Debates of May 18th, 2005

Supply

[Roger Clavet, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Chair, I thank the minister for his response. He made a distinction between the money and the integration programs. I just have the following question: could he explain why such a small amount of money was allocated for the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program?

The amount that was just announced was $20 million a year, not for Quebec, but for all of Canada. It is a big country with many provinces. The minister himself said that integration was a federal responsibility. That is not a lot of money, $20 million, for all these provinces in this very large country called Canada. I want to know if the minister can explain this measly amount.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I do not know where the member opposite gets his numbers. In a previous response, I mentioned that the federal government pays the Government of Quebec $181.6 million for integration and everything else related to immigration. It is not $20 million, but $181.6 million. That is almost more than all the other funds we inject throughout Canada. Quebec welcomes 25% of all immigrants arriving in Canada. That is why we pay Quebec $181.6 million.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, Canada's immigration history has not always been a very positive and very happy experience for some. I am thinking of the Chinese community in Canada. Men came to Canada and lived almost all their lives away from family, from their wives, their children, their parents.

We learned something from that: immigrants had to be given every assistance to reunite with their family members. Family reunification was one of the responsibilities of the Government of Canada. The help needed is not only psychological, but social as well. We know it is necessary to help immigrants integrate smoothly into Canadian society. As well, young children can attend school, learn the language and become full-fledged Canadians.

There are, however, a number of problems with this law and these regulations. One area of concern for us is the long delay in processing applications by Canadian residents or citizens to bring relatives such as grandparents into Canada.

There is, therefore, one question I would like to ask the minister about the number of sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents. This number is constantly on the rise, so processing times are constantly getting longer. This is extremely frustrating for the people who are here, and of course also for the family members left behind.

I am therefore asking the minister whether he foresees the possibility of changing the regulations so that a speedier sponsorship process could be used to reunite families more quickly.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, my short answer is yes. We are doing this. We are following the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and of the caucus the member chaired.

As was already noted, because of this committee's recommendations, I have taken steps to bring over parents and grandparents who had already been sponsored by their children and grandchildren. Why? Because our mission is family reunification. As I said already, we were able to do this thanks to two measures: we increased the number of people we land in Canada and the number of multiple entry visas.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, in fact, we have made a number of recommendations to the minister. I want to thank him for his rapid response in order to help reunite families.

I have another question for the minister. When the minister made that statement, many Canadians told us, “Yes, but you know, grandparents coming here are elderly, they will not be able to work, they will be supported by Canadian taxpayers and they may need medication or health care. Who will pay for all that? Who will be responsible for all that?”

This issue is extremely important to Canadians. Can the minister respond to this?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have to recognize my weakness in French. I will therefore answer the question in English, if I may.

When an application for sponsorship is presented, the sponsor assumes a 10 year responsibility to provide for the health, accommodation and livelihood costs of the people sponsored. Those who come here on the multiple entry visa that we use are subject to recommendations of the task force. We said that we would give them a multiple entry visa but that for the period of that multiple entry visa they would need to provide health insurance for the duration of the period. That is an additional cost that sponsors would assume.

Some of the members thought, in utilizing their expertise in the insurance business, that perhaps we could encourage a private sector insurer to come forward with a package specifically for those people to reduce their costs and allow greater numbers to avail themselves of that possibility. We are still working on that.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have one last question for the minister on the definition of the family. We know that the department prepares of list of priorities it uses to determine the type of relationship between an immigrant and the person he will be sponsoring and the members of the family who will have priority and so on down the line.

We have discussed the possibility of establishing a definition of family. We know that a family is defined variously according to the culture. This is a matter I want to put to the minister. In Canada, the family is really a man and a woman, one or two children and grandparents. That is about it. We know that other countries favour a much broader concept of family. I wonder whether the minister would care to enlighten us on how he and his department see the priorities within the family class, and the definition of the family in terms of Canadian immigration.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, regardless, we comply with Canadian law, which has a certain definition of couples and the family. I would repeat, Canadian law includes a definition the Immigration Act must honour.

