Chris Charlton

[Employment, April 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democrats did not ask for Canadian jobs to be taken away, but that is exactly what happened because of Conservative mismanagement.

Back in 2006, the Conservative immigration minister said that he was proud to water down the temporary foreign workers program, essentially only requiring companies to pay lip service to recruiting Canadians first. What was the pressing labour shortage for Conservatives at the time? “When it starts to affect our ability to go to Tim Hortons and get a double-double, it ceases to be a laughing matter”. Canadians are not laughing.

Again, when will the Conservatives fix this program?

[Employment Insurance, April 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, once again the minister is denying facts. Government documents show that the Conservative home inspection program intentionally profiled seasonal workers. In fact, they make the outrageous claim that workers in these industries have “elevated risk of fraud”. Only Conservatives would target unemployed seasonal workers as fraudsters because fishing season ended.

Why are they treating honest, law-abiding Canadians like criminals? When will the minister end the witch hunt and stop attacking seasonal industries and workers?

[Employment Insurance, April 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is there are six and a half job seekers for every one vacancy, and EI is no longer there for those who need it. The minister has nothing to brag about.

The labour force survey shows that unemployment is on the rise at the same time that a Statistics Canada report shows that fewer Canadians are receiving EI benefits. Taken together, the two reports prove that the Conservatives' changes to EI mean fewer Canadians are getting the benefits they paid for.

When will the minister finally wake up to the problem and fix the mess she created?

[Employment Insurance, April 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative mismanagement of EI just keeps getting worse. For years HRSDC was sensitive to regional economies by allowing companies like the fish processing plant in Matane, Quebec, to help workers become eligible for EI. Suddenly there is an about-face.

To add insult to injury, the Conservatives are forcing the workers to repay the government for benefits they collected under their old policy. If there really was a long-standing problem, why did it take so long for the Conservatives to act, and why are they making the workers pay for their incompetence?

[Child Poverty, April 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, at a time when my home town is struggling to make Hamilton the best place to raise a child, our community's efforts are being undermined by the federal government.

A devastating report by UNICEF ranks the well-being of children in Canada at a deplorable 17th out of 29 rich countries, a score that has not budged in almost a decade. Canada scored below average on a number of criteria, including obesity and child poverty.

We know that children are not poor; it is their parents who are poor. The Conservative government is making things worse, instead of better. The Conservatives are attacking collective bargaining rights, abandoning pay equity and kicking workers off of EI unless they take a 30% pay cut. They are also taking jobs away from Canadian workers and legislating lower pay for the foreign workers who replace them.

It was in 1989 that the House unanimously adopted the NDP motion to end child poverty by the year 2000. Clearly, we still have a long way to go. Canada can and must do better.

In honour of this year's Mother's Day, let us finally make the well-being of our children a national priority.

[Employment Insurance, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's answer proves that when it comes to temporary foreign workers, she never lets the facts get in the way of her question period answer.

It is the same story with employment insurance. Even the IMF, which is infamous for its austerity programs, is telling us that austerity is inappropriate for Canada and that employment insurance is particularly important in these challenging economic times. However, despite all of the evidence, the Conservatives are continuing with their ideological cuts to EI.

When will the minister admit that her reckless cuts to EI are putting Canada's economy in danger and leaving Canadian families behind?

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I think the temporary foreign worker program can be rehabilitated and, frankly, I think it has played an important role in dealing with skills and labour shortages at specific times in the Canadian community and in cycles of the Canadian economy.

The member is absolutely right. The program is supposed to be designed so that Canadians have access to jobs first. That is what we need to return to. That has to be a critical part of the rehabilitation. It is not good enough to post jobs for seven days on some website and count that as making jobs available to Canadians.

The member is also absolutely right when he talks about the government's complete failure to deal with skills training issues so that we can make sure that Canadians have the skills to take the high-skilled jobs that the government is saying employers cannot fill unless they go to foreign countries to recruit employees.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's passion. I just do not see that passion reflected in the motion that the Liberals brought before the House.

