Debates of April 16th, 2013

Opposition Motion--Temporary Foreign Worker Program

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand to support this motion. The reason we brought it forward is evident. To say that we cannot do anything about this is not true. A standing committee would allow what has been kept underground and what we still do not have answers for to come to light. We would hear witnesses. There would be an ability to travel. There would be an ability to get information that so far has not been forthcoming from the government so that we could see whether the program is working well, whether it is being abused, where the abuses lie, and what can be done about it.

I do not know if the government will have the foresight to support the motion. If it passes I would suggest that this particular standing committee not act in the fashion that the rest of the standing committees are continuing to act, where witnesses are blocked if they are giving contradictory testimony, the testimony itself is not allowed in a report, or the recommendations the witnesses make are ignored. This would not only bring to light the issues and get the accountability and transparency needed on this particular foreign worker program that we think has been mismanaged, it would also allow for clear recommendations to go through rather than allowing the seven members on any parliamentary committee to do what they have been doing, which is to silence witnesses, pretend their recommendations did not get ignored, and have all political parties bring in dissenting reports, which used to be rare in this House and now seems to be done at every single hearing where nobody gets to have anything that the witnesses say come forward.

I want to support this because the temporary foreign worker program itself is a very important part of the Canadian labour market strategy. We know that it brings important economic and labour market benefits. For instance, it is necessary to maintain productivity in certain areas and to improve economic prosperity for Canada. It is an important program.

The program operates under two clear principles. One is that a temporary foreign worker would be brought in to do a job that a Canadian could not do because of lack of skills or knowledge. The other reason a temporary foreign worker would come in is to do the job that a Canadian would not do because of the pay structure or the nature of the job itself. We know there are Canadians who would not do some of these jobs. Therefore, the temporary foreign worker program serves as a benefit to those who “could not do” or “would not do” in terms of the Canadian labour market.

We know the program was established by a Liberal government. There was a careful balance the program was to find, which was to protect the jobs and wages of Canadian workers while bringing in temporary foreign workers, and to ensure that Canadian workers had access in the meantime to the employment and skills training opportunities they lacked, that allowed temporary foreign workers to come in. It was also meant to assist small and medium-sized businesses and corporations that had legitimate difficulties in finding workers. The program was also supposed to protect the dignity of temporary foreign workers by ensuring they were paid a fair wage, were treated as fairly as any Canadian worker doing the same job, and fell under the labour laws of the particular province in which they were working.

The Conservative government has destroyed this balance entirely. It has skewed the system in favour of employers only. It has turned a blind eye to the way this program has been carried out and to the rights of the temporary foreign workers. It has brought in workers not because there was a lack of skills in the Canadian economy but allowed companies, as we have seen with RBC, to bring them in to replace people who can and are trained to do the work thereby completely going against the concept of the temporary foreign worker program. To add insult to injury the Canadian workers who have the skills are training temporary foreign workers to do the work, thereby being deprived of the jobs themselves.

That is not how the system was supposed to work.

The Conservatives may say that, in fact, RBC and others are working under the aegis of the law and that what they are doing is legal. However, we know that by completely ignoring some of the regulations, the current government has not been doing any kind of evaluation or monitoring of what is going on. We have been asking for statistics that would tell us where the workers are working, what kind of jobs they are doing and what they are being paid. We have been asking for that for a long time and have not gotten answers. These questions have been asked since 2006 by the Canadian Labour Congress, and there have been no answers forthcoming from the current government.

The committee we are suggesting would make transparent some of the data we want. The important thing about any program is accountability. To have that there must be monitoring and there must be transparency. This is currently lacking in the temporary foreign worker program. All we get is the mumbling by the government that it is all being done the way it should be done. However, we see that with RBC, for example, it is not being done. We see, for instance, in B.C. that over 200 Chinese workers were brought in, and not because they were needed in B.C. It is a mining province. We have tons of people who are skilled in mining. Yet the Chinese temporary workers were brought in to fill the needs of the mine, and the government allowed this to happen.

The bottom line is that the Conservatives know what the rules are, but they are not enforcing them. They know what the rules are, and they are not monitoring them.

