:
I'm Roslyn Kunin of the Canada West Foundation. I'm going to talk about temporary and undocumented workers, because my colleagues here can cover the other areas very thoroughly.
I want to paint a picture in the heads of the committee members of why we are having this issue of temporary workers and undocumented workers at a level that we have never had before in this country in living memory of anybody in this room. That is because, particularly in the west, we are facing a perfect storm of very, very high demand for workers. We have a very strong economy, which needs lots and lots of workers at every level, from entry-level workers to wash dishes, up through senior health professionals, and all the trades and technical workers in between. So on the one hand we have very strong demand, particularly in the west. When I say the west, I mean Manitoba through B.C., because all these areas are now really booming economically.
Second, along with this very strong economic demand for workers, we are facing the beginning of a demographic trend, which we all knew was coming, in that most of the people walking around in Canada now are baby boomers. They were born between 1945 and 1965. They are reaching retirement age, and they are leaving the labour force. So in addition to our need for workers to feed a booming economy, we desperately need workers to replace all those workers who are reaching retirement age and are retiring. So we have a very, very strong demand for workers.
It has reached a point...and as an economist, this is something I have never seen, and frankly, never expected to see. Businesses sometimes don't operate because they can't get money, and businesses sometimes don't operate because they can't get customers, and businesses sometimes don't operate because prices for their products aren't high enough for them to make a profit. But now, for the very first time, I am seeing businesses where all these conditions are met and they aren't operating because they can't get enough workers to do their particular business. So that is why we have unprecedented demand for temporary workers, that's why we're starting to have a problem with undocumented workers, and that's why we need to make a system as flexible as possible to meet the needs of the labour force.
One other change--before I run out of my seven minutes--that has occurred is the nature of work. The idea of work that most of us grew up with, that you grow up, you enter the labour force, you get a job, and you stay with that job for years, if not for your career, is long gone, and now in many of the most booming industries--construction, hospitality, technology, and many others--jobs are temporary. Not only do we need workers, but we need to give all workers, including temporary workers, foreign workers, and so on, the flexibility so we can say, “We need you because we need the work you can do; we don't need you just for one vacancy.” So if we do have temporary workers, we should say, “You can stay here as long as there's work for you in Canada, not just as long as the initial employer you came for needs you.” If he or she doesn't, there are an awful lot of other employers who do.
Those are the main points I wanted to make, Mr. Chair.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to talk, first of all, about labour shortages in general, then go on to temporary foreign workers, and finish up with undocumented workers, very briefly.
I think you have to look at what constitutes a labour shortage. Certainly, we have them, as Roslyn just pointed out, in the construction industry. In B.C. it's very apparent, and in other parts of the country. Some people see the temporary foreign worker programs as the best way to deal with them. Some regard that as better than bringing in large numbers of people permanently who may not be needed. If you're in a cyclical industry, like construction, you may not need them in five or ten years. But we also have to look at the extent to which we can use the resources of people already in the country.
Let's say something about temporary foreign worker programs, first of all. In the words of Alan Green, who's a very prominent expert on immigration and labour markets at Queen's, in the 1960s, when we began choosing immigrants on the basis of their qualifications rather than their origins, we did not have the educational facilities in place to meet all our skilled labour shortages. According to Professor Green, we do today, although temporary shortages may occur until they're met by normal market forces.
This conclusion was reached by other people. Human Resources and Development Canada had two researchers who found that there was no reason to believe that globally Canada is suffering from a broad-based shortage of skilled labour or that its workforce cannot fulfill the economy's needs. The researchers found that although there's been an increased frequency of specific labour shortages in certain sectors and occupations in recent years, it doesn't appear that these gaps are more common today than they were in the past or in similar stages in the business cycle.
That's something on which we differ somewhat in our emphasis, Roslyn and I.
One of the issues that I think we have to look at is that employers naturally want to meet their worker shortages as quickly and inexpensively as possible, and if this involves bringing in workers from abroad, they will seek to do so. We have to look, though, at the impact this will have on Canadian workers, taxpayers, and the economy in general. In terms of productivity, for example, labour shortages lead to higher wages, which in turn leads to increased investment in human capital through education and training and through higher productivity levels.
