Wayne Easter

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in response to my colleague's question, we know that although the government talks about job training in its budget, it clearly is not there.

With respect to the temporary foreign worker program, the use of foreign workers has gone up in areas where unemployment is the highest. That tells me two things. There is an abuse of the program, and as the member suggested, the government is quietly letting that abuse pass. That is causing two problems. First, it is forcing wages down by 15%, as was talked about in question period. Second, labour rights are being undermined.

Clearly, the government has not provided funding for adequate skills training for workers to be able to participate in those jobs.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the member asked why we would reinvent the wheel. The reason is that half the spokes are out of the wheel under the Conservative government leadership. That is why the points in the budget are not solving this problem of temporary foreign workers.

Did he listen to all of our speeches? Maybe the member was reading all of his PMO talking points. The fact of the matter is that the temporary foreign worker program is working in some cases, such as in the agricultural community. However, we know from the RBC experience and others that there are areas where it is not working.

I would say to the hon. member that if there are problems out there, this House of Commons and its members, including backbenchers from the government party, have a responsibility to go out there, hold hearings, find the problems and recommend solutions. The solutions coming forward from HRSDC through the minister are just not good enough, and the member should recognize that.

[Points of Order, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, during the course of question period, the minister of heritage clearly held in his hand what appeared to be copies of correspondence from MPs to the government, but not likely to himself.

It is the custom of the House for ministers who reference documents and quote from them to table those documents. Clearly, the minister and backbenchers have been provided access to correspondence from members and individuals, information to which they were not entitled.

Were all obligations met under the Access to Information Act? Furthermore, will the government table the documentation related to both the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act that allows them to circulate correspondence from members to individuals who did not give authority to allow them to provide that information to members?

There is a serious matter here, but related to question period, the minister clearly held in his hand documentation, which was referenced not to his department but to HRSD, relating to the temporary foreign workers program. I ask that the minister table those letters in the House.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is an extremely important program for the farm community. People within my own community use temporary foreign workers because they cannot find workers for the vegetable industry they run.

The program is not necessarily taking jobs from Canadians. The program leverages more jobs for Canadians. Canadians work on that farm as well as temporary foreign workers. There is a spinoff from the production, the agricultural development, the trucking to the grocery stores. It makes the operation work and that is the kind of balance we need.

There are good and bad examples, as I said earlier. This committee could provide the evidence, not the rhetoric from those who want to attack immigrants as if they are taking jobs away from Canadians, which some may be doing but there are a lot who are not.

We need to find the facts and the evidence and make the recommendations to make this program work the way it was originally designed to.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the point that the member outlined is the reason we must as a Parliament endorse this special committee and allow it to do its work. There are many of these kinds of examples. There are bad examples in which the program is seriously being abused. The government has lowered the wage structure by a potential 15%, and that can put downward pressure on wages in this country and labour issues. I mentioned many other situations in my remarks in terms of the agriculture industry and fisheries plants where we do indeed need temporary foreign workers.

The member's question makes the argument of why Conservative members in the House should take on their responsibilities, support the motion and allow this Parliament to do its work for Canadians, not just the PMO.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Oh my goodness, Mr. Speaker, what does the question have to do with finding solutions? This is what I was talking about earlier. Conservative members have to use certain talking points. We know a cabinet shuffle is coming and all those members are vying to get there. There may be a better opportunity for those who attack and divide the most. That is why we get these kinds of questions. That is why we get the seek and destroy and search Conservative attack machine finding letters that members of Parliament may have written and giving half truths and half information in terms of the remarks.

I can tell the members that the Liberal government had surplus budgets. We hit our targets, not like the Conservative government is doing.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we know the kind of games; we know what access to information is there for. We know the directions come from the centre to find any means to undermine, to attack and to discredit. That is not what Parliament is supposed to be about.

Why I am so strongly in favour of this motion of a special committee is to try to show Canadians that this place can work. We can work together as MPs. We do not have to take direction from the Prime Minister's Office. The backbench members over there do not have to take direction from the Prime Minister's Office. We could do our job, hold the proper hearings and come back with recommendations, and the cabinet could accept or reject those recommendations. That would be doing our job.

Let us understand what we are really speaking about. I may have got a little off track, but the fact of the matter is that I believe in my country. I believe in democracy and I want to see this democracy work. It is being severely undermined in this very place.

The program was initially proposed, designed and established by a previous Liberal government, but it worked then. It was not undermined. The program was established by a previous Liberal government and was initially designed to achieve a careful balance of three equally important objectives. The first was to protect the jobs and wages of Canadian workers and Canadian access to employment opportunities. The second was to assist small businesses and corporations that have legitimate—and I underline that fact—difficulties finding workers. The third objective was to protect the dignity of temporary foreign workers by ensuring they are paid a fair wage and are treated as fairly as Canadians workers doing the same work. That is what the program was really about in the beginning.