Here we also have the idea that when temporary foreign workers come, they are supposed to be treated under the current labour laws of the country. We saw in the building of the Canada Line in Vancouver going from Richmond to Vancouver that, in fact, two sets of foreign workers were brought in to build the line, because they had the skills. One set came from Europe and another came from Costa Rica. The Costa Ricans came because they were the only ones who knew how to operate the particular boring machinery that was supposed to go underground and create the line itself. They were being paid half the wage of the European temporary foreign workers. They were not given all of the particular benefits they were supposed to get. If it were not for the B.C. building trades, which took this to a human rights tribunal, we would not have known that this was happening. Finally the tribunal had them pay $2.5 million in back wages to equalize how these particular Costa Rican workers were treated in Canada as compared to the European workers.

The government is asleep on the job. The Conservatives should have picked up on that. That happened in 2008. Nothing was said by the government.

Again, no one here is opposed to the temporary foreign worker program. We are looking at what has happened since the government has come to power and what it has done to change the nature of the temporary foreign worker program. Not only that, we have seen a ballooning to about 338,000 temporary foreign workers as of 2012. Good grief. We are living in a time in Canada when so many people are looking for work. Last month, 54,000 Canadians were looking for work, and they are skilled. Yet temporary foreign workers are taking over the jobs Canadians are trained to do and can do. In some instances, temporary foreign workers who are coming in to do the jobs Canadians are not trained to do are being discriminated against. The government is allowing that to happen.

This is not just about the Costa Ricans and the Chinese miners. I have a lot of pilots in my riding. They have written to me and said that the government is allowing temporary seasonal pilots to come into Canada to fly Canadian planes within Canada, and that is interfering with the junior pilot program. Trained pilots in Canada have to do a certain number of hours and get experience flying so that they can move up the ladder and become permanent pilots and get the pilot jobs. This seasonal worker program has completely destroyed the junior pilot program.

We see workers being brought in to do jobs that Canadians are trained to do. This is mishandling, misuse and complete bungling. I hope that this is just because of incompetence and it is not being done because the government wants to facilitate employers actually discriminating against Canadian workers. This is causing people to rise up and be concerned. Yet we cannot get answers. Again, the committee we are talking about would get us the answers.

We need to restore confidence in the program. We need to find out which employers are benefiting from the $35.5 million being paid to process ALMOs. We do not know which employers are benefiting. The government did a consultation and heard from employers that they wanted to be able to bypass the ALMO process and fast-forward it. Not only did they want to fast-forward it, but certain employers and certain companies wanted to be exempt from that kind of second look and transparency. They wanted to be able to just bring in whomever they wanted. This is how RBC did what it did. The government heard that and allowed it to happen. However, what it did not say is that there were three other things the consultation revealed. It revealed that the employers also asked for a minimum two-year contract for temporary foreign workers. We saw that with RBC it was a six-month contract. That alone contravened the concept of a minimum two-year contract.

The employers also asked for that contract to be expanded to four years if no Canadians were trained or able to perform those jobs in the interim. They asked for one further thing, which is not happening and which the government has been very careful to make sure will not happen. It was that temporary foreign workers would be allowed to apply for permanent residence in Canada and therefore become citizens.

Think about it. People are working for two to four years as temporary foreign workers. They now know how to speak English and French. They understand the Canadian workplace. They understand the rules and ethics of the Canadian workplace. They would make excellent ongoing permanent workers.

The temporary foreign worker program was there not only to deal with labour market strategies but to help nation-build. When people came here and learned and were able to work and become fluent in English and French and were able to contribute, they wanted to bring their families. We wanted them to bring their families, at least Liberals did when we brought in the program. We wanted them to put roots down, to build a nation, to have a stake in this country and to know that what is good for the country is good for them and what is good for them is good for the country. We wanted them to become strong Canadian citizens. That is how this country was built. In the most recent years of the last 20 years or so, this country has benefited from the temporary foreign worker program. This is not an exploitation of people who come here, work and then are sent back and told that they cannot apply for residency status. This is what we see the current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism doing.

We have employers who may argue that the ability to get the information we seek should not be asked of them, because they are private. However, the government has to make very clear that the information it requires from private employers is about accountability to taxpayers, whose money is funding the program. This is the ability to have transparency and accountability that is so lacking in the government.

