Public Accounts Committee on March 31st, 2022

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have another minute, Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Perfect. That works out well. I can continue with my line of questioning.

Your report is very well written and quite detailed, and in it, you provide many examples of how the health and safety of workers was not always protected and how, in some cases, the department incorrectly determined that employers were compliant. Owing to the pandemic, in-person inspections were replaced by virtual inspections, and in some of the cases in which employers were found to be compliant, the photos relied upon did not show that to be true.

Are those the facts of the situation?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes, those are the facts of the situation.

I would like to add, though, that it is possible to conduct virtual interviews. We found, however, that in many cases, a virtual interview had not taken place, or that if it had, the information provided was not taken into account. That type of information should not be omitted from the file, whether the inspection is done virtually or in person.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

MP Desjarlais, you have the floor for six minutes, please.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being present with us today. It's nice to see the Auditor General here.

Of course, this is a report about labour. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how ironic it is that we have an Office of the Auditor General where there's a strike happening right now, and we're talking about the conditions of labour here today. I wanted to point that out.

This report is deeply disappointing. It's another sad chapter in our history. We have to level with this. This is extreme. This report is damning. I want to make sure that we understand how we talk about these issues. These are people's lives. We are talking about people—fathers, mothers, children who don't get to see their parents, and they come back sick or sometimes dead. That's what we're talking about here.

This is deeply troubling for me. I have a very difficult time understanding how we can continue after so long.... This report states that these conditions were reported before the pandemic. There were investigations back in 2020: “In December 2020, we notified the Deputy Minister and senior officials at Employment and Social Development Canada that our audit had identified significant concerns with the quarantine inspections”.

How do we expect this accountability framework that we have in our country to actually yield results when we've been doing this...for how long? There were public accounts meetings on this previously. We have to find a way to resolve this. This is a serious issue.

I'm encouraged by Mr. Tremblay's comments related to massive reform. I think that's encouraging. I think we need massive reform. We need to understand that protection for labour is critical. If we're going to be a country that understands how labour works well, that values people, we have to understand that these folks deserve basic protections, basic-level protections—something that this report clearly identifies as not being sufficient for the workers.

I want to ask a question related to the OAG's report. I have a question on the consequences for employers who did not comply with the immigration and refugee protection regulations, including monetary penalties ranging from $1,000 to $1 million. How many employers were fined in 2020 and 2021, and in what amount?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Who is the question going to?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Maybe ESDC. Who's the one handing out these fines?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I would ask if you would allow Mary to answer. She has the details in terms of the amount of money and the number of employers.

[Mary Crescenzi]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Deputy, for the referral of the question.

I'm pleased to report that every effort has been made to address the non-compliance of employers in this regard. Over the two-year period, we identified more than 330 employers who were in contravention. It could range anywhere from receiving a warning letter to a monetary penalty or a permanent ban.

In total, there was more than $2 million of administrative monetary penalties that were administered, and the list of non-compliant employers can be found on the IRCC website.

I'd also like to underscore at this time that part of the impact of wanting to ensure the health and safety of our temporary foreign workers is measured by how many employers we bring into compliance. That is one area that our system, unfortunately, doesn't outline and isn't quick to underscore.

However, we have improved and increased the percentage by 10%, up to 30% of employers we worked with during the course of the inspection. Because of the interaction with the inspector and our staff in saying that they were not meeting the requirements, they made adjustments and provided proof that they did. We were pleased to see that 30% of employers were brought into compliance and therefore did not need to go through the monetary penalty or the consideration of a ban.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

My second question is this. The OAG found issues with the department's 2020 assessment of wage paid to quarantined temporary foreign workers: “32% of quarantine inspections...contained insufficient information to assess wages”.

Does the department plan to verify the wages that were actually paid during quarantine in 2020 and 2021, and what does it plan to do better to verify this in 2022?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Mary, go ahead.

[Mary Crescenzi]

Of course, that example is not an example that we're proud of. This is an area where we have introduced a number of steps in order to address it: supplemental training, system enhancements to track those types of things, as well as ensuring that the system itself provides prompts and ensures that the documentation is there.

As I said before, the moving into compliance.... Some of the examples I have are examples where the employer at first did not pay the worker during quarantine because they did not have a social insurance number. The inspector immediately told them that was not a valid reason not to pay. The employer, the day after, paid the worker and demonstrated that they were brought into compliance.

These are also some examples that unfortunately didn't show up in the report. It's not to say there isn't significant work and progress that needs to be made in order to get to a better place, but we are seeing improvements in the last six months, both by way of documentation quality and the timeliness of our inspections. We hope this will continue into the new season.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

I would add, Mr. Chair, if you will allow me, that this is not just about the inspections. It's also about making sure that the workers know what their rights are and about making sure that they have organizations they can work with. You will notice that in the 2021 budget we also got funding to actually work more with community organizations that provide services to workers as soon as they arrive at the airport, as well as in the communities. We also opened up multilingual lines, I think in March of last year, that people can call directly about work and mention what the issues are and what they're facing.

