Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the opposition motion.
First of all, this motion calls for all parties in the house to recognize that there have been abuses of the temporary foreign worker program, and I believe that everyone can admit that. It is not just the media that have been talking about this. Abuses have been noted for a number of years and this is not really a point of debate.
The motion also calls for action to be taken—real action, this time—in response to the repetitive abuses of recent years. I will talk about how the Conservative government has tried to fix the problems with its own program, which it then changed, creating the problems we see today.
First of all, the motion asks the government to impose an immediate moratorium on the stream for lower-skilled occupations. Why impose a moratorium? I explained why earlier. We have waited too long. The government has tried to close the loopholes one measure at a time where it could, knowing that various problems have been going on for years. However, with the scandals that are in the news right now, the government can no longer continue to say that it is going to take action and that it is going to put a small band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound hoping that people will forget about it until the next scandal occurs. The government really needs to stop doing that.
Secondly, the motion proposes asking the Auditor General to conduct an in-depth audit to determine the shortcomings of the existing program so that solutions can be implemented. Once again, I am not talking about Band-Aid solutions, but real solutions that will address the real problems created by this program.
I think this motion is extremely worthwhile. It responds to the existing temporary foreign worker crisis, and I would be very interested in seeing all of the parties rise in the House to call for serious action to be taken against the abuse of this program.
I would like to provide clarification on a point that has often been raised by my Conservative colleagues. The NDP is not opposed to temporary foreign workers, far from it. I would like to talk about a case in my riding where the need for temporary foreign workers is quite real.
I want to talk about the Murugan Temple.
This temple was built by incredibly hard-working Tamil people in my community. Many years ago, they had a dream and they collected a lot of money to build a temple for their community. They bought the land and built it one step at a time. They invited an engineer from their home country to make sure the temple would be a source of pride for the community. Indeed, it has an incredibly unique architecture that we can see from the highway. It is a beautiful temple, and I wish members could see it for themselves.
This temple is a cornerstone of our community now and serves a very large Tamil community in the West Island. It is a beautiful building that hosts a lot of festivals. One of the most popular festivals at the temple hosts thousands of people during the summertime, not only from my community or the West Island but from all across Canada and even from other countries. That is how important this temple is.
Today, people in the community are waiting to welcome a priest to the temple to continue their mission and to continue to serve the Tamil community's spiritual needs. However, the government refused the priest's first application submission, and they are still waiting for an answer on the second application.
Yes, I do recognize that people can come to Canada, work on a temporary basis, and serve a real need in a community. I know that well. Therefore, I continue to ask the minister, and other ministers involved in this file, to answer the community's request. This job cannot be fulfilled by anyone in Canada. The community needs someone with specific knowledge to help it continue to grow on a spiritual level.
That being said, just because we need temporary foreign workers does not mean that the program should continue to go on the way it is. As I said earlier, there are serious problems with the program. As the critic for citizenship and immigration, I would like to talk about this issue from a perspective that may be a little different than what we have heard so far in this debate.
In fact, I would like to talk about a study conducted by Ms. Bloemraad from the University of California, who looked at the success Canada has experienced with its immigration system and its pluralistic approach. Ms. Bloemraad is an immigration expert who has studied Canada's immigration system and its success at length. As this researcher said, compared to a number of European countries and our neighbour, the United States, Canada's immigration programs have been very successful because new immigrants to the country integrate and contribute fully to the economy. In general, Canadians see immigration as a very positive way to build Canada, which is not always the case in other countries.
Why is Canada so successful? The researcher mentions several factors. I do not have time to get into all of them, but one of the things she mentions is this:
The focus on permanent, rather than temporary, migration has also been critical, since it gives both immigrants and the receiving society a stake in promoting favorable long-term outcomes. Supportive institutions and policies are thus an important part of the story.
In summary, she says that it is very important to give immigrants the opportunity to come in as permanent residents, or to ensure they know, once they are here as temporary workers, that they have the opportunity to become permanent residents and, eventually, Canadian citizens. This is important in the way that Canadians view immigrants, and it motivates newcomers to get involved and become invested in the communities that welcome them. For us here in Canada, this is an important factor in the success of our immigration system.
Historically, Canada has taken in relatively few temporary foreign workers, accepting many more skilled workers in the economic class; these workers came to the country to meet a labour need but were able to settle here. We found that an impressive number of those people applied for citizenship, as compared to the situation in many other countries; they also became involved politically. We have seen their children and their children's children achieve enormous success academically and economically. Why? Because these newcomers were welcomed by Canadian society. They saw a future in Canada and they wanted to become involved in building the wonderful country that is Canada.
However, in recent years, we have unfortunately seen a turnaround in these immigration policies, specifically under the Conservatives. What we found, actually, is that the percentage of temporary foreign workers has soared. I have some figures here. From 2002 to 2012, the number of temporary foreign workers in Canada has more than tripled. In fact, we now accept many more temporary foreign workers than economic class immigrants as permanent residents, so we can see a change in Canada's policy and we have reason to fear the impact on Canada's success in the economic integration of immigrants.
Now, if the number of temporary foreign immigrants has risen so much over these many years, we may well wonder whether there was such a significant increase in the number of jobs that Canadians can no longer fill them. If we had seen that for a year or two, followed by a decline, that might have been another thing. However, that is not the case. What we are actually seeing is an alternative solution to welcoming economic class immigrants on a permanent basis, and that is to give out visas. It is difficult to say why. However, it is certainly not an appealing solution. Ms. Bloemraad's research into the matter at the University of California gives us a good deal of very interesting food for thought.
With that, I look forward to questions from my colleagues.