We have seen in the temporary foreign worker program that provincial laws have not been respected, as in the case of the Costa Ricans who were building the Canada Line. We have seen it with seasonal pilots who were not Canadian pilots who were not getting to move up the ladder when they were well trained to do the job. We have heard this from people in my riding over and over. The mining workers are another example. There are areas where bona fide temporary foreign workers are coming in and are still facing problems and the government is not ensuring that the rules and regulations are being followed.

It is beautiful to read on the website. There are clear rules, regulations and penalties. Yet it was only by happenstance that we found that these rules and regulations have been contravened. The government has not been monitoring and evaluating the program and is not going after the people who are breaking the rules and penalizing them.

It is so important that we get this out in the open. It is so important that the committee be set up and that the NDP and everyone decides that it is an important part of what the government likes to talk about, but never does, which is transparency and accountability to the taxpayer. It is accountability to Canadian workers who are losing their jobs so rapidly and having their jobs and skills taken away in this particular economic climate. There has to be some loyalty to our own citizens.

The minister has announced an annual review. She said that she would do an internal review. Here is a good example. Six months ago, when the Chinese worker problem occurred with the miners in British Columbia, the minister said that she would do a review. There has been no review. We do not know what is going on with it. In the interim, in that six months, RBC has broken the rules.

We cannot trust the Conservative government when it says that it will do an internal review. It has not done it. We need the open process of consultation and hearing witnesses and travelling. We need to find out the reality of what has been happening on the ground.

I hope that the House will vote for the motion. I hope that when the quasi-parliamentary committee starts up, it will function the way parliamentary committees are supposed to function. I hope that it will be open and transparent and that the recommendations that come from witnesses will be brought forward in good faith. I hope that the seven members of the committee will not block it, as they have a tendency to do.

The government must take responsibility for what has happened with the temporary foreign worker program. It must take responsibility for all of the problems it is facing and for the anger of Canadian workers and Canadian taxpayers about the mismanagement of this program. The Conservatives must take responsibility for their ability to be accountable and transparent. If they really take those things seriously, I hope members across the way will vote for transparency and accountability.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has called for a review of this program before, and the Liberals balked.

I have been talking with pilots in my riding since 2011, and they want us to act. They do not want more hot air. They do not want more MPs travelling around the country. They want us to act here in their interests.

Liberals have balked before. They fell asleep at the switch when they were the official opposition. Now that they have flip-flopped on this position, how can Canadians possibly trust them to review this program responsibly?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP is playing politics, while we are trying to get accountability and build a nation here. What can I say?

Now that this information has come to light, we are seeing that the program has doubled since 2012, when the NDP were the official opposition.

The fact that the Liberals did not jump as soon as the NDP spoke is not a good enough reason for letting the public down and for telling Canadians that we are not going to do it now because we are pouting. I hope that the NDP will support this particular committee, if they really meant it when they said that they wanted something to be done.

Let us get on with it. This is what we are doing. Neither of us is in government. We can and should get accountability and transparency.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are abuses of the temporary foreign workers program. Apparently I seem to be the only party in the House that actually thinks that the whole program is wrong. I have heard the official opposition say that it does not mind the whole program and that there are ways it can be used appropriately. The committee being proposed by the Liberal Party will examine how to make it work better.

Is there not some possibility that we can study whether there is something wrong with the idea of bringing people here to work at lower wages than what Canadians will accept? We are undercutting the whole job market for Canadians. We are filling jobs that could be filled by Canadians. We are also creating downward pressure on Canadian wages by even imagining that we should bring people to Canada, give them no rights, and have them work for cheaper wages.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member asked a very good question.

I want to point out to the hon. member that this program has been going on for quite a while, but it is now being abused. The program stipulated that temporary foreign workers had to be protected. They had to work at the same wage as a Canadian would be paid to do that job, and they had to obey the labour practices and the laws of the province with regard to the labour market. This was very clear.

It is only under the Conservative government that temporary foreign workers have been exploited and treated as indentured labour. This is something new, and that is why we want to get to the bottom of what is going on. We want to see the data. We want to see how many people have been exploiting and misusing the program. The Conservative government does not seem to care one way or the other. Let us not throw the baby out with the bath water. The program is important for productivity where the Canadian workforce does not have the skills and where there are jobs Canadians do not wish to do. It has always been there to help us be productive and meet our needs.