Inspections are an important part of the compliance, but we need more than that. We need prevention too. We also have a lot of sessions with the private sector, with the employers. More than 1,100 participated over the last year, which represented more than 200,000 employers, because some of these were, of course, organizations. We also work—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Tremblay. I have to stop you there, I'm afraid.

I'm sure Mr. Desjarlais will come back to this theme. I want to make sure we get our fourth round in so that everyone has adequate time.

Mr. Duncan, it's over to you.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I want to echo what Mr. Epp said in his opening comments. This program is instrumental for our agri-food industry, and it's important to get this right to protect vulnerable populations like temporary foreign workers.

I want to focus on the accommodations for temporary foreign workers. Given multiple media reports and public outcries, and even a commitment by the department back in 2018 to address the lacking minimum standards for housing accommodations nationally, two years later, during the midst of the pandemic, there were still multiple reports of troubling conditions. It's now been four years.

Mr. Tremblay, can the department name one single national standard that has now been established for this program, when it comes to accommodation standards for temporary foreign workers?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

As I said before, and as we've said before, we are working now with the provinces. There's a report on what we have heard through engagement and consultation. We are trying to make sure that we actually have a solution to the accommodation situation.

You should not forget that—it's true, but I know people don't like to hear it sometimes—it is an area of provincial responsibility. The provinces develop the standards on accommodation.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

In the interest of time, maybe I'll just illustrate my point on this. I understand the need to partner with provinces and jurisdictions, but in four years.... Can you name the province that would be objecting to running drinking water or electricity in accommodations? I say this from a public accounts perspective. There's literally zero that's been done. There must be agreement on three or four bullet points that items like these should be a guarantee.

Where I'm going with this, and sometimes I'm bad with analogies.... Is the department trying to bite off more than it can chew, producing nothing over four years? Is there not some basic minimum standard at a national level? Who's pushing back on basic things like that, from actually putting them in place after four years?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

What you see as a challenge.... It's not necessarily that we would not agree on some key elements. That's a very fair point. What you see as an issue.... If we go to inspect, we don't have the capacity to enforce. We can tell the provinces what's going on, then they have to check if the information is true, and after that, it's going on.

How do we react faster? One thing we've done, for example, over the last few months—weeks, actually—is to make sure that we have an escalation process of 24 to 48 hours, so that when we know workers are at risk from a health and safety perspective, we take action immediately. We don't wait to hear what's going to come out of those discussions.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

As a supplemental to that, on the conversations with provinces and partners and the jurisdictional issues, what is your time frame for producing a standard? Is there something that...? Can you come back to our committee and say that by x date we will have this? Where are you at in terms of those conversations? Are you nearly there, something imminent, or are you still months or years away from having something?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

We're months away. We're aiming for the end of the year.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I'll ask, for our conversation and recommendations, that we have that report tabled with us as soon as possible, for that reason.

There is another thing I want to go to, at a higher level. Again, from a public accounts perspective and we ourselves learning about the enforcement of this, as the Auditor General mentioned.... It's rare, from my limited experience here on the committee, for her office to raise preliminary flags regarding the urgency of this. It did at the end of 2020, and the situation actually got worse in 2021.

If a Canadian or an advocate for the temporary foreign worker program, an advocate for the dignity of temporary foreign workers and the conditions they live or work in.... You were told at the end of 2020 that there was a problem. You said you were going to address it. It actually got worse in 2021, and here you are in 2022, telling us it's going to get better.

Perhaps it's a reflective question, but some specific details.... What confidence can you give to the people watching this and following this file that 2022 is actually going to produce something different—after, respectfully, in the midst of the pandemic, and at the height of when it was needed, it actually got worse instead of getting better?

[Jean-François Tremblay]

When you look at what happened in 2021, it's not that there was no action. It's the time it takes to actually implement those actions. In February, as it was mentioned before, we launched a national internal quality review. We got two proposals in the budget, which were funded, to improve the capacity of the workers to work with community organizations, and also to actually have accountability and have more inspections.

We doubled the number of inspectors. We doubled the size of the team that was actually providing, helping, and working with the inspectors to make sure they were doing their job appropriately. We actually introduced pre-reading regulations early last summer, precisely to enforce the accountability of the employers when things are not going well.

A series of measures were put in place, and if you look at the results, our results actually changed over the year 2021. When we say there was an improvement, because our internal audit looked at it, it's real. We said we would aim at 80% for the end of February or the end of March, and we are actually at more than 80%.