A recent article on the issue of temporary foreign workers provides a summary of why the House should support the motion here today. It was by Erin Weir, in the online Globe and Mail. It said:

Reports of RBC outsourcing jobs to temporary foreign workers to replace existing Canadian employees should prompt a broader debate about the massive expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in recent years. Is this program addressing genuine “labour shortages” or undermining job opportunities and wages in Canada?

A number of speakers have spoken along those lines. The article went on:

The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada has more than doubled since the Harper government took office. The Department of Citizenship and Immigration reports the presence of 338,000 temporary foreign workers at the end of 2012.

Since 2006, that is a 140% increase in temporary foreign workers in the country, from 140,000 to 338,000. It is a serious matter. Certainly, some of them are needed in some sectors, but some of it is certainly an abuse of the program, and that is the reason we should be holding hearings.

The scale of the issue should be placed in a context that is both understandable and shocking at the same time, given the current reality of unemployment and underemployment in Canada. Since 2008, the number of temporary foreign workers has increased by 24,000, or 60%, in Toronto; 18,000, or 70%, in Quebec; and 5,000, or 80%, in the Atlantic provinces. Together, these regions of high unemployment account for most of the post-recession increase in Canada's temporary foreign workforce. With the exception of Toronto, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, wages in these regions are below the national average.

To put it into perspective, the temporary workforce is now almost as large as New Brunswick's entire employed labour force and far exceeds that of Newfoundland and Labrador, not to mention Prince Edward Island. With remarkably little evidence or public consultation, the temporary foreign worker program has added the equivalent of a small province to Canada's labour market. That is how serious this issue is. It needs to be balanced in where to find and use temporary foreign workers, which is fine. However, what are the rules around those particular temporary foreign workers?

I do not want to talk about my own province because we do utilize temporary foreign workers.

In its report, the Cooper Institute stated this about how temporary foreign workers are treated:

In 2012 the federal government announced changes to the TFWP that will come into effect in 2013. One of these changes allows the TFWs to be paid up to 15% less than their Canadian co-workers, but not less than the minimum wage. Before this TFWs had to be paid the same wage as Canadians. TFWs are vulnerable in ways that most Canadian workers are not. If they issue a complaint, even to the authorities, they can be fired and sent back to their home countries.

Then there is the whole issue of housing. There is the whole issue of maybe having to pay money to a recruitment agent. As well, there is the whole issue of insecurity. These people are certainly under some pressure.

Specifically in my own province, are temporary foreign workers taking jobs from islanders? The Cooper Institute claims:

No. Before hiring TFWs, employers need to go through a process that shows they have advertised for Canadian workers, and that they didn't receive enough applications. Also, most employers of TFWs report that they still have job vacancies for any Canadians who may want to apply for work.

I have had experience with that myself, where I have had to work strenuously with the labour market opinion to allow a film crew that was working on a fairly major film to come to Prince Edward Island. They did not have the skills on the island to do it. We were able to do that.

However, it is important that there is the right balance in terms of temporary foreign workers coming in.

We all know that there are serious problems with the temporary foreign worker program. This recommendation is requesting not an absolute solution right now but rather making a recommendation that a committee go out there, do its job, meet with the business community, whether big or small, the hospitality industry, the tourism industry and the farming industry to hear what people have to say, find the problems, look at the solutions and meet with HRSDC. It would give us the opportunity to show Canadians that there is a role for MPs and that the backbench Conservatives do not have to take their direction from the PMO. Rather, they could actually work as a team of parliamentarians and go out there and work together, do the hearings, find the solutions and make recommendations.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

The member for Mississauga—Streetsville says yes.

Well is that not wonderful? Not only is the PMO pulling his puppet strings, but now the bureaucrats at HRSDC are telling him what to do. That is who he is going to listen to, not the people of Canada. Come on, folks in this House. We are MPs. We have a responsibility. There is a problem with a program out there. We need a special committee to go out and hold hearings and to meet business people across the country and do our job. For heaven's sake, through you, Mr. Speaker, allow the PMO to allow members of Parliament to do their job. That would be a wonderful change in this place because we have not seen it happen in all of the six years since the current Prime Minister took his seat as Prime Minister. So I am saying that this so-called review by the minister is not enough.

A lot will be said in this discussion today, for and against temporary foreign workers and why the situation is as it is. However, I want to spell out that, at least from my perspective, it is a very important program. I see the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and he knows full well how important the program is to many in the agriculture sector. Many in my province use it. It is necessary, but it needs to be balanced with the rules so that Canadians' jobs are not taken away.