However, there are other families and groups. This department continues to try to be sensitive to these groups, which are much more extensive than the example cited in Canadian legislation. Canadian legislation takes precedence with respect to families that have shown their good faith.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, tonight I will give some introductory background and then go over some current and future difficulties. As well, I will have a series of short questions for which I hope to get short answers.

I consider myself to be the luckiest member of Parliament because I am from not only the most beautiful area of the world but an area that in the near future will be in need of tens of thousands of additional workers. Our population will double in the next 15 years.

I come from northeastern Alberta, the constituency of Fort McMurray—Athabasca. The area will need 100,000 more people to be employed directly or indirectly by the oil sands in the near future. Many of these workers make $80,000 per year. We need many different trades people, doctors, lawyers and many different types of people. Indeed, there will be some 240,000 jobs by 2008, directly or indirectly, attributed to the oil sands.

What I would like to find out from the minister is what the plan is to get more overseas employees directly into the oil sands and those areas and get them to stay. I understand we will not have enough workers domestically to supply those needs.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, the member has underscored what I said earlier in another response, which is that we have a shortage of semi-skilled, skilled and even unskilled workers. However HRSD, Human Resources and Skills Development, and CIC, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Alberta just signed an agreement that will allow CIC to bring in workers on a temporary basis and then obviously HRSD will validate positions that cannot be filled by Canadians.

A series of programs are already in place that aim to bring as many Canadians internally into the market that is hot for whatever reason. It includes, in particular, special programs to engage more and more of the aboriginal communities in our economy.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, I am aware of the signing of the division 8 agreement with the province of Alberta. I am wondering what steps have been taken domestically to find these workers prior to establishing and signing this agreement to bring some 6,000 to 15,000 temporary foreign workers who are actually going to fly from South America into northern Alberta. What other steps have been taken by the minister to communicate these needs domestically?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, the member will know that much of the responsibility for communicating need rests with the employers themselves. They engage Human Resources and Skills Development which has the opportunity, on the basis of the engagement of these employers, to do the market analysis and assessment for those employers in parts of Canada where there appear to be resident potential employees.

In fact, Human Resources and Skills Development has programs where it also participates in developing the skills of some of the talent, and where that fails we are asked at CIC to bring in temporary foreign workers.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, has there been any preference given to this area as far as the relocation of immigrants who do come in and who have these skill sets? Has there been any identification by the minister's department of the skill sets necessary and encouragement of relocation to go into that area?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, the member must know that this is a duty that is discharged by our colleague departments at HRSD to do the market analysis. We are in the business of following up on that once a position has been validated, meaning that there is not a Canadian who can fill it, whether he or she has the skill sets or not, and then we are asked to provide the appropriate visas to ensure that others can fill that spot so that the economy does not implode.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, I understand that answer but I am curious as to what steps have been taken to have full time foreign immigrants come into this country, take those jobs, live here and establish families, instead of having temporary jobs filled where they fly in and out of the country and take the money back with them and, quite frankly, do not help the economy as they should. We need to keep the oil sands as a natural resource that we can manage properly so we can feed, clothe, buy toys at Wal-Mart and everything else that Canadians want to do. What steps have been taken to address those specific needs and look for long term permanent residents of Canada, permanent immigrants, instead of these temporary workers?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, the response is multifaceted. The very first thing is that we need to be able to set broader targets on the range of people we would bring into the country. The second thing we need to do is develop a system that would allow for some of the these skill sets to be brought in. In other words, we have to classify our prospective applicants differently.

We then have to engage the provinces, in this case the province of Alberta, through the provincial nominee program in order to draw such people in, because they will do some of that research themselves. They will tell us how many people they want to be landed in their province, specifically because they meet the needs of their particular province. We did that last year. There was huge participation by the provincial authorities in the 236,000 that we landed last year.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, I understand that but what steps have been taken to deal with this area in particular and obviously the tremendous growth that is taking place here and the tremendous need for workers on a full time basis, not a temporary basis? We are not looking for temporary employees who will spend their money overseas.