The ability of a temporary foreign worker to be fast-forwarded to become a citizen of this country and get permanent resident status was an important part of the program. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has decided that he does not want that anymore. He just wants people to come in and go out, back and forth. He does not want to give them the ability to come here and have a chance for a better life.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there was actually a fairly simple process under the original design of the program that was being administered for many years. If employers wanted to hire foreign workers, they were obligated to advertise, pay the going rate and so forth. There was a sense of accountability to ensure that Canadians would be the first afforded the opportunity to get the jobs. However, if there were no Canadians available to take the jobs, there was a program that assisted industries from coast to coast to coast to identify potential employees outside of Canada. At the end of the day, both would win. The program itself just needs to be fixed.

My concern is, whether it is the New Democrats or the Conservatives, that we recognize the value of the program and just fix it. The best way to fix it is to reach out to the different provinces and other stakeholders and find out what they have to say about how the program could be tuned to bring it into the next decade plus.

I wonder if the member might want to provide comment on that.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has stated the points very clearly. It is obvious that the temporary foreign worker program is valuable, but it is obvious that it needs to work very differently.

The member pointed out that it used to be that, if any company wanted to hire a temporary foreign worker, it had to show it could not find a Canadian to fill the job. It had to advertise, it had to be a skill that Canadians lacked and the company had to be desperate to find that labour market person in order to get its business going. That has not happened under the Conservative government. It has just allowed companies to bypass the whole process, where they are supposed to advertise and prove they actually need these workers because Canadians would not take the jobs, or because Canadians lacked the skills.

That burden of proof is gone now. We are just left with: “Get temporary foreign workers in the door and out the door as quickly as possible. We don't really care what you do with them when they come here and we don't really care why they come here”. That is what we are trying to flush out and fix.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I heard a number of statements made today that are just patently false. The government is not allowing any companies to bypass the rules. That is simply not true.

If the Royal Bank of Canada, for example, advertised to hire people, I think it would be inundated with applications. However, what has happened here is an egregious case where something underhanded and wrong has happened.

I would propose an idea to the member. The government has indicated it will be reviewing the system. It is reviewing it as we speak. However, for companies like Canadian banks, for example, for areas where they are guaranteed almost a monopoly-type dominance of the marketplace, should they be allowed to hire temporary foreign workers? I suggest that, in this case, Canadian banks should not be allowed to hire temporary foreign workers. Period.

If we look at other industries, for example telecommunications and areas where companies are provided universal access to the Canadian market and where foreign companies are prohibited from competing with them, maybe they should not be hiring temporary foreign workers when they have guaranteed access to the Canadian market where others are prevented from accessing the Canadian market. I would be interested to hear the member's comments on that.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it sounds as if the hon. member might actually vote for our motion after all. That is exactly what we are trying to do. We are trying to get to the bottom of this.

How could what happened at RBC happen? What about the Chinese miners? That has been going on and the government was meant to review it six months ago and never did. What about the Costa Ricans who were paid half the wages of European workers? What about that? That happened in 2008. That is not yesterday. What about the junior pilots program that is at risk here because we are hiring temporary foreign pilots to break that program? This has all been going on for three years.

It is easy to pass the blame. It is easy for the government to say it is going to do a review and then not do it, as the government has done. It is easy to say it will do internal reviews. None of this has happened and we now can no longer trust the government to manage a program properly.

Therefore, we are saying let us get the House of Commons to set up a committee, to do it openly and transparently. If there is nothing that the government has to hide, everything will all come out and then it should be patted on the back.

What are the Conservatives afraid of? Let us just get this thing out on the table.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will advise you at the start of my remarks that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for St. Catharines, who does an excellent job with this file as parliamentary secretary.

I am pleased to take this opportunity to address the motion put forward by the member for Cape Breton—Canso regarding the temporary foreign worker program. First, let me very clear. The original intent of this program was to help employers find temporary help in cases where there are absolute and acute labour shortages. As a member of Parliament from Alberta, I know all too well about labour shortages.

The media reports regarding the program of late are concerning, and we are investigating to ensure that the program is working to fulfill its original purpose. We have committed in the budget to fixing the program to ensure that Canadians always have the first crack at available jobs. On the subject of the budget, I would like to speak to the current state of our economy because this has always been and continues to be, of course, this party's top priority.

