Jinny Sims

[Business of Supply, May 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in January, my colleague in the Liberal Party mentioned that the program was broken to only a certain degree. Today, of course, we have heard him say that it is a near total failure.

We are hearing too many contradictory messages. We have heard the leader of the official party saying that the program was only a Band-Aid solution, which contrasts with what the member for Kings—Hants has said, which is that it creates value-added jobs.

What does the Liberal Party really believe?

[Business of Supply, May 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we are in Parliament, and this is a parliamentary debate. I am not here to be called a young woman in this room. I am here as a parliamentarian, thanks very much.

[Business of Supply, May 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his impassioned speech on the temporary foreign worker program, which was introduced in a very limited way; then the program was expanded in 2002 under my colleague's government. Of course that has led to the floodgates being opened under the Conservative government. Now we are hearing in the media of the abuse, and the issue has become one that is galvanizing those living in Canada right now.

My question for my colleague across the way is this. What data should be used to determine the number of temporary foreign workers who are admitted into the country? What kind of data needs to be used to determine that number?

[Employment, May 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we are now hearing more troubling stories from temporary foreign workers who have been mistreated, had wages withheld, were threatened with deportation and even violence. Government agencies have known about these complaints for months and did nothing.

After years of Liberal failure to protect workers, under the current government things have gotten even worse. Conservatives even use make-believe Kijiji economics to justify their changes.

Why is the minister refusing to allow for an independent review?

[Employment, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the minister refuses to answer questions about the temporary foreign worker program. He refuses to provide the most basic breakdowns and statistics around labour market opinions and these workers, yet he tries to make Canadians believe that everything is okay. It is not.

Conservative mismanagement has made a complete mess of this program. When will the minister listen to out-of-work Canadians, impose the sensible moratorium the NDP proposed, and launch an immediate program-wide audit of this program?

[Employment, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that people are coming forward every single day and talking about losing work because of the growth in the temporary worker program. Now it is Canadian helicopter pilots denied work in favour of temporary workers.

Private companies are submitting applications for labour market opinions and claiming there are not enough domestic pilots, while Canadian pilots are sitting unemployed.

Problems with this program are system-wide. Why is the minister refusing to launch an independent audit?

[Petitions, April 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of my constituents of Newton--North Delta to present two petitions, each protesting the Conservative government's decision to end door-to-door mail delivery for Canadians, increase postal rates, and close post offices across this country.

Via this petition, my constituents are asking the government to reverse these job-killing changes—

[Petitions, April 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I stand on behalf of constituents in my riding of Newton--North Delta in support of the iCANdonate campaign.

These petitioners call upon the government to change the policy on blood, organ, and bone marrow donation in Canada. They are asking that sexual preference not be an instant refusal of a person's right to donate.

[Employment, April 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, hard-working Canadians are losing their jobs in favour of temporary workers who are paid less and are treated poorly. Conservatives keep promising to fix the mess they have made, yet it only gets worse.

Will the minister acknowledge the severity of the problem and agree to an immediate independent audit?

[Business of Supply, April 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, having heard the minister give us a history and explanation of the different types of temporary foreign worker programs, I want to let him know that I certainly understand the different streams. What I want to stipulate again is that our motion here does not cover the category known as the seasonal agricultural worker program. In no way was it meant to capture that program. At the same time, I heard the minister saying that recently he has heard of some egregious abuses of this program by some people.

I want to ask him a really simple question today about the LMOs that are given out by his department. Here we are in Victoria, where we have not just one but 26 fast food outlets that were granted LMOs in an area where the youth unemployment rate for entry level jobs is at 15%.

Having that information and having the information on HD Mining, RBC, and the ironworkers, is it not time for an independent audit? Then let us sit down together and build a program that will really serve all Canadians.