A good case can be made that one of the reasons why growth in productivity in Canada has lagged behind that of the U.S. and other countries in recent years is that we have the highest immigration intake per capita in the world. On this point, a Statistics Canada study released last May reported that between 1980 and 2000, immigration played a role in a 7% drop in the real earnings of Canadians with more than a university undergraduate degree.
There was an interesting precedent for the guest worker programs. The Bracero program in the U.S was created to bring in Mexican temporary workers during the war years. Eventually, in 1964, it was discontinued. The agro industry said they just couldn't afford to do without the cheap labour. When it was discontinued, they made more investment in mechanization, and the productivity actually increased.
What we should be doing is making every effort to draw unemployed Canadians, including aboriginals, women, and older people into the workforce. It doesn't make sense to leave large numbers of people unemployed or underemployed and then bring in workers from outside the country to do work that could be done by people already here. As one senior American government official put it, “immigration fixes undercut efforts to improve public education, create better retraining programs and draw the unemployed into the labour market”.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have temporary foreign workers, but we have to look at this carefully. The Quebec government, incidentally, announced less than two weeks ago that it's going to spend $1 billion on incentives to get welfare recipients and unemployed into the foreign workforce rather than automatically bringing people in from abroad.
I would just make a couple more comments before getting on to temporary foreign workers. On the relationship between immigration and economic prosperity, there were periods in Canada's development when immigration was crucial--for example, the settling of the west before the Americans did it for us--but interestingly, immigration for the most part has not been a critical element in Canadian economic development.
The Economic Council of Canada, for example, found that most of the fastest growth in real per capita income of Canadians in the 20th century occurred at times when net migration was zero or even negative. We also do not require an ever-increasing population or workforce to ensure the prosperity of Canadians, nor will immigration have any significant impact on offsetting the aging of our population. Canadian prosperity depends on sound economic policies that increase productivity and make the best use of the existing workforce.
Now turning specifically to questions of temporary foreign workers, or guest workers, as they're often called, from 2001 to 2006 we saw a dramatic increase in the number of temporary foreign workers in B.C. They increased by 129%, from just under 16,000 to more than 36,000. For Canada as a whole, there was an increase of 76% in that period, from 87,000 to 166,000. We don't have the complete figures yet for 2007, but it looks as though the increase will be even larger.
Canada had a pretty good track record on its initial temporary foreign workers program. It's the seasonal agricultural worker program that began in 1966 to bring in seasonal agricultural workers from, first, the Caribbean and then Mexico in 1974. But in 2006, in response to requests from employers, we established comprehensive lists of what are called occupations under pressure, under which employers can apply for accelerated processing of permits for temporary foreign workers to come here initially for a year. That's now been extended to two years.
With these longer periods, though, we're moving into largely uncharted waters as far as Canada is concerned. Studies done in other countries on these programs have shown there can be a lot of major problems, particularly if foreign workers stay for more than a few months, if they come from countries with significantly lower wage levels, and if they're allowed to bring family members with them.
Some of these problems are that such workers are vulnerable to exploitation. In countries like the U.S., it's been discovered that there's a high level of fraud in the applications. I won't stop to tell you what kind of fraud, but I'll describe it later if you want. Then most people coming from poorer countries want to try to stay indefinitely when their contracts are completed, when their services are no longer required.
What is required to make such a program work is a very extensive system for administering and monitoring the entry and departure of such workers and the application of strict sanctions in the case of employers who hire those who no longer have legal status in Canada. There's now a list of 235 occupations under pressure that are eligible in British Columbia alone for temporary work permits.
In addition to obvious cases like a shortage of people for the construction industry, you also have a long list of occupations that you wouldn't think would be on the list. That includes writers, journalists, photographers, conductors, composers, arrangers, actors, comedians, announcers, broadcasters, athletes, coaches, and real estate agents.