Canada has fared well despite the current global economic challenges. We have the strongest job creation record in the G7. Thanks to the strong leadership of our Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, Canada has seen the creation of more than 900,000 net new jobs since the darkest days of the recession, most of which are full time private-sector jobs.

As the economy continues to grow, the demand for workers whose skills are in demand will also increase. In some regions, the demand for certain skills has skyrocketed, which results in labour shortages in key occupations that are important to our economy and to our future prosperity. This mismatch oftentimes presents a challenge for employers, workers and, of course, government. That is why I was very pleased to read the human resource committee's report on skill and labour shortages. This work has already been concluded. The report that involved the committee travelling across the country to engage directly with Canadian businesses contained some excellent testimony on the challenges these employers face.

In fact, the member for Cape Breton—Canso was a member of the committee during the study and participated in the hearings, where businesses communicated precisely the ways in which the temporary foreign worker program is helping them address these challenges. I raise this because the motion today proposes to set up a special committee to examine an issue that the human resources committee is already empowered to study and has already heard the concerns of Canadian businesses and workers alike about the growing skills mismatch. This study, as well as other pre-budget consultations, was part of the reason we focused so heavily on skills and training in the recent budget. Through economic action plan 2013, we are taking a multifaceted approach to addressing labour market shortages and mismatches.

To start with, economic action plan 2013 invests significantly in skills and training to ensure that all Canadian workers, especially those currently sitting on the sidelines, are qualified to play an active part in Canada's economic growth. We are also increasing support to groups that are currently under-represented in the job market. These include youth, Canadians with disabilities, aboriginals and newcomers to Canada. We want to ensure that every Canadian can find a place in the job market, because Canadian employers need every last one of them.

Most notably, budget 2013 includes a new Canada jobs grant that would provide up to 130,000 Canadians a year with $15,000 to retrain, $5,000 of which would come from the federal government. Provinces and employers would also be expected to match that contribution. As the Minister of Finance said, for the first time the Canada job grant would take the skills training choices out of the hands of government and put them where they belong: in the hands of job creators and Canadians who want to work. Most importantly, the new grant should lead to one essential thing for unemployed or underemployed Canadians: a new or better job.

We are continuing to invest in reducing barriers to accreditation for apprentices. We will also reform procurement practices to encourage contractors to employ apprentices on federal construction and maintenance projects. Lastly, to make maximum use of the education and talents of recent graduates, we will invest $70 million over three years to support 5,000 more paid internships for recent post-secondary graduates.

However, we recognize that in some parts of the country there are skills and labour that are needed and cannot be found by local businesses. This is very true in my riding and this is why temporary foreign worker programs exist: to help employers find temporary help in cases where there are absolute and acute labour shortages.

Indeed, the member for Cape Breton—Canso himself acknowledges the importance of this program as he has previously penned letters in support of bringing in temporary foreign workers. The member is joined by members of the Liberal Party, such as his colleagues from Sydney—Victoria, Winnipeg North, Random—Burin—St. George's and Mount Royal. Even the NDP, despite its rhetoric, has had an impressive number of members write in support of this program, including their House leader and even one of their deputy leaders.

It is quite clear that this is a program that has broad support from across party lines. This program allows employers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis to fill immediate skills and labour shortages when Canadian citizens and permanent residents are not available to do the job.

The program plays a critical role in meeting the short-term needs of business in dire need of workers, and I would like to emphasize the notion of dire need. The temporary foreign worker program was designed and should only be used by employers as a last resort.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the media reports concerning the program of late have been very concerning and the government is investigating to ensure it is running as it should.

Our government has committed to ensuring that Canadians always have the first crack at available jobs. Canada's economic action plan 2013 has emphasized that going forward we will work with employers to ensure that temporary foreign workers are only called on when Canadians genuinely cannot fill those jobs.

We will expect companies to increase their recruitment efforts to hire Canadian workers before they will be eligible to apply for temporary foreign workers. For instance, they will need to increase the length and reach of advertising about job openings, and we will restrict the identification of non-official languages as job requirements for hiring through the temporary foreign worker process.

I would like the House to take note that CIBC World Markets reported in December 2012 that 30% of businesses in this country are facing a skilled labour shortage. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business stated in its business barometer report that 34% of small and medium-sized companies identified skills shortages as a constraint on their growth.

