Mr. Speaker, on April 14, CBC reported that three McDonald's franchises in Victoria were cutting jobs and the hours of their Canadian employees and replacing them with temporary foreign workers. Since that news report, other reports about the abuse of the temporary foreign worker program have come flooding in.
Bowing to pressure, the Minister of Employment and Social Development finally announced a moratorium on hiring low-skilled temporary foreign workers for the food services sector.
At that time, the minister reiterated that he had warned the businesses numerous times: the temporary foreign worker program should be used only as a last resort. Businesses must be able to prove that they first offered available jobs to Canadian workers, without success.
It is important to remind them about the rules, but it is not that useful if it falls on deaf ears. Scandals related to the temporary foreign worker program have been building up since 2012. It took the minister two years to do something more than just remind them of the rules. How is that for efficiency and diligence?
For two years, the Conservative government ignored the evidence. It spared the businesses that are scamming the system. It turned a deaf ear to the NDP's concerns and our request for an emergency debate on April 8.
Canadians across the country are becoming increasingly concerned about the job situation. Three hundred thousand people have not been able to find work since the 2008 recession. True to form, the Conservatives do a lot of talking, but they take too little action, too late.
This series of scandals that has just come to light with regard to the temporary foreign worker program is proof of much more than the Conservatives' incompetence, a fact that is known and recognized. It proves that the Conservatives' real objective is to reduce workers' wages and benefits, which is disgraceful.
This ideology is at the heart of the Conservatives' employment policy. It explains why they see labour shortages where there is unemployment. It explains the current irregularities in the temporary foreign worker program.
This program was originally created to fill occasional labour shortages when employers were unable to find Canadian workers or permanent residents to fill those positions.
The number of eligible sectors was quite limited, and the process was very controlled. Companies had to show that they had made an honest attempt to hire local workers. Then, they would be allowed to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis only to fill an occasional need, thereby preventing the lack of workers from hindering their development and depriving them of business opportunities.
However, since the Conservatives took office, things have gone from bad to worse in this regard, and Canadians are paying the price. The Conservatives began by expanding the list of jobs that are eligible for the program. They expanded it to lower-skilled jobs. Then, they made the rules of the program more flexible and reduced oversight. Even though there was a recession, they did not tighten the rules for recruiting foreign workers.
Each time, the Conservatives justify their lax management of this program by saying that there is a labour shortage.
The Conservatives do not listen when the NDP shows that there is no labour shortage and that 300,000 Canadians have not been able to find work since the recession.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has produced a report indicating that the Conservatives' labour shortage claims are based on false data, but the minister continues to insist that there is a labour shortage. It is no use. The Conservatives continue to insist that the temporary foreign worker program needs to be even more flexible.
The government has pushed this logic to the point of allowing companies to pay temporary foreign workers 15% less than Canadian workers. It is therefore not surprising that the number of temporary foreign workers in Canada skyrocketed from 100,000 in 2002 to 340,000 in 2012.
The number of temporary workers has ballooned since the Conservatives came to power. There are now 60,000 more temporary workers than permanent residents. Low-skilled occupations account for the most significant increases. Since 2006, the number of low-skilled temporary foreign workers has exploded by more than 700%.
Food services are the second most common occupation for temporary foreign workers. In 2012, the restaurant industry received 44,000 positive LMOs, 900% more than in 2006.
We are talking about cashiers at Tim Hortons and employees at McDonald's, not highly specialized jobs requiring skills that are in short supply.
We also have to take into account the experiences of these foreign workers to understand the problems with this program.
They come here hoping to create better lives for themselves and their families—a laudable goal. Many of them come to Canada not knowing how to speak English or French. They know nothing about normal working conditions here. They know nothing about their rights, their employer's obligations toward them, or their options for recourse against their employer.
There have certainly been scandalous and shocking revelations lately, but let us also bear in mind that the Conservatives' lack of concern about the temporary foreign worker program is having significant repercussions on the labour market. These repercussions are described in a C.D. Howe Institute report released last week. The report shows that the use of temporary workers has resulted in a 4% increase in the unemployment rate in Alberta and British Columbia. The unemployment rate for low-skilled workers is 13.4% in Alberta and 15.5% in B.C., which is twice the average.
In Canada, there are six workers for every available job, so how can there be a general labour shortage? Why is there any need to resort to temporary workers to work in restaurants when the unemployment rate in that field is twice the national average?
Instead, the Conservative government is encouraging temporary foreign workers to come because they are easier to manipulate than Canadian workers. If they ask for anything, starting with a wage increase, the employer can easily get rid of them. The Conservative government's sloppy management of the temporary foreign worker program and its determination to see a labour shortage where there clearly is none say a lot about its ideological motives.
The Conservatives want a society in which corporations can freely exploit workers, where wage increases slow down, businesses pay lower taxes and people receive fewer services. The Conservatives' plan for Canada is a society of injustice and inequality. We want the results of this investigation to be released as soon as possible.
Unlike this government, we want to build an inclusive society where everyone can find their place. To do that, we must make every effort to stimulate the job market and integrate the immigrants we need for the long term. This means that the temporary foreign worker program must be changed in order to restore it to its original purpose.