What we have to do is look very carefully at how this program is working, do some research on it, and find out what other people have done.
I think there is a place for temporary foreign workers, but I don't think we have any idea of some of the problems that are coming up, and we should be looking at them.
I have one quick word on undocumented workers. We don't know exactly how many there are, but estimates are that there may be 200,000, and up to 500,000 if family members are included. Apart from the problems they experience of being vulnerable to exploitation, the basic problem is that if their status is legalized, you will have a lot more coming here.
In 1986, the United States granted amnesty to three million illegal workers in the hope of eliminating the problem, but once they got amnesty, there were a lot more coming in, because they expected that they would get amnesty eventually. There were something like 11 million or 12 million of them.
The McCain-Kennedy bill in the U.S. Senate last year included a provision for the regularization of the status of several million illegal workers. It was defeated by public pressure.
It's extremely unwise to give legal status to undocumented workers. If they want to stay here in Canada, they should go back and come here legally, either under permanent immigration or under the temporary foreign workers program.
Those are my comments.
:
Thank you very much for inviting me.
It actually says that in the first line. These notes have been made available. If you don't have them, I'm sure you can pick them up afterwards.
I would like today to report to you on my 15 to 20 years of scientific research on temporary foreign workers in Canada. My goal, not only in these seven minutes but in subsequent minutes, is to tell you about the pluses and minuses. What do I think are success stories and the reasons why, and what are reasons for caution in other stories?
As an economist, and I am an economist--you'll hear from other people who are sociologists--I only look at one feature when it comes to the temporary foreign worker program: does it create a net economic benefit to Canada, to Canadians who are here?
What does that mean? It means the people or agents who are involved in this process, which are the migrants, who we've just heard about; the public treasury, which represents the Canadian government; employers who would like to have these temporary foreign workers; and resident Canadian labourers. In sum, all of these benefit from the presence of a new, temporary foreign worker. This does not mean that any one individual in this calculus might not suffer a loss. But on average, is it a net benefit? This has been the rule that's been more or less in place for evaluating the temporary foreign worker program in Canada for at least 25 or 30 years.
I have two success stories. Martin has already alluded to them on economic grounds. First is the agricultural workers program. All you have to do is contrast our program with any other agricultural worker program, whether it's in Israel or Germany, with Polish workers, or Les États-Unis. They are failures. So why is ours a success?
The first reason is that it's small. If you keep it small, both the costs of administration and the ability to enforce the rules inherent in those regulations, such as adequate pay, access to health care, and payment of taxes, are all able to be monitored.
The second program, which has been very successful economically and is not unique to Canada--it's very large in Southeast Asia--is the so-called nanny program. You'll hear from other people in the program that there are problems with the nanny program, and I agree. Those are social problems. But based on my role as an economist, it's been a boon for middle-class, well-educated women living in this country. There is no doubt about it.
It was put in place also to create some benefits for, largely, Filipino nannies in the form of having rights of conversion--that is, from temporary to permanent--and rights of reconciliation.
Based on my rule of net economic gain to those people here, those are two successful programs. What are the lessons? They're small and they're focused, and part of those programs is a transition to some sort of permanent status if you contribute.
But those are small programs. The big programs for temporary foreign workers have not been mentioned. Those are the trade-related ones, the so-called TN visas, the NAFTA visas. We have agreements with Chile, Israel, and soon perhaps with South Korea, but certainly with the United States and Mexico, with mobility provisions built into trade agreements.
We really got snookered on that one; we really did. For every three Canadians who leave, one highly skilled American comes here. That has been an avenue of a large brain drain, especially prior to 2001. There's a lot of evidence on it, not just my own.
In addition, Canadians use that back door of a temporary visa to become permanent residents in the United States. Americans don't do that. When they're done working here, they go back to Cleveland, God bless them, or wherever they come from. But Canadians use that reciprocal program to remain in the United States, by either marrying or getting an E-visa.