I will come to another point that is important to me, and that is what has been happening in this place as I have sat here and listened to this discussion today. What is wrong with holding a committee hearing? What is wrong with us doing our job? There was a time in this place when the government members would go out and do a green paper. They would consult and get basically an initial discovery view, and there would be white papers and special committees that would go out and hear all the views from business people and so on. That is really what we need to do here. We need to hear from the people in big business and small business, some of the companies that are using temporary foreign workers, some that are rightly doing so and perhaps some that are not. We need to hear from members of the various industries, be it agriculture, fish plants, or whatever it may be, and see what they think needs to be done.

I raised with you, Mr. Speaker, a moment ago and I raised it this morning, two separate points of order on the same issue related to what I have seen in this discussion today. Quite honestly, I find it very disgusting, what three members on the government side have said.

The member for Brampton West, got up and accused the NDP of writing somewhere around a dozen letters asking for temporary foreign workers. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister got up and accused the MP for Winnipeg North of writing a letter for a temporary worker. Just a moment ago, the member for Mississauga—Streetsville got up and said that at least eight New Democrats and at least four Liberals have written letters asking for temporary foreign workers. He says it is all true. How do we know that? Is it the Conservative spy and attack machine that is providing that information? Does every member over there on the Conservative side of the House know to whom I have written a letter in terms of the ministry? Do the Conservatives know the people who have asked me to make those requests? We know the tactics on the other side. They are divide and attack. That is what their tactics are, and the whole purpose of their even saying that the New Democrats or Liberals wrote letters is because they are trying to undermine the argument on this side. They are talking in half-truths and half-information.

This is a serious matter. It undermines the right of my constituents to have me write a letter to a minister requesting anything, and if I follow through on that letter I can expect to be attacked by the Conservative attack machine, by a backbench member who should not have the information from HRSDC or any other ministry in this country. What is happening to this Parliament?

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand to speak on this motion by my colleague from Cape Breton—Canso. It is important, after this long a debate, to remind the House what the motion really is. It states, “That the House recognize that the use of temporary foreign workers to replace Canadian workers in jobs Canadians are qualified and able to do is an abuse of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program...” It goes on to state that a special committee “have all of the powers of a Standing Committee as provided in the Standing Orders, as well as the power to travel, accompanied by the necessary staff, inside and outside of Canada...”

This is a serious issue. The need to consult Canadians on the temporary foreign worker program is critical and one that the government should support if it has been honest about how the program has been working. There have been a lot of answers from the government claiming it is concerned, we heard the word “concerned” used about 20 times by Conservatives, that there will be an internal review, it is going to fix any problems, and so on. Why not show some openness and transparency? Why not allow Parliament to do its function? Why not allow MPs to do their jobs without the strings of the PMO attached to the shoulders of the backbench members on the government side?

If the government has been truthful in its remarks thus far that it has not allowed deliberate abuse of the program, then it should be the first to support this motion. We now know, though, sadly, that the government, by the remarks of the parliamentary secretary, will not support the motion. The parliamentary secretary speaks for the government. Conservative MPs stand time after time and talk about “our government”. They still do not seem to realize that they are not members of the government but members of the governing party. They are members of the House of Commons. They can speak in their own right. They could support this motion.

I hear the member for Brant squeaking a bit over there. He can stand in his own right. That would be wonderful to see. I have listened to quite a number of backbenchers and I suspect this summer there will be a cabinet shuffle. Maybe the backbenchers are vying to get into cabinet and they do not want to cross any lines. However, for the backbenchers on the Conservative side who have been speaking out there is a real opportunity here.

There is a real opportunity for us to show Canadians that this place can work and that members of Parliament from all parties can do their jobs, hold hearings and, yes, have differences of opinion, but come back with recommendations for the government. If backbenchers in the Conservative Party support a recommendation in a committee, that does not mean they are undermining the government. They are making a recommendation as part a committee based on what they heard across the country for the government to do something better and the executive branch of government can reject or accept that recommendation. That is how this place is supposed to work.

What backbenchers in the Conservative Party seem to fall back on, and it obviously comes from the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, is the following:

[The] Minister...has launched a review of the temporary foreign worker program in the wake of allegations that the Royal Bank of Canada is laying off Canadian citizens for immigrant labour.

That is what they are falling back on: an internal review.

[Business of Supply, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the member used this in his remarks, and it was tried earlier, listing eight NDP members and four Liberal members who have written letters on this issue.

Where does that information come from? Is it the spy machine of the Conservatives? There is no place for those kinds of tactics in here.