To meet these demands and to further our economic recovery, our government is increasing support for skills training and apprentices. At the same time we are focusing on creating job opportunities for those facing greater barriers to the labour force, such as youth, aboriginal peoples and people with disabilities.

We recognize the need to make sure every Canadian has the opportunity to fully contribute to the Canadian economy. Our economic action plan is continuing to improve Canada's economic growth and long-term prosperity.

Throughout this time of economic growth, we will ensure Canadians get the first crack at all available jobs here at home. Instead of voting against investing in skills for Canadians, the opposition should support our economic action plan. I would encourage all members of this House to recognize that the time for talk is done, and to support concrete actions to improve the temporary foreign worker program.

For these reasons, I will not be voting in favour of this motion. The work has already begun. I thank the House for taking this time to hear me. I would be happy to answer any questions.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to put a question to a colleague from Alberta. I think it is very relevant.

Does he think that selling Nexen's interests to a Chinese state-owned company will lead to significant investments in Alberta?

We all know what the reality is—that is, the serious labour shortage in Alberta—but perhaps my colleague could confirm the situation.

Will the decision to approve that transaction not create a demand for tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it does not matter if it is Nexen or any particular employer, and it does not matter if it is in the energy sector.

What the NDP fails to understand is that Alberta is an economic engine. I believe it remained the only have-province throughout the economic downturn we had in Canada, and it is continuing to grow. In my riding the most common sign we see is “help wanted”. I have employers, virtually in every sector, whether it is agricultural, oil and gas or service, coming to me and saying that they cannot get Canadians to do the job. They go through the LMO process, a process that vets, verifies and substantiates the fact that qualified Canadians are not able to do the job. They then go and seek temporary foreign workers to help fill that particular void.

Whether it is Nexen or any other oil sands company, there will be tens of thousands of new jobs created in Alberta and across this country. The entire supply chain for the oil sands and all of the energy activity that happens in Alberta is shared across this country, as are all of the economic benefits. We are going to need skilled workers.

I would just like to highlight to my hon. colleague that is not just the folks who have welding certificates or who are engineers or technologists. For every one of those jobs that is created there is an unskilled or semi-skilled job created in the service industry, whether it is serving coffee, cleaning a hotel or doing any of those other kinds of jobs, and there are not enough people in Alberta to currently fill those jobs.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, surely the member would recognize that we have 338,000-plus temporary foreign workers. That is a record high. Just last year, the government pushed the delete button on immigration for the skilled workers class and deleted literally 300,000-plus skilled workers from abroad.

There seems to be a contradiction in government policy. The Conservatives play up temporary workers, yet they hit the delete button on the skilled workers abroad who are trying to immigrate to our country.

Does the member believe that individuals who are good enough to work in Canada should also be good enough to ultimately land in Canada, to become permanent residents in Canada if they meet certain criteria?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that owing to the backlog created through years and years of neglect by the previous Liberal government, there was no other way to deal with that issue. The absolute hypocrisy of that member and his party is unbelievable. In fact, I am shocked that this motion has been brought forward by a Liberal.

Minor consequential amendments to the employment insurance program to encourage Canadians to get a job brought frustration and yelping and whining from the other side, a 45-day work year proposed by the NDP and now, all of a sudden, those members are wondering why we need temporary foreign workers in Canada. It is a ridiculous juxtaposition. It is hypocrisy at its highest.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to participate in this debate regarding the temporary foreign worker program. However, I would argue that this debate would benefit from less rhetoric and more facts.

The fact is that our Conservative government remains focused on job creation, economic growth and long-term prosperity. Canadians have seen concrete results thanks to the actions that we have taken. Our job growth remains the best among all G7 countries. We created over 900,000 net new jobs. Over 90% of these jobs are full-time and close to 80% of them are in the private sector. Both the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have said that Canada is at the head of the pack for economic growth in the years ahead.

The Liberals and the NDP can keep putting motions like this forward, which completely ignore the facts and completely ignore the actions our government has taken, but Canadians see and they know better.

Our government is committed to helping even more Canadians secure employment, which is why we have made significant investments in skills training. For example, in economic action plan 2013 we introduced the new Canada job grant, which was praised by a wide variety of organizations and stakeholders from across the country. Matching the needs of employers with the training Canadians are getting is key to our future economic growth. The Canada job grant will transform the way Canadians receive training.