What steps have been taken to find those people in other countries and what steps have been taken to make sure they land in that area, because that is not what is happening right now?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I can appreciate a little bit of the frustration of the member opposite. If the economy is humming along, as it is currently in Alberta and in other places, we want to take advantage of that, not just in the short term but also to build a society on the basis of that long term. That is why the provincial nominee program is working and working well. The provinces are given an opportunity to select the people they would like or select the people they would like to permanently land.

We can help. They will have an opportunity in November when we set the broad ranges and we might be able to increase them. Those are the very first two steps that need to take place but some of these cannot take place until there is the final labour market assessment in Canada overall.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, it is encouraging to know that no steps have been taken if those are the first two that need to be taken. I am very concerned. We have had a high demand rate in this area for a long period of time. We have a very small percentage of people coming from overseas. We have a non-renewable resource here. They are not making any more land just like they are not making any more oil and if we manage it properly, we can have a long term, very strong and robust economy.

Have any steps been taken to address the issue of long term immigration needs for foreign workers on a permanent basis in that area? I have not heard of any.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I will repeat it again. What we do is we go out of our way to research out people. In fact, the department is becoming much more of a recruitment agency worldwide for those who want to come to Canada and fit the needs of Canadians everywhere. We engage the provinces and we are asking them to be a greater and much more involved partner in seeking out those who they think meet the needs of their particular province as dictated by the economy of the moment.

However, we cannot, while we are doing that long term, ignore the fact that the economy requires people then and there. The reason we have the temporary workers program is so we can be immediate while we are planning long range.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, I am sure all those people who are watching today who are unemployed will be happy to hear that, in places in Canada that have up to 25% unemployment, they are seeking these temporary workers and providing these permits.

I wonder, though, whether there will be any steps taken to address this issue or will we continue to hear that we have to assess, we have to do more studies and we have to wait for certain periods of time.

I will ask my question again. Will the minister take steps to do what is necessary to ensure that this long term beneficial economic resource that we have is managed properly and get full time people from other countries into that area who will stay and live there and spend their money there?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think some of the arguments are beginning to be a little circular. The member ought to understand that we are spending a lot of money and developing a come to Canada portal so that we can encourage people from all over the world to see what we need province by province, industry by industry. We would have that kind of advertisement right off the bat.

As for those areas around the country that have 25% unemployment, let me tell the member and the House what we are doing. Together with HRSD, we are putting in place training programs to take advantage of those who are long term unemployable because of the structure of the economy, the changing economy where they are. We have spent $25 million to establish learning centres sponsored by unions with specific skills.

We entered into AHRD agreements and ASEP agreements with the aboriginal community to take advantage of all of those who are available in those two communities in those areas. We also engage in skills development locally and in other places to help people transfer from where they are to where the jobs might be. Those are very specific programs. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year in order to bring skilled labour to a demand economy.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, how many people have actually been relocated to northern Alberta under this program over the last three or four years? I would be very interested to hear that. How many people have actually immigrated to northern Alberta from other areas of Canada under this program?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, one of the frustrating things sometimes that we deal with is that people ask, “Why don't you get all of those who are unemployed in some place?” I am happy to mention that in passing with some of my colleagues in Newfoundland and Labrador they say that they would like to get back all those who have landed in Fort McMurray. There is a bigger population of those from Atlantic Canada in Alberta than there. They want to bring them back.

We try to engage the province in recruiting in Canada in all those places where we have people. Most of rural Canada is now getting depopulated because people move on their own and they ask us to provide them with the skills to go where those jobs are. We gladly do that.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, I am very proud to be from Fort McMurray and to be a member of the third largest Newfoundland community in Canada. I have been there for 30 years. I am very proud to be part of Newfoundland in essence and proud of the people whom I have worked with over many years in that area. I think quite frankly most Newfoundlanders are proud to be living there. I find the comments quite insulting.

Notwithstanding that, I am curious as to why we do not have some form of equivalency test instead of education level requirements for overseas immigrants coming into Canada.

I would like to hear a little more on that, especially given if the work experience of that person is within a certain criteria of five or ten years. I would be very interested to hear why we do not have some sort of equivalency test instead of a grade 12 diploma or a similar manner.