The point about that program is that it was structured after the fact. It was a hang-on to trade, and many of our temporary foreign worker programs are like this--ad hoc. You can't change the content in that program. There are 67 occupations; you can't change them. Going in the direction of adding on temporary foreign worker programs to trade agreements, in my mind, is the wrong way to go, especially when you're doing it with an elephant living next door. They simply refuse to negotiate on it any more; they won't change the list or anything.
We have these success stories based on the “net economic gain” principle, and some very large, less-than-successful stories based on that principle too. So what are we going to do in the future? Roslyn has outlined conditions whereby we may need more temporary foreign workers; Martin has cautioned us that nonetheless, this is what we're looking at.
What would I do if I were queen for a day or immigration minister for a day on this? I would be sure that I took the lessons of the past and had a very well-focused temporary foreign workers program; not a list of 86, or whatever, but of ones that I'd know beforehand will present net economic benefit to Canada. Some of them are obvious, and you don't even have to talk about them: construction out here, more agricultural workers out here.
The second thing is, I would always provide a sunset clause. There would always be a sunset clause in any temporary foreign worker program. I'm not going to do this so that I penalize people and they go underground; I'm not stupid—I'm almost 66, but I'm not stupid. That would create a negative incentive. Everyone would become undocumented. They'd disappear, as they do in Toronto. What I would do is have a conversion path for them to become permanent residents in this country, so that if you continue to rely on temporary foreign workers to either prop up or maintain an industry, they have an avenue to permanent status, and you won't get the undocumented.
Finally, you keep the program small.
Thank you very much. I await your questions.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
To the witnesses, as you know, we have some exciting times going on in Parliament with this whole issue of . If you got part of a debate that you weren't particularly happy about, I apologize, but we will hear all the witnesses who came before that.
I have had a great number of problems with the whole issue of undocumented workers.
The reason is that when we changed the Immigration Act in 2002...I would love to say we did it because the minister came out with a vision of how things should go, but we essentially did it because the bureaucracy came up with a plan to cut the 800,000 people on the waiting list. What they essentially ended up doing is barring people this economy needed, such as was mentioned: construction workers, other folks. They could not come in as immigrants because they would not qualify under the new point system, which was set by regulations. If you didn't have the language, if you didn't have the education, you would not get in. The fact that we needed construction workers...well, that was too bad, and I think we saw a growth in the undocumented worker category. So there was a mismatch created by the Immigration Act to what the economy needed and what we got. That's a real concern.
The other concern I have, and maybe you can address it as well, is more and more our reliance on temporary foreign workers. We've had farm workers who have been coming to Canada for 30 years, and some even for 40 years. They come here without their families, and then they have to go back. They keep coming back. I have a worry that I see the number of temporary foreign workers rising. I'd rather have people who come to Canada and decide that this is the place they want to live, raise their families, and become Canadians. I don't think it's healthy to have a high population of single folks.
It reminds me of what happened when Canada built the railways. We brought in the Chinese, and then when the railway was finished, we wanted to send them back. We changed all that, where we had an open immigration program. Now I see an analogous situation. We want to bring in people to help build the tar sands or help build the Olympic facilities, and when we're finished with them we're going to send them back.
I wonder if Mr. Collacott and Mr. DeVoretz could respond to those points.
You raised a number of interesting points, Mr. Telegdi. I'll start with the last one and work back, because I remember it most clearly.
The Chinese labourers who built the railways came in as unskilled workers, and when the railway was finished, the thinking was that we didn't really require them any longer. The Chinese who are coming in today are mostly skilled immigrants and their families, so we're really dealing with a very different situation. I'm glad we've moved on, to not having any racial barriers. My wife is an immigrant from Asia, as I think I mentioned last time I appeared before this committee, so I'm all in favour of an open immigration program. But there is a difference there.
Also, on the question of construction workers, yes, we are very short of construction workers. In B.C., in particular, we have a deadline to meet in terms of the Olympics, so we have to get that done. However, construction is a cyclical industry, although we may keep building in B.C. for some time, and the tar sands in Alberta are a pretty long-term issue, both technically and for construction. We have to be very careful not to bring in so many people that we discourage Canadians—and by “Canadians”, I don't just mean citizens but landed immigrants, now called permanent residents. They're here, and we have to do the best we can by them.
