House of Commons Hansard #233 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was jobs.

Topics

Opposition Motion--Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the support that seems to be coming from the NDP in terms of voting in favour of the motion. I do take exception to some of the comments with regard to the Liberal Party.

It was the Liberal Party that created the idea and the thought during the seventies. It was the Liberal Party that refined the program back in 2001-02. It is the Liberal Party that has recognized the valuable contributions this program has made to Canada, both in economic success and the potential for those workers who come from abroad to be in Canada. It is a win-win situation as we see the benefits in ensuring that the process is respected. That is really what we are looking for today, a committee that would go out and do the consultations necessary to ensure the integrity of the program is maintained, going forward. Canada cannot afford to lose this very important program.

At times, I am of the opinion that the NDP does not support the program. We just have to take a look at what its leader said yesterday in question period. However, my question for the member is this. Does the NDP support this program and if it does support the program, does it have any sense whatsoever in terms of four or five years from now on an overall—

Opposition Motion--Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

The hon. member for Saint-Lambert.

Opposition Motion--Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the question.

We are absolutely not disparaging this program. I want to reiterate that that is not our intention. Even though the Liberals are saying that it was their party that created this program, the fact remains that the program is being abused because of a lack of safeguards and oversight. That is what we want to talk about and that is what we are proposing.

As I said in my speech, we absolutely must implement these safeguards and an audit system to prevent these abuses and allow this program to do what it was intended to do.

Opposition Motion--Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague for her very interesting speech and for the work she does on immigration.

Today I would like to know whether she agrees with the fact that this program can be useful. It has been in the past and still is at times, but it has some flaws that sometimes allow employers—and I am not judging them—to abuse the program and use it to try to reduce their costs and the salaries of their employees. They use foreign workers who agree to be paid less than Canadian workers. Sometimes, Canadian workers are qualified and able to do these jobs, but, unfortunately, they are replaced by employees who get paid a lower wage.

Does the hon. member think this is currently a problem that we should be addressing as soon as possible?

Opposition Motion--Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Sadia Groguhé NDP Saint-Lambert, QC

Mr. Speaker, we are now realizing what has happened under this program. We should not lose sight of the fact that the Conservatives have completely mismanaged the temporary foreign worker program and Canadians are paying the price.

Furthermore, some of my other colleagues have also raised the fact that the fundamental rights of all workers must be promoted and protected. Paying a temporary foreign worker 15% less than a Canadian worker erodes these rights.

This program is worthwhile. We must keep it, but we must also redefine it.

Opposition Motion--Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

Order, please. I understand that the government House leader has some business he wishes to bring before the House.

The hon. government House leader.

Bill S-2—Notice of time allocation motionFamily Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights ActGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

York—Simcoe Ontario

Conservative

Peter Van Loan ConservativeLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I have a few points. First, for far too long, women living on first nation reserves in Canada have been without the legal protections available to all other Canadians. Our government has introduced Bill S-2 to correct this inequality and to provide greater protection for aboriginal women. I must advise, however, that agreement has not been reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) concerning the proceedings at second reading of Bill S-2, an act respecting family homes situated on first nation reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at that stage.

Business of the HouseGovernment Orders

4:55 p.m.

York—Simcoe Ontario

Conservative

Peter Van Loan ConservativeLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I wish to designate Friday, April 19 as an allotted day.

Oral QuestionsPoints of OrderGovernment Orders

4:55 p.m.

York—Simcoe Ontario

Conservative

Peter Van Loan ConservativeLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I want to provide a brief response to the point of order raised on the issue of tabling of documents earlier today by the member for Malpeque.

After reviewing the blues of today's question, I want to respond to that. This was a request that certain documents be tabled.

At page 433 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it actually discusses the obligations of ministers of the Crown with regard to tabling certain documents. To be clear, O'Brien and Bosc, in referencing these instances, are referring to when documents are quoted by ministers in the House.

The blues, however, show that the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages did not quote from documents but in fact referred to the existence of letters from eight New Democrats who have asked to have temporary foreign workers approved for work within their constituencies. He did not, however, quote any of those letters.

