Mr. Speaker, I move that the Second Report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented on Tuesday, March 6, 2012, be concurred in.
It is with pleasure that I rise today to express a great deal of concern that Liberals have with regard to the approach of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism in dealing with backlogs and, one could ultimately say, immigration in general. It is fair to say that history might reflect this particular minister as being one of the weaker ministers of citizenship and immigration that we have seen in the last 20 or 30 years.
A report was provided to the House that dealt with the issue of backlogs. I have had the opportunity to see the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism on numerous occasions inside the House, outside the House and inside committees, try to deal with the issue of backlogs. At the very least, one could say that he is somewhat misleading in many of his comments with regard to backlogs, especially when it comes to the creation of them.
I felt it was appropriate to stand today because it was just last week when the minister appeared before the citizenship and immigration committee and provided a report. Part of the report dealt with the issue of backlogs. What struck me as one of the more significant mistakes of the government is the skilled worker backlog. This is an issue that came up last year. It was part of the huge budget backdoor release of numerous pieces of legislation, the Conservative majority-style government saying it has figured out how to get rid of the backlog. What the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism did was present to the House what Liberals would argue was an unfair approach at dealing with the backlog.
Many would suggest that he cut it; I suggest what he really did was hit the delete button. I know the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is a little sensitive on that particular issue, but that is, indeed, the reality of it. There are two issues on which I want to take exception with the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism regarding that component of the backlog.
Number one is the idea that it was the Liberal Party that created this huge backlog and the Conservatives have been unable to deal with it in a fair fashion. I agree the Conservatives have not been able to deal with the backlog in a fair fashion, but the creation of the backlog is not true. I do not believe anyone will find a minister of citizenship and immigration in recent history, recent history being the last 30-plus years, who created a backlog to the degree the minister has in one ministerial instruction. Back in 2008, he was the minister, brought in this MI 1 and created a 140,000-plus backlog virtually overnight in one category.
Having created a mess, what did he do? A few years later he talked about wanting to fix the backlog, did not want to take responsibility for his own incompetence and tried to pass off the blame on the former Liberal government, when in fact the responsibility fell on the minister who created the problem. What did he do? He hit the delete button.
Imagine that there are tens of thousands of people around the world who have hopes and dreams, like generations prior, to come to Canada and call Canada their home. They put in their applications to come here under the skilled worker program, many having friends and family throughout our great nation. Sisters, brothers, parents, just name it, are in Canada, providing them advice, telling them to come to Canada because Canada is a wonderful place to be.
Many of those individuals bought into that. They had incredible credentials in their homeland, whether India, the Philippines or any other part of the world, and they put in their applications in good faith. Many would have paid consultants or lawyers to ensure their paperwork was being filled out properly. In most part, they met the criteria. Then they waited. They got in the queue. They submitted their application.
A couple of years go by, and we understand that the demand for immigration to Canada has been increasing quite a bit. At the end of the day, there was a two- to three-year wait period, but no more than that when they had initially put in their application. However, one thing leads to another, and sadly, we have a Conservative Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism who has a totally different agenda in terms of immigration policy, which at the end of the day adds to this huge backlog by creating an MI 1 ministerial instruction. It was the minister's first attempt, and what a mess it was. As a result of that, these individuals were then put into an even longer backlog.
Fast forward to last year—and this is after we had this report brought forward—and we now have the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism saying that he is going to attempt to clean up his mess, even though he tries to put it on to another political party. It is his mess, and he now wants to clean it up. He decides the best way to do that is to hit the delete button.
Imagine being an individual who, five or six years ago, put in an application and was looking forward to getting processed to come to Canada, but receives in the mail a letter saying, “So sorry; you have been deleted and are no longer able to come to Canada”. Enclosed in this envelope, if one is fortunate enough, one will get a reimbursement of the processing and landing fees. Imagine receiving a letter of that nature.
A few thoughts come to my mind. One could ultimately question it, and there has been a class action suit that is taking place in Ontario on that issue; on the minister's reaction. However, what of those who took the time to pay an immigration consultant, lawyer or agency? This is not a few hundreds dollars, but for many people that would go into the thousands of dollars. Immigration services are not cheap; they cost a great deal of money. For a lot of people, and we are talking thousands of individuals, who would have paid thousands of dollars, none of that money is reimbursed; none at all.
There are those individuals who spent money or changed their lives in anticipation that they would be able to come to Canada. They put their lives on hold in their countries for what I could classify as a deferral of gratification. They were in that on-hold system and possibly prevented from going to other regions of the world. Why? It is because they believed they had an opportunity to come to Canada. In talking to their family and friends, they genuinely felt that would be in the best interest of their children, themselves and their family. They were prepared to wait and make the sacrifices necessary because they believed that Canada was the place to go. We cannot blame them for that. Canada is the best country in the world to live and call home. It is a land of opportunities.
At the end of the day, for tens of thousands of people worldwide, that dream and that hope was taken away by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. He felt it was time to deal with the backlog problem that he created, by hitting the delete button, and I would suggest, in a very cold-hearted fashion.