If you bring in very large numbers, it's great for the employers, but you will push down wages, which has happened. You will discourage Canadians from getting training and you will basically leave people on unemployment; you will bring in other people and keep Canadians out of the job market.
So you really have to look carefully at how you're doing that. You can't have the kind of unlimited situation you have now.
The BCYT is not opposed to the importation of foreign workers when there is a proven shortage of Canadian workers and provided that these workers are not used as a source of cheap labour. Unfortunately, the experience for many temporary foreign workers has been less than welcoming. Our office regularly receives calls from foreign workers looking for ways to address exploitative and abusive situations.
This brief submission identifies some of the basic flaws in legislation and regulations under IRPA governing the foreign worker program. At the same time, we consider the global and local forces that result in undocumented workers and the unconscionable fees charged by some immigration consultants. In the conclusion we summarize our recommendations to solve problems caused by the current policy and regulations.
There has been much talk previously about skill shortages. I am a plumber. I know what's going on. I've been in the industry for more than 35 years. These are high economic times, and yes, there are shortages in some areas, but it's not consistent. Shortages have to do with a whole bunch of issues--not just wages and wage packages, but our ability to be mobile across this nation, between the provinces, and from foreign countries as well. That has to do with credential recognition. It also has to do with domestic training, and it has to do with increasing our own domestic capacity in the construction industry.
Temporary foreign workers are vulnerable—and I stress “vulnerable”—to exploitation and abuse because of their work permit restriction to a single employer, language barriers, a lack of understanding of their rights, worry about their immigration status, and unequal power relationships that are set up, dependent on their employer for income and for information.
The common examples of exploitation and abuses include broken promises on wage remuneration, garnisheed wages to pay for illegal placement fees by immigration consultants, and illegal payroll deductions for accommodation, meals, and transportation.
Employer coercion and intimidation are met by slow-moving and largely ineffectual provincial employment standards and labour code protection processes. It's not enough for the federal government to drop it down to the provincial government if the provincial government does not have the capacity or the intent to provide those protections.
Human rights protections are only available to temporary foreign workers with legal representation. Already our council has spent in excess of $200,000 on one single case in the last two years, to protect a group of foreign employees on one site. To expect a foreign worker who may be making $15 to $20 an hour to purchase the services of a $250- to $700-an-hour lawyer is absolutely ludicrous, and that's what you need to walk through the system, whether it's at the labour board, at the human rights panel, or through the courts.
On cheap labour, global construction labour markets are now boasting an excess of cheap accessible workers, averaging $1.50 per hour. Placement fees and loan sharks connected to brokers and then to the contractors are issues we have. It's not enough to control what we can in our province or in our nation, but it's the effect it has from the country of origin as well. We have no control over that. So the brokers, the loan sharks, all those people have that control from the host country.
They're ineligible to collect benefits for EI and CPP should they run into problems and know that they can't be kicked out by their employer. Federal government payroll deductions are a misappropriation of temporary foreign worker earnings in this case.
On human trafficking, some undocumented workers are temporary foreign workers who have fled to the black market or the underground economy or have been directed that way by contractors. In order to escape from abusive conditions with their legal employer, others have overstayed tourist and student visas. In fact, undocumented workers are even more vulnerable than temporary foreign workers. Employers of undocumented workers have an additional hammer over workers who are worried about their immigration status.
A lack of monitoring and enforcement--and I emphasize this one--has opened up the door to widespread non-compliance and abusive conditions by unscrupulous employers. That certainly isn't all of them. There are only a few rotten apples in the basket who make it bad for everyone. No system is in place to identify and locate temporary foreign workers. There is no tracking right now, so how could you even monitor if you wanted to?
Temporary foreign workers need orientation, advocacy, and settlement services provided by government in order to access their rights. I've appended some documents that we have provided in presentations both provincially and federally on these issues. We need to tell every immigrant worker who comes to Canada what their rights are. Not only do they have to be apprised of their rights, but they have to have a place they can go when they need those rights to be enforced, which is an advocacy centre, and that requires further monitoring.
