immigrant worker associations, and worker recruitment agencies? Are you familiar with this part of the labour market?

[Chris Forbes]

Thank you for the question.

We work with employers and the organizations that represent them. In terms of the groups that represent foreign workers, Employment and Social Development Canada is more involved with them, as Mr. Tremblay and his colleagues said earlier.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

What are you hearing from employers? Everyone wants a safe and secure workplace. No one wants to end up with sick people. I want to know what employers and employer associations are asking for.

[Chris Forbes]

Thank you for the question.

As noted at the start, there's a labour shortage. In order to produce food, we need these employees, these temporary foreign workers. This need exists. I think that employers, overwhelmingly, are very happy to provide a safe environment for the workers. That's their priority, especially since many foreign workers come back each year to work on the same farm. As a result, some fairly close relationships have been developing over the years between employers and their employees. Many employers supported efforts to ensure a safe and healthy workplace for workers.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

That's very good. This could be called a trusted employer approach. Could you give ESDC the profile of an employer or some type of certificate stating that the employer can be trusted? That way, the focus could be on the bad apples among employers, and not on the employers that comply with all the rules. They're asking for the tools needed to work more effectively with their employees.