The obligation to table documents does relate to when one is quoted from in the House or read from in the House. It is not an obligation to table a fact that a document exists or if a member or minister has made reference to the existence of a document that does not give rise to an obligation to table it.

I trust that this will satisfactorily address that question.

Oral QuestionsPoints of OrderGovernment Orders

4:55 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

I thank the hon. government House leader for the presentation of the argument. It will be taken into account, and if necessary, a decision will be made by the Chair subsequently.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak to the opposition day motion.

First, the temporary foreign worker program was established by a Liberal government, and that government achieved a careful balance of three equally important objectives: protecting the jobs and wages of Canadian workers and protecting Canadians' access to employment opportunities; assisting small businesses and companies having legitimate difficulties finding workers; and protecting the dignity of temporary foreign workers by ensuring that they are paid a fair wage and are treated as fairly as Canadian workers doing the same jobs.

The Conservatives, we believe, have reduced, or perhaps even destroyed, balance in this program. They have skewed the system in favour of the employer alone, have removed important protections for Canadian workers, and, in some cases, may have exposed foreign workers to unfair practices.

I want to speak to some of the positive aspects of the temporary foreign worker program when it is carried out and executed properly.

John Eisses is the president of the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers Association, a very important organization to horticulture in Nova Scotia. He is very concerned about the potential negative effect the proposed changes to the EI Act and associated regulations could have or will have on the Canadian seasonal agricultural workforce.

For decades, it has been demonstrated that very few EI recipients, or Canadians in general, are...capable of meeting seasonal agricultural workforce requirements.

He goes further. He says:

...the temporary foreign worker program...currently provides the industry with a consistent, reliable and trainable workforce that positively impacts the ongoing economic viability of the sector and its supporting value chain. If foreign workers are displaced...farms will go out of business or become less competitive, putting employed Canadians out of work.

This is a key point. As we study the temporary foreign worker program, it is important to understand that for some industries, in some cases, it is working quite well. We want to have the study to understand where the failings are and address those.

In ridings like mine, where the temporary foreign worker program is actively used by the horticulture industry, as an example, it creates a lot of value-added jobs further up the value chain. For instance, when temporary foreign workers are engaged in picking apples or berries, Canadians are involved in processing those foods, driving the trucks to get the fruits to market, and making pies. There are all kinds of opportunities. In the grape industry, as an example, people pick the grapes, and people make the wine, so there is an opportunity. It is very important to recognize that some of these value-added jobs further up the food chain actually require temporary foreign workers to create that opportunity.

He goes further. He says:

Contrary to public opinion, seasonal agricultural foreign workers support a viable horticultural farm community. Foreign workers are paid minimum wage or more; their employers provide housing that meets code, partial funding for international transportation, local transportation, workers' compensation and additional health care insurance in some cases. Foreign workers pay income tax.

In fact, they also contribute to CPP and EI, but they are ineligible to collect either. They contribute to the local economy as well.

He also tells us that farming:

requires trained managers, use of current technology and equipment, skilled and unskilled workers; this means that a dedicated, reliable and trainable workforce is required which is not available using sporadic EI recipients.

The message is truthful. First, be very careful in the changes being made to EI. It is a warning to the government that some of the changes could be deleterious to the important horticulture industry, but also that when run properly, when there is a balanced temporary foreign worker program, there are industries that depend on it, and it can operate well.

I also have in a recent article in the Chronicle Herald the St. Mary's River Smokehouses saying that if their access to the temporary foreign worker program is reduced, it would be very detrimental to this small business.

We also heard from Lee Cohen, a Halifax immigration lawyer, who said that the temporary foreign worker program is a good idea if it achieves two objectives, as follows:

One is that it helps fill labour shortages...with skilled and sometimes not so skilled workers from abroad. This meets a market need and it helps employers in Canada get production done and get work done that wouldn’t otherwise be done in the absence of having domestic workers.

He also stated:

it gives foreign workers an opportunity to experience Canada and that group of foreign workers could, if they wish, form a body of people that will…eventually become permanent residents and help build the (country) and add to the Canadian economy.