Foreign credential recognition is a huge aspect of all of this. I can't get into the whole thing in the few minutes that I've been given, except to say that we're working very clearly on foreign credential recognition. But there is no standard across Canada. Every province, every organization that brings in foreign workers, be it S.U.C.C.E.S.S. or any other group, has their own credential recognition processes. They are not standardized, and that impacts on our capacity to even know who we're getting and what their skills and experience are.
In conclusion, the B.C. building trades call on the federal government to call for a royal commission to travel the country and take submissions from all stakeholders on the issue of temporary foreign workers, undocumented workers, and immigration consultants. We call on the government to immediately allocate significant resources to monitor and enforce the terms of labour market opinion agreements. Joint federal-provincial compliance teams should involve Service Canada, CIC, Revenue Canada, the Employment Standards Branch and the WCB, or WorkSafeBC in this province. We did this before and it worked. We identified, within a three-month period in the province of British Columbia, with a compliance team, that there was in excess of $80 million that was going uncollected. That was in a three-month period before this government actually brought that down, after they got elected.
We call for joint federal-provincial advocacy centres across Canada to assist temporary foreign workers. Referral information and assistance are required by thousands of workers looking to solve abuse and exploitation by their employers.
We call for orientation programs for temporary foreign workers at the point of entry into Canada. These orientation programs must alert workers to their rights and obligations as temporary foreign workers. Even the written word in their own language may not be sufficient because they may not even be able to read their own language. Information about their rights under employment standards acts, the labour code, human rights, WCB and occupational health and safety regulations, residential tenancy laws, and access to health care are absolutely fundamental.
We recommend the allocation of significant resources to support settlement services designed for temporary foreign workers, especially ESL and French as a second language training, and services to facilitate adaptation to Canadian culture and society.
We recommend reassessment of labour market opinion approval criteria. Canadian workers faced with the challenge of living-out allowances, mobility costs, and retraining opportunities must be included in the labour market opinion evaluations.
In closing, we further recommend that pre-approved labour market opinions be re-evaluated at least every six months and that employers not be allowed to lay off Canadian workers before temporary foreign workers in the event of work shortages.
Finally, we call on the Canadian government to ratify the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
It is time for developed countries, particularly members of the government, to make a binding commitment to end the exploitation and abuse of migrant workers.
This is about orientation, it's about advocacy, and it's about monitoring and compliance.
Thank you very much.
First I'd like to thank the committee for coming to British Columbia to give us an opportunity to reach the members of Parliament on this important issue.
I, too, only heard of your meeting on short notice and obviously was not able to get to you a written submission in time for translation.
My name is David Fairey. I'm a labour economist with extensive experience in labour policy research. I'm appearing today to share with you some of the key findings and policy recommendations that resulted from a recently concluded two-year study on the impact of recent B.C. provincial policy changes on immigrant and migrant farm workers. It was done by a group of academic and community researchers like me, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, under a community-university research alliance called the Economic Security Project.
The academic researchers on this project included Dr. Arlene Tigar McLaren and Dr. Gerardo Otero of Simon Fraser University and Dr. Mark Thompson of the University of British Columbia. Our study report will soon be published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The following questions guided this study: What implications do changing legislation, policies, and practices have for immigrant and migrant farm workers in British Columbia? What impact does this changing legal and policy context have on farm workers' experiences? And what alternative models of employment standards and enforcement procedures would be able to better address their needs for economic security, health and safety, and labour rights?
Of relevance to your investigation is our examination of the seasonal agricultural worker program, SAWP, for temporary migrant farm workers in the British Columbia context and our interviews with 25 Mexican migrant farm workers in British Columbia who were here under SAWP.
The B.C. labour policy background to this aspect of our study was the significant reduction in B.C. employment standards regulations for farm workers in 2003-04 and the B.C. government's decision to join the federal-provincial SAWP in 2004.