For the first time, the Canada job grant will take skills training choices out of the hands of government and put them where they belong: in the hands of employers and Canadians who want to work. Job seekers will train at community colleges, career colleges, polytechnic institutes, union training halls, among others. The Canada job grant will benefit hundreds of thousands of Canadians from one side of the country to the other.

Our government is also investing to expand and extend the temporary hiring credit for small business for one year in recognition of the important role that small businesses play as job creators in the Canadian economy.

I will acknowledge that the opposition parties talk a good game, but we know that actions speak louder than words. Both the Liberals and NDP have voted against every one of the policies we put in place to help Canadians across the country get work. The fact that they are ignoring Canadians and experts by voting against the Canada job grant speaks louder than any of the MP rhetoric we are hearing today.

By opposing economic action plan 2013, the opposition is ignoring the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters that said our plan “is very good news for companies creating jobs in Canada”.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce stated that the budget is “a significant step forward in the federal government’s attack on Canada’s skills challenge”.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities said, “it will spur growth and job creation while laying the foundation for a more competitive economy”.

The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association said, “CRFA welcomes action to bring more accountability to skills training programs and to help employers recruit and train Canadians that are under-represented in the labour force”.

That is just a small sample of highly regarded organizations that agree that economic action plan 2013 will help grow the economy, create jobs and improve skills training to get more Canadians into the labour force. Unfortunately, if it were up to the opposition, none of these investments, ideas or concepts would actually move forward.

If the Liberals and NDP had even sat down to read to the budget before deciding to vote against it, they would have noticed that it also included several improvements to the temporary foreign worker program.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Now, now.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Perhaps the member across the way could quote to me the two pages where we talk about the temporary foreign worker program in the budget. If he has read the budget, I am sure he can stand up in opposition and tell me on which two pages we refer to it.

The foreign workers program is going to ensure Canadians have first crack at available jobs and ensure employers are doing more to recruit and train Canadians for jobs. In short, changes are being made to ensure the temporary worker program is being used only as it is intended: to fill clear and acute labour shortages on a temporary basis across our country.

I cannot understand how the Liberals, and as the member who spoke earlier indicated, can put forward a motion like this, yet at the same time vote against the very changes that will actually improve the program.

The government is conducting a thorough review of it and the economic action plan outlines some of the changes that would be made, for example, working with employers to ensure that temporary foreign workers would be relied upon only when Canadians genuinely could not fill these jobs. Economic action plan 2013 requires employers to increase their recruitment efforts to hire Canadians before they will be eligible to even apply for temporary foreign workers. The government will also help employers who legitimately need to make use of the program to formulate plans to transition to a Canadian workforce over time. There is not a company in the country that does not want to hire Canadians. Companies want to hire Canadians, but Canadians are just not there to fill those jobs. This is in addition to other improvements that were announced in previous budgets, which, coincidentally, the opposition also voted against.

We are introducing robust monitoring and compliance measures to ensure that employers are living up to their commitments with respect to wages, working conditions and investments in training for Canadians. The measures will allow for inspections of employers, including site visits, to verify their compliance with program requirements.

In addition to the economic action plan commitments, there will be more changes coming to the temporary foreign worker program, as we continue to consult with workers, employers, unions, migrant rights workers and Canadians across the country.

The opposition's hypocrisy on this issue is not just found in its shameful voting record. It can also be found in the fact that while it stands here today to debate the motion, several of the members of Parliament in the opposition from both parties have written to us asking us to expedite temporary foreign worker visas. Those members come from every region across the country, even some locations with high unemployment rates. Opposition members have also asked that we reverse negative decisions from the department, even when the department finds that Canadians should be able to do the work, or to give expedited processing to temporary foreign workers. The opposition members still come to the government, to the minister and to me to ask, verbally and in writing, if we can assist in reversing a decision that would bring a temporary foreign worker to their very riding.

I cannot stress enough that the government is focused on ensuring, whenever possible, that Canadians are getting first crack at any available jobs and that employers are given the tools they need to match Canadians up with labour market needs in their respective industries. We are also making investments in skills training to help unemployed and underemployed Canadians get back into the workforce.