He does say that he wants to see the program rules fixed to ensure that these are the objectives being met. He says that the program has “lots of shortfalls” and that there is a need for clarity on what is allowed. That is what greater study in the House can help facilitate.

Immigration strategy can be incredibly important to economic growth and opportunity. I live in and represent a riding in Atlantic Canada. In Atlantic Canada, there is a declining and aging population. The demographic trend is very bad. It is a demographic time bomb. Rural communities in Atlantic Canada face even more challenges in terms of an aging and declining population. I want to propose to the House and to members an example of an idea related to immigration and economic growth and opportunity that combines federal and provincial government leadership. It is actually focused on drawing people to rural Nova Scotia. It is focused on a very specific industry, and that is the grape and wine industry.

In 1997, when I was first elected, there were two wineries in Nova Scotia. Today there are over 15, and more are on the way. To put this in perspective, in 1995 there were 19 wineries in the Niagara region of Ontario, and today there are over 130. The Canadian government could work with the Nova Scotia government to turbocharge the Nova Scotia grape and wine industry and create jobs throughout rural Nova Scotia.

My colleague from Sydney—Victoria is here today. His family came to Nova Scotia as part of the most successful wave of immigration to rural Nova Scotia in our history. That was the wave of immigration from Holland post World War II and in the 1950s. I believe that his family came to Cape Breton in 1952, in fact. At that time, families like the van Oostrums and van Dykes came to Nova Scotia and found opportunity.

There was a deliberate strategy. The provincial department of agriculture in Nova Scotia advertised, along with the federal department of immigration, in Dutch newspapers saying come to Nova Scotia, and we will help identify farmland, help finance your acquisition of that farmland through the farm loans board. We will help bring you to Nova Scotia, where you can find opportunities. They had a very targeted, economically focused immigration strategy.

Fast forward to today. There is tremendous growth in the wine industry and tremendous demand for Nova Scotia wines. In fact, I met with Carl Sparkes and Pete Luckett recently, two of the entrepreneurs involved in our wine industry. They told me that they could sell thousands and thousands of cases of Nova Scotia wine. They sell out every year. There is Chinese demand. The global demand for Nova Scotia wines is growing. The quality has developed very positively. There are gold medal winning wines being produced in Nova Scotia. The biggest challenge is grapes. Nova Scotia does not currently grow enough grapes to meet the demand for Nova Scotia wines. Yet there is farmland across the province that is underutilized, prime farmland, which could be incredible for vineyards.

Fast forward from the Dutch example to today's example. The hardest hit European economies, countries such as Portugal, Italy, Spain and even France, are also countries with a disproportionate amount of expertise in the areas of grape production and wine production.

There are also countries with, in some cases, up to 40% or 50% youth unemployment and a lack of opportunities. There are also countries that, because of their fiscal situations, are increasing taxes significantly and taxing the heck out of people with capital. There are countries where vineyard land is not affordable; it is some of the highest-cost vineyard land. In Nova Scotia we have high-quality land for potential vineyards, but it is also affordable.

Furthermore, there is even a climate change dynamic to this. Some of the traditional wine production regions, including the Champagne region, some experts are saying, will be rendered less ideal for grape and wine production in the future because of climate change, while Nova Scotia will actually become a better place to produce wine.

Therefore, if we consider the success of that Dutch immigration example and then apply a model requiring federal and provincial leadership working together to today's issue and opportunity around the grape and wine industry in Nova Scotia, it would provide us with an example of an idea—and politics ought to be a business of ideas and leadership around ideas and developing ideas and engaging people on them—that could actually work and could transform rural Nova Scotia's economy.

Carl Sparkes recently bought Jost Winery. He placed an ad recently on the Internet for a viticulturist. He had 60 applications. About 50 of them were from Europe. This bears out the point that there is an opportunity to have a very targeted immigration strategy. It would not be just temporary foreign workers, but on a permanent basis, drawing those people to opportunities to invest in, work in and develop businesses in rural Nova Scotia.