Recent changes in B.C. employment standards that have had a significant negative impact on the supply of farm workers from the local labour market and on the conditions of employment for both resident farm workers and temporary foreign workers brought to B.C. under SAWP--and now for farm workers being brought in under the low-skilled worker pilot project--involve the following: their exclusion from statutory holiday pay, annual paid vacation, and hours of work and overtime pay provisions under the regulation; a reduced minimum daily pay from four hours to two hours per day; the introduction of a $6 minimum hourly wage for those employed for the first time or those without experience; significantly reduced employment standards, branch-site inspections, and enforcement activity in the agricultural sector; and no increase in the minimum wage for seven years.
We're told that there's a labour market problem, that there's a shortage. Well, it's interesting that it was the farm owner community, the farmer owners, who were the strongest advocates for these reductions in the employment standards for farm workers. They then pressured the federal government and the provincial government for inclusion in the seasonal agricultural worker program. It's obvious that the employers and the provincial government have created labour market conditions that have contributed to the shortage by creating a labour market, a supply situation, that is untenable for local workers.
Historically, B.C. has drawn on specific groups from four non-white countries as a source of cheap labour for dangerous occupations with inferior employment and citizenship rights in Canada. Early in the 20th century, British Columbia farmers successfully petitioned the federal government to admit South Asians and Japanese to work in agriculture.
Canadian immigration policy continues this racialized pattern by allowing specific groups from the global south to enter Canada to fill jobs with poor pay and working conditions, which other populations are unwilling to fill. Their racialized and highly vulnerable status allows the employers to justify substandard working conditions. In entering Canada under strict conditions with inferior citizenship rights, immigrants and migrant workers are susceptible to highly exploitative wage work.
B.C. farmers in the Fraser Valley rely largely on immigrants from the Punjab to replenish their labour force. Today about 90% of these farm workers are Indo-Canadians. The majority are women, many in their fifties and sixties. Most migrated to Canada under the federal family reunification program, sponsored by their Canadian children or grandchildren. While most B.C. farm workers in the Fraser Valley are Indo-Canadian, this traditional source of labour was curtailed by Citizenship and Immigration in 2003 when it restricted the admission of parents and grandparents in its family reunification program. This measure contributed to the labour shortage that was emerging in B.C. agriculture.
Accustomed to paying seasonal harvest workers no more than minimum wage, and sometimes less, B.C. farmers had been facing a labour shortage in the early 2000s. The provincial government did not raise wages in agriculture to meet these shortages, nor did the federal government seek to increase the number of immigrants. And mechanization of farm work proceeded slowly. The horticulture industry, instead, extensively lobbied the federal program to negotiate with B.C. and Mexico a memorandum of understanding for the province to join the SAWP.
In 2004, B.C. joined the SAWP, which grants farm workers temporary employment visas in agriculture, with wages slightly above the provincial minimum. In the first year of the program, in 2004, there were 50 workers brought in under the SAWP. This year it is projected there will be 3,000 SAWP workers in British Columbia. As I said, the low-skilled program is also being extended to agricultural workers.
Canadian government officials and employers defend the SAWP program as necessary due to domestic labour shortages and an unstable workforce in agriculture.
The government requires a labour market opinion from employers applying to the SAWP to show that they have tried to hire local labour and that a supply is not available. In the case of migrant agricultural workers, the government does not address the way low wages and poor working conditions fail to attract local workers.
In addition, the government has not adequately acknowledged how the SAWP exposes workers to inadequate employment and safety protections, which renders them unable to exercise their rights as workers. In particular, the SAWP does not allow workers to freely choose their workplace or residential location, in contrast to citizens who have the formal right to circulate in the labour market. SAWP workers are only allowed to come to Canada if they work for a specific employer, live in their employers' designated premises for a specified period of time, and then return to their home country. In being bound to a single employer and having a temporary status, workers are unprotected from the threat of repatriation. Dismissal by an employer can mean that a SAWP worker will be sent home to Mexico without their anticipated earnings. The threat of