Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this opposition day motion from the Liberals.
I want to start off by saying if one reads the motion, it is very clear it does not ask for an end to the temporary foreign worker program. It does not ask for the temporary foreign worker program to be scrapped. It just asks that the program become transparent, that there be a review to see how it is working and what its flaws are currently, and that we set up a system in which there is transparency, accountability, and fairness in this particular program.
We all support the temporary foreign worker program. It began in 1973, and under three different sets of governments—Liberal, Progressive Conservative, and then Liberal again—the temporary foreign worker program worked, because what the program was meant to do was very clear.
It was a one-year program under which someone would come and spend one year as a temporary foreign worker. Before that person was accepted as a temporary foreign worker, a labour market opinion was given. The employer advertised intensely, putting out enormous amounts of advertisements to make sure that there was not a Canadian who had the skills for the job or a Canadian who wished to do the job. Those checks and balances were in the program starting in 1973.
The program worked. Not only that, but the temporary foreign workers, because they brought in special skills that Canadians did not have, were sometimes paid more than the average Canadian. There was a complaint about that, but they were either paid more than or the same as a Canadian who would have done that job or who would have been able to do the job if they could find someone to do it.
Things worked well until this government came in, in 2006. Then, although I do not know why, the government decided to change things. In 2006 it increased the time a worker could be employed from one year to two years and it decreased the time for the labour market opinion. In other words, employers did not have to advertise as extensively as they were supposed to under the old temporary foreign worker program.
That was in 2006. In 2011, the government increased the length of time for a temporary foreign worker from the two years that it had put in place in 2006 to four years, and it decreased even further, to five months, the advertising process and labour market opinion.
In 2012, it decided it would change things even further and said that for employers with strong track records—I have no idea what that meant—it would speed up the application and advertising process to 10 days and allow employers to decrease the wages for temporary foreign workers by 15%. As a result, the Royal Bank of Canada was caught bringing in temporary foreign workers to replace its own IT workers. There was a big hue and cry, and the government said, “Oh, dear; look at this problem. Let us fix it”.
It was a problem caused by the government in 2006, 2011, and 2012, when the government watered down the responsibilities and the usual checks and balances for the temporary foreign worker program.
Now we see that again. We see what is happening in the food industry. The government tampered with a program that worked quite well by allowing it to have no checks and balances, no accountability, and no transparency. Ten days is not sufficient time to advertise, but the government was going on Kijiji numbers that said we had all these jobs going begging and no one to do them.
We have no choice but to agree with Kijiji, as the government did, because we no longer have Statistics Canada doing any kind of appropriate census and appropriate longitudinal surveys to tell us what is going on in our labour markets, so everyone gets screwed because the government says it knows what it is doing.
As a result of the changes, we had two problems: the food industry problem we recently had and the RBC or Royal Bank of Canada problems just prior to that.
We now see that in December 2002, there were 182,000 temporary foreign workers, and by December 2012, there were 492,000. The program has escalated, because everyone was allowed to have less transparency and accountability and could bring in temporary foreign workers because they said they needed them. Again, the government removed transparency and accountability. When the government was caught, it suddenly said that it was changing the program, a program that worked very well from 1973 until the current government decided to fiddle around with it in 2006.
In my riding, there are many restaurants and hotels. There is agricultural land. Agricultural workers are needed in the Fraser Valley during certain seasons.
This program has a purpose, but if it is not advertised to ensure that a Canadian cannot do a job, we have defeated the purpose. When Canadians cannot be found to do jobs and temporary foreign workers are brought in, we should not be allowed to say that a temporary foreign worker can earn 15% less than a Canadian worker. Labour and others told the minister very clearly at the time that if he did that, it would depress wages generally and would create a problem. The government does not listen to anybody's opinion but its own, so the minister went ahead and did it, and we saw the problem.
We have a program that has a purpose. It requires good transparency to work. There are people in my riding who cook specialized foods and are trying to find a chef from India. There are people in various parts of the country who are trying to find workers for certain jobs in building.
When they were building the Canada Line, temporary foreign workers were brought in to do the tunneling under the streets, because there was nobody here who had the ability, the equipment, or the knowledge to do that kind of extensive work. People were brought in from Latin America. In fact, those people were paid 50% less by companies that have a strong track record but that decided to abuse the temporary foreign workers and pay them 50% less. The unions in British Columbia went to bat for these people and took the companies to court, and they were then paid the same as people with similar skills in Canada.
A bunch of people are saying that the system is a rip-off and takes jobs from Canadians, especially Canadian youth. Other people are saying that the terrible thing about this program is that it exploits people. It brings them in almost as indentured labourers and pays them a measly wage, much less than any Canadian would get. They say that Canada has become an exploitive country. These are things we have to think about. Many countries in the world have temporary foreign worker programs, but they work with clear checks and balances and accountability.
Liberals are not asking that this program be scrapped. What we are saying is fairly simple. We are saying that we want the program to go back to its original purpose. We want to be sure that the program is reviewed by the Auditor General so that he can see what has gone wrong with it and can give us ideas about how to fix it so that it achieves its goal of ensuring that we have workers to do the jobs Canadians cannot or will not do. That was the original purpose of the program. We now know that there are many industries that need such workers and cannot find them.
When the minister stands in the House and says that some members have asked him to bring in foreign workers, he is being too cute for words. He knows that there are valid reasons when a temporary foreign worker is needed. To stand in the House and point fingers at everyone who asked him for temporary foreign workers really does not pay tribute.
Liberals want to change the process to ensure that the checks and balances exist, that the advertising time is increased, and that when temporary foreign workers come to this country, they are paid the wage a Canadian would get.