Mr. Speaker, we know the kind of games; we know what access to information is there for. We know the directions come from the centre to find any means to undermine, to attack and to discredit. That is not what Parliament is supposed to be about.
Why I am so strongly in favour of this motion of a special committee is to try to show Canadians that this place can work. We can work together as MPs. We do not have to take direction from the Prime Minister's Office. The backbench members over there do not have to take direction from the Prime Minister's Office. We could do our job, hold the proper hearings and come back with recommendations, and the cabinet could accept or reject those recommendations. That would be doing our job.
Let us understand what we are really speaking about. I may have got a little off track, but the fact of the matter is that I believe in my country. I believe in democracy and I want to see this democracy work. It is being severely undermined in this very place.
The program was initially proposed, designed and established by a previous Liberal government, but it worked then. It was not undermined. The program was established by a previous Liberal government and was initially designed to achieve a careful balance of three equally important objectives. The first was to protect the jobs and wages of Canadian workers and Canadian access to employment opportunities. The second was to assist small businesses and corporations that have legitimate—and I underline that fact—difficulties finding workers. The third objective was to protect the dignity of temporary foreign workers by ensuring they are paid a fair wage and are treated as fairly as Canadians workers doing the same work. That is what the program was really about in the beginning.
A recent article on the issue of temporary foreign workers provides a summary of why the House should support the motion here today. It was by Erin Weir, in the online Globe and Mail. It said:
Reports of RBC outsourcing jobs to temporary foreign workers to replace existing Canadian employees should prompt a broader debate about the massive expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in recent years. Is this program addressing genuine “labour shortages” or undermining job opportunities and wages in Canada?
A number of speakers have spoken along those lines. The article went on:
The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada has more than doubled since the Harper government took office. The Department of Citizenship and Immigration reports the presence of 338,000 temporary foreign workers at the end of 2012.
Since 2006, that is a 140% increase in temporary foreign workers in the country, from 140,000 to 338,000. It is a serious matter. Certainly, some of them are needed in some sectors, but some of it is certainly an abuse of the program, and that is the reason we should be holding hearings.
The scale of the issue should be placed in a context that is both understandable and shocking at the same time, given the current reality of unemployment and underemployment in Canada. Since 2008, the number of temporary foreign workers has increased by 24,000, or 60%, in Toronto; 18,000, or 70%, in Quebec; and 5,000, or 80%, in the Atlantic provinces. Together, these regions of high unemployment account for most of the post-recession increase in Canada's temporary foreign workforce. With the exception of Toronto, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, wages in these regions are below the national average.
To put it into perspective, the temporary workforce is now almost as large as New Brunswick's entire employed labour force and far exceeds that of Newfoundland and Labrador, not to mention Prince Edward Island. With remarkably little evidence or public consultation, the temporary foreign worker program has added the equivalent of a small province to Canada's labour market. That is how serious this issue is. It needs to be balanced in where to find and use temporary foreign workers, which is fine. However, what are the rules around those particular temporary foreign workers?
I do not want to talk about my own province because we do utilize temporary foreign workers.
In its report, the Cooper Institute stated this about how temporary foreign workers are treated:
In 2012 the federal government announced changes to the TFWP that will come into effect in 2013. One of these changes allows the TFWs to be paid up to 15% less than their Canadian co-workers, but not less than the minimum wage. Before this TFWs had to be paid the same wage as Canadians. TFWs are vulnerable in ways that most Canadian workers are not. If they issue a complaint, even to the authorities, they can be fired and sent back to their home countries.
Then there is the whole issue of housing. There is the whole issue of maybe having to pay money to a recruitment agent. As well, there is the whole issue of insecurity. These people are certainly under some pressure.
Specifically in my own province, are temporary foreign workers taking jobs from islanders? The Cooper Institute claims:
No. Before hiring TFWs, employers need to go through a process that shows they have advertised for Canadian workers, and that they didn't receive enough applications. Also, most employers of TFWs report that they still have job vacancies for any Canadians who may want to apply for work.
I have had experience with that myself, where I have had to work strenuously with the labour market opinion to allow a film crew that was working on a fairly major film to come to Prince Edward Island. They did not have the skills on the island to do it. We were able to do that.
However, it is important that there is the right balance in terms of temporary foreign workers coming in.
We all know that there are serious problems with the temporary foreign worker program. This recommendation is requesting not an absolute solution right now but rather making a recommendation that a committee go out there, do its job, meet with the business community, whether big or small, the hospitality industry, the tourism industry and the farming industry to hear what people have to say, find the problems, look at the solutions and meet with HRSDC. It would give us the opportunity to show Canadians that there is a role for MPs and that the backbench Conservatives do not have to take their direction from the PMO. Rather, they could actually work as a team of parliamentarians and go out there and work together, do the hearings, find the solutions and make recommendations.