If the Liberal Party and the NDP actually cared about the issue and were serious about the motion that they presented and that we are debating today, they would not be voting against new investments in job training. They would not be voting against the major reforms to the temporary foreign worker program that would ensure Canadians would get access to jobs first.

It is clear. We have laid out a strategy. We have been working on the temporary foreign worker program since we became the government. We have gone across the country. I have been in every province to discuss and listen to and hear from workers and those involved in the industry, from small to large businesses, from agriculture to manufacturing to technology. Indeed, there are times when Canadians are not able to fill the positions, but these businesses, whether they are small or large, require assistance to bridge that gap. That is exactly what the temporary foreign worker program is.

For the most part, it is not a pathway to citizenship or permanent residency. It is simply an economic tool that has enabled companies across the country to fulfill their mandate in terms of jobs and production and to keep them aggressive on the international front and within their own communities.

I will end by reading from page 84 of the budget:

The Government will take action to reform Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program to ensure that Canadians are given the first chance at available jobs.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member might be able to indicate something when we look at the number of 338,000 temporary foreign workers that are in Canada.

I appreciate the role the member plays with the current Minister of Immigration. He says that the Conservatives have been studying and looking at this program virtually since the first day they took office. That 338,000 is a hard number for Canadians to adjust to. Even when the economy was doing exceptionally well, when the Liberal Party was in government, it never exceeded 160,000.

What is the future? Does the member believe the number will continue to grow under the Conservative administration? Do you see that the number going down? More importantly, do you see a role for other programs to fill that labour gap?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. Before I go to the parliamentary secretary, I once again remind all hon. members to direct their comments and questions to the Chair rather than to their colleagues. I know this point was raised earlier this morning by the Deputy Speaker. There is a reason for this rule, and I urge all hon. members to comply with it. Failure to do so will cause the Chair to interrupt you in your question, and you will not be able to put it forward.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Winnipeg North is a critic at the citizenship and immigration committee. We see each other every Tuesday and Thursday morning, sometimes even more than that. I know that he may not appreciate that. On occasion there are times when I appreciate his interventions, and there are many other times when I do not. At the same time, perhaps it is better to respond with a question for the member.

The question is this: do we want a strong Canadian economy? Do we want a strong economy and low unemployment in the member's very riding of Winnipeg North? When he asks for expedited temporary foreign worker applications, when he asks for those decisions that have been denied to be reversed, is he standing up for the program, is he standing up for his constituents and does he actually believe the program is very necessary in this country to build a stronger economy?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague and I am ready to give him the document. Here is a Service Canada job advertisement, job search safety advice. Here in the job posting, there is a requirement in Alberta for 100 jobs for scaffolders. The skill requirements state that education is not required. In terms of credentials, a certificate, licence, membership, courses, et cetera, are not required. For years of experience, it states “five years or more”.

The language requirement is to speak English. Well, we are in Alberta, so it is not going that badly. That's where I have a little bit of a question. For other languages, it lists Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Spanish, but no French at all. After that, under “Other Information”, it says that the job does not require workers to speak English in remote camp locations.

There is a problem with that job posting on the Service Canada site and with Immigration Canada. You can see their posting. It says five years of experience. It says you do not need to have education and you do not need to have a certificate, yet we say we want our Canadians to have jobs. Did you know that learning to be a scaffolder takes only 11 weeks? Does he think there is a problem in Alberta when the people of New Brunswick—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. Once again, I ask hon. members to direct their questions to the Chair and not to directly address—

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Sorry. I should have listened to you a few minutes ago.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Right.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know that when I have a chance to speak in the House, some of the folks on the other side like to debate directly with me. They need to understand that they need to go through you, and I respect your interventions in that regard.

One of the difficulties we face in this country is our geography. People need to understand that one part of the country may have a stronger need for a particular type of workforce and that other parts of the country may be able to supply that particular workforce. I say to the member opposite that the way to solve this problem is to have Canadians fill these jobs.

If the member is suggesting to me—through you, Mr. Speaker—that there is a way to partner New Brunswick and Alberta together to deliver on these jobs, to deliver New Brunswick folks who would love to work in that industry and allow them to do so for a period of time in Alberta, then I welcome the member's ability to say that this is the way to put Canadians to work.