I absolutely agree that there is a need in Canada for the temporary foreign worker program. I also believe we need to make fundamental changes to that program, including, frankly, protecting temporary foreign workers when it comes to health and safety and labour protections, which of course the government has not addressed at all.

The member passionately says this program is flawed. Yes, it is. We know temporary foreign workers are being paid 15% less than their counterparts. We know what the problems are with this program. We have the example of HD Mining from a year ago. We now have examples from RBC. How much more studying do we need to do before we create solutions?

That is what we are charged with as parliamentarians. We are here to represent hard-working Canadians whose jobs are being displaced by temporary foreign workers. I am committed to delivering results for Canadians. I do not want more talk. I want to be able to deliver action to constituents whose jobs are being displaced through a temporary foreign worker program that is fundamentally flawed.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Newton—North Delta.

I am pleased to rise in the House to call the Conservative government to account for its complete mismanagement of the temporary foreign workers program. It has to stop and it has to stop now because Canadians are paying the price.

I do not think I need to remind anyone in the House of the scandals that rightfully have Canadians up in arms and demanding action. It was just a couple of weeks ago that reports revealed that 45 employees at the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto were set to lose their jobs after the bank contracted technological services to iGate, an outsourcing firm that uses foreign workers. To add insult to injury, affected bank employees reported that they were asked to train the people taking their jobs. It is disgusting.

According to the rules, none of that should have been possible. Before they are able to hire temporary foreign workers, employers need to get a positive labour market opinion that demonstrates that bringing in foreign workers will not take jobs away from available and qualified Canadian citizens or permanent residents. By the government's own admission, RBC did get such an LMO from HRSDC. Clearly, something went very wrong, but neither the government nor the bank are fully taking responsibility.

In the case of the bank, it was a full five days before it issued an apology to workers and offered assurances that comparable job opportunities would be made available to the 45 affected RBC employees. Although the government has acknowledged that the LMO issued to iGate must be reviewed, there is still no timeline for either the review or action.

To make matters worse, we know that RBC is not the only example. Members will of course remember the myriad of news reports last year about HD Mining. In that case, the government had also issued questionable LMOs, this time paving the way for a company in B. C. to hire Chinese workers. The LMOs were issued despite the fact that some 300 Canadians applied for the positions. The upshot in that case is that a judicial review is now under way in Federal Court that will decide the fate of 201 temporary foreign workers hired at HD Mining International's coal mining Murray River project in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. It should never have gone to that point.

The Conservatives keep feigning outrage, but they created the loopholes that allow companies to abuse the temporary foreign worker program and displace Canadian jobs. Clearly, the system is broken.

Let me just give one last set of examples, this time from Alberta.

In 2012, the Conservatives launched a new accelerated labour market opinion to create a fast track stream for higher-skilled workers, such as management, professional and technical occupations. Under the ALMO, employers do not need to provide evidence of considering Canadians for open positions. They simply need to show that they advertised the job on the federal job bank for seven days. Less than 20% of ALMO applications will be subject to a compliance review and very little documentation is required during the application process. Evidence from government documents obtained by the Alberta Federation of Labour showed that nearly half of all ALMOs appeared to be improperly used to fill low-skill positions, such as at gas stations and fast food chains.

There are still 1.4 million unemployed Canadians. As the NDP leader asked in question period yesterday, which skills exactly are required to work at the Tim Hortons that the Conservatives do not think Canadians have?

It is not just happening in Alberta. Temporary foreign workers are replacing clerical workers in Ontario, fish plant workers in Newfoundland and Labrador and miners in British Columbia. It has to stop.

The TFW program was never intended to take jobs away from hard-working Canadians. In fact, this may be a good time to review the program's intent. The purpose of the temporary foreign worker program is to enable employers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis to fill immediate skills and labour shortages when, and this is the critical part, Canadian citizens and permanent residents are not available to do the job. Clearly, that is not how the program is being used now.