There is a difference between Conservative immigration policy and Liberal immigration policy. All people need to do is take a look at our leaders, whether it is Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Jean Chrétien or Paul Martin. If we take a look at our immigration planning and programming, it is more holistic and all-encompassing.
We can talk about meeting labour needs. It was the Liberal Party that created the temporary worker program. It was the Liberal Party that created the live-in caregiver program.
The most successful economic program today is the provincial nominee program. We hear a lot about the 338,000 temporary foreign workers who are here today. We understand the degree to which the government has dropped the ball on this issue and has made a mess of this issue.
All we need to do is take a look at the province of Manitoba, and look at the temporary foreign worker numbers in terms of visas going to that province, which has been virtually status quo and has not really changed. On the other hand, Manitoba has used the nominee program to meet the needs of the province. Its immigration numbers have gone from roughly 3,500 annually to well over 10,000 annually.
The need has not increased for the temporary foreign workers, because we recognize the value of immigration. We recognize the contributions that good, sound policy has on our country.
When the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism starts talking about the backlogs, he needs to reflect on some of the mistakes he has made and the results in terms of dreams that have been devastated, the results in regard to the number of individuals on whom he has had a direct impact.
I challenge the minister's Conservative colleagues to start thinking of ways in which we can utilize immigration in a more positive fashion for our country. If we want to try to address the labour needs, for example, what we should be doing and what the Liberal Party has been calling for is to look at ways we can enhance the nominee program.
We see the demand from other provinces continuing to rise, and yet we see Ottawa saying no. One of the ironic things about it is that the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism likes to take credit for getting more immigrants every year. Well, if it was not for Jean Chrétien's nominee program, we would not have the numbers we have today. However, I get sidetracked.
If we take a look at that particular program, why not explore the opportunities of other communities and municipalities? We could explore the opportunities that might be there for expanding an economic nominee program.
If the government was to really engage people on that issue, I believe the demand for the temporary foreign worker program would greatly diminish.
The issue with the temporary foreign worker program is that when we were in government, whether it was the Paul Martin government or the Jean Chrétien government, what we saw in the temporary foreign worker program was the Canadian first policy. If there was a Canadian or a landed resident living in Canada who could take on that job, that is what the Liberal governments wanted to happen. That is why they put into place a protocol that ensured that Canadians and landed residents here in Canada, first and foremost, would have the opportunity to get those jobs.
Even when the economy was at its peak and doing its best, we never saw more than 160,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada. Today, we see 338,000 temporary foreign workers. The government is using that particular program to manipulate other factors in our country, factors like the influence it has on wages, the amount of money individuals are being paid, and taking away jobs from other individuals who would love to be able to work.
What about the government sitting down with the stakeholders who are being affected by some of its policies? Has it sat down with any pilots to hear the concerns they have to raise? Whether it is on the phone from the Toronto airport or sitting down at a McDonald's restaurant in my community or talking to others, pilots are concerned and are saying they are frustrated because they can fly planes yet there are temporary workers who are being brought in. There are other issues that need to be looked at in regard to that. At the very least the government needs to acknowledge that there is something there. It needs to recognize there are many different jobs that are questionable.
I appreciate the apology that came forward from the Royal Bank. It recognized that a mistake was indeed made. The Royal Bank does not have a monopoly in terms of areas where there is the potential for abuse, and I applaud it coming forward and making that apology. However, I do believe there is more to it.
We need to look into that because, at the end of the day, we need to protect the temporary foreign worker program, which has saved industries in Canada. That is why it was brought into being. There are certain industries that are dependent on it, and if they did not have foreign temporary workers, those industries would collapse. If those industries collapsed or if there were jobs that were taken away, the impact of that would be profound on all Canadians, all of us who live in and call Canada our home, because those jobs that were not or could not be filled by those living in Canada contribute to our GDP and our lifestyle.
Therefore, when we talk about the issue of backlogs, maybe it is because the government was not processing those skilled workers in the same fashion as the Liberal administrations before it. In some cases, that could be one of the reasons why we might have more temporary foreign workers in Canada. As I pointed out, there is a multitude of different reasons. That is likely one of them. It is very important that the minister of immigration start really looking at the issue of backlogs from a different perspective.
In bringing forward this report, I was happy to listen to the hours of presentations. There was a lot of discussion on this particular report. We made a number of recommendations at the end of the report. I think we hit the double digits in terms of the number of recommendations. However, in the appendix at the back of the report we did provide a Liberal Party opinion report on it. I can say that, if had more resources, I probably could have had up to nine pages of report. However, I had to settle for only a couple of pages.
I can assure the House that there is much that could be addressed and that this particular Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is doing a poor job on. Unfortunately, because of limitations of the committee, we were unable to address what I believe were all the important issues that needed to be addressed. Therefore, I would appeal to the committee, on which I am one of the vice-chairs, to start looking at other issues, such as the provincial nominee program and the temporary foreign worker program, and look at ways in which we can take a more holistic approach—