Human Resources committee  Maybe I could start. I think it's important to understand that these legislative changes are part of a bigger framework to try to make the temporary foreign worker program more effective. We want to bring in those TFWs when they're needed, when Canadians are clearly not willing

Human Resources committee  Let me start, and I'll also turn to my colleagues. The temporary foreign worker program is one that has evolved over time and plays an important role in the Canadian economy. In any economy, there will always be shortages. There will never be a perfect match between the domestic

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. We welcome the opportunity to convey to the committee how the measures in the budget implementation bill will strengthen the temporary foreign worker program so that it makes an even stronger contribution to the Canadian labour market and the economy. Th

Human Resources committee  If I may interject, I don't think that's exactly what we said. We have provided the estimates here. The person who joins pays only the employee portion at the current rate, which is for example presently at 1.73%. There is no employer portion.

Human Resources committee  We've provided you with the projections, and there are two aspects here. First of all, the individuals will only be able to receive special benefits. Are the premiums enough to cover the cost? We'll have to see whether exactly that is the case. If you look at our midpoint project

Human Resources committee  No, it would be a general rate increase across the board. The self-employed would also be impacted by that one cent.

Human Resources committee  Yes, the $78 million would be.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely, and in the end you have the principles and you have administrative simplicity, but it also has to have fairness. This is a voluntary system, and it has to be affordable to individuals to say--

Human Resources committee  You're never going to be right on. I'll give you an example of Louis' battle with some of his best work on work sharing. That was a very important initiative through which we extended the period for which companies can be on work sharing. We made it easier for companies to be abl

Human Resources committee  Again, to speak to the outset of the meeting in terms of the roles and responsibilities here, I want to be clear again that it was the policy people who did the primary work in deriving these. It was our actuarial team who confirmed the reasonableness of the numbers, double-check

Human Resources committee  Very quickly, an hours-based threshold wouldn't work, because we don't have any way to monitor how much an individual works. So you need a dollar threshold. I think what we've chosen is a very fair and a very low threshold: $6,000. An individual has a full year to make that $6,0

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much for the question. I think both this question and the question by Monsieur Lessard are really about whether the proposed premium rate is fair. As I said, the rate was chosen for three reasons. Maybe I'll take a moment to explain. One was the principle of the

Human Resources committee  In this case, I think it's more appropriate that I respond, because this was a policy decision on what the appropriate rate was, and that policy decision was based more on whether it would be break-even--exactly break-even, or approximately. There were three factors that we took

Human Resources committee  I think at the first appearance she made here, she made it clear that this would be essentially self-financing for the most part, and she indicated that there may be a small deficit run by this. She also indicated that it actually may break completely even and could even make a l

Human Resources committee  Yes. The impact of this is going to be fully amalgamated into the EI account. In the initial year, when we're collecting the premiums and not paying out benefits, it's going to go into the EI account, and vice versa if it does indeed run a deficit or break even. Again, only time