Exponential increases in the use of the program, combined with reports that the program is being used against its purpose, prove that the Conservatives have completely lost control. Let us look at the numbers. The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada grew significantly under the Liberals and exponentially under the Conservatives. From 2002 to 2012, the number of TFWs present in Canada more than tripled, from 101,098 to 338,189. The number of TFWs in Canada grew from 100,000 to 160,000 under the Liberals and then doubled again under the Prime Minister.

The problem is that these temporary foreign workers are coming in at a time of record unemployment in the country. As I just pointed out, nearly 1.4 million Canadians are currently out of work. In March alone, we saw the loss of 54,000 full-time jobs, the biggest drop in four years. There are six unemployed Canadians for every available job, and under the current Prime Minister's watch, unemployment has increased by 320,000.

The unemployment rate remains in double digits in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and P.E.I., and the Conservatives continue to fail Canada's youth, as their unemployment rate has gone up to 14.2%. In my home province of Ontario, employment is down by 17,000. It declined by 15,000 in British Columbia, 11,000 in Alberta and 17,000 in Quebec. Canadians are clamouring for jobs, but the Conservatives are failing them when it comes to job creation, and the jobs that are available are now being given away to the lowest bidder. Let us make no mistake: that is what is really going on here. The government's handling of the temporary foreign worker program is part of its larger agenda to drive down wages in our country.

Let us look at the record. The Conservatives are attacking collective bargaining rights, forcing seniors to work an extra two years and kicking workers off EI unless they take a 30% pay cut. Now they are taking jobs away from Canadian workers and legislating lower pay for the foreign workers who replace them.

The Prime Minister's message to Canadians is clear: work for less or be replaced. How else can we explain the long record of broken promises when it comes to the temporary foreign worker program? We were promised action in the fall of 2009, in budget 2012, again when the HD Mining story broke, in budget 2013 and again just this month, when the RBC controversy came to light.

We have seen lots of talk. What we have not yet seen from the Conservatives is any concrete action. I worry that the Liberal motion before the House today risks leading us to the same weak results. It is precisely because I agree that the use of temporary foreign workers to replace Canadian workers in jobs that Canadians are qualified to do is an abuse of the temporary foreign worker program that I want to see concrete action.

However, what the Liberals are proposing is to set up a Conservative-dominated committee. How does that change anything? It risks creating a platform for the Conservatives to make more hollow promises without any guarantee that businesses will find the workers they need and that Canadian workers will have the opportunities they deserve. That is the result we must achieve.

Instead of setting up a committee, why do we not just adopt the motion that stands in my name on the order paper? It resolves that in the opinion of the House, the temporary foreign worker program is seriously flawed and mismanaged and that the government should take a number of steps. First, it should stop permitting employers to misuse the program. Second, it should repeal the provision allowing temporary foreign workers to be paid 15% less than Canadian workers. Finally, it should announce a clear timeline for independent review of the temporary foreign worker program and its impact on Canadian employment and labour standards.

I would encourage all members to support this much stronger alternative because it calls for the kind of action and accountability that all Canadians deserve.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member has a role to play here and has to read out the speaking notes he received from the minister, but the program simply is not as rosy as he is suggesting. I want to draw his attention to an email I received from a journeyman in the roofing industry in Edmonton, Alberta, who says:

The offshore workers have signed a two year agreement for 10% less then the journeymen are paid. The company has born the cost of flights and living expenses for offshore workers. At times there are language barriers, due to these workers not speaking or understanding English.

The flat roofing crews are busy working summer and fall. In the winter work slows down. Journeymen are told to stay home by their phone for emergency repairs. Offshore employees are working. Shoveling snow, counting screws and being paid for a 40 hour week.

Journeymen possibly work 10 hours a week....

Journeymen have contacted PC Riding office, to be told to go and collect welfare. Someone, please explain to me is WELFARE the only option???

That is the question I would like to pose to the member on behalf of the journeyman in Edmonton, Alberta.