We need to map the land resource. We need to identify land that may be available. We need to target those European countries, perhaps even economies like South Africa, where there is a lot of expertise in grapes and wine and where there are some challenges.

We could attract investors from these countries. We could attract workers from these countries. We could matchmake land in Nova Scotia with the investors and the workers to develop that land into what could be a very highly successful value-added industry in rural Nova Scotia: the grapes and wine industry. We could utilize the farm loans board and other vehicles to help finance some of this. We could engage the Nova Scotia Community College and Acadia University and the federal government's research station in Kentville, which is another reason decentralized agricultural research is so essential. We have seen an atrophy of that research in recent years under the current government. We need to actually restore and increase funding for decentralized research. Certainly the research done for wine in the Annapolis Valley might be quite different from that in the Okanagan Valley or the Niagara region, as an example. We should be helping train Nova Scotians increasingly on viticulture and winemaking.

The opportunity here is not only to reverse the demographic decline of our rural communities and attract a new generation of new Canadians who would bring their families to rural Nova Scotia and help build their wineries, their vineyards and their families as citizens and nation builders in our province, but to create jobs and opportunities for other rural Nova Scotians.

In Canada, one of the most innovative immigration programs in the country is in Manitoba, which has been successful for some time. In fact, Manitoba last year attracted 16,000 new Canadians; Nova Scotia attracted around 2,000. Manitoba's focus has been to engage communities, to engage businesses and to target immigration around economic opportunities. This is the kind of approach that I think would commend itself to the pioneers in this policy in Manitoba: a targeted approach.

However, it is very important when we are having debates on this kind of issue that we do not demonize immigration, that we do not demonize people who come to Canada to create opportunities for themselves and that we recognize the importance of a well-run temporary foreign worker program and an innovative economic strategy around a targeted and long-term immigration strategy, and it is twofold.

While we are very concerned about the flaws that exist within the temporary foreign worker program, it is really important in the course of these debates that we do not choose language that puts out some sort of xenophobic tone that stigmatizes people who come to our country to work, either on a temporary basis or on a permanent basis as immigrants.

I was speaking recently to John Bragg, who is one of Nova Scotia's greatest entrepreneurs, about this issue. He expressed the importance of temporary foreign workers in the horticulture industries that he has been a pioneer in, but he also reminded me of the time in the 1950s when the Dutch were coming over to rural Nova Scotia. He said he remembered people in our rural communities, up in places like Collingwood where John lived, saying, “Why do we need those Dutch coming in? They are going to take our jobs.”

That is what people used to say. The reality is those hard-working Dutch immigrants not only built futures for their families but also built jobs for all Nova Scotians who lived in those communities in what was the most successful wave of immigration to rural Nova Scotia.

It is important to realize that the first question we have to ask ourselves is, “Do we want them?” Sometimes there are concerns in the public about this. People feel it is a zero sum thing, that someone coming in is going to take a job from a Canadian worker. In most cases, that is not the case. In fact, these workers create jobs for Canadians higher up the value chain.

About a year ago I read an online survey in The Chronicle Herald in Nova Scotia. It asked online readers the question, “Would you support programs to attract more new Canadians to rural Nova Scotia?” Some 65% said “no”, and the commentary was along that line. Nova Scotians were afraid they would take jobs from us.

The best kind of politics is changing people's minds. One of the things we have a responsibility for at all levels of government is to make sure Canadians understand that immigration does not take Canadian jobs; rather, it creates Canadian jobs and opportunities. Canada has been built by people who chose to come here, and we need more workers choosing to come here. We need leadership from the federal government, working with the provinces, for targeted immigration strategies to attract a new generation of nation builders in this fabulous multicultural masterpiece we call Canada.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

It being 5:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

All those opposed will please say nay.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Opposition Motion—Temporary Foreign Worker ProgramBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #655

Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

6 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

I declare the motion defeated.

The House resumed from April 15 consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Budget 2013Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

6 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the opposition motion concerning the business of supply.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #656

Business of SupplyGovernment Orders

6:05 p.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

I declare the motion lost.

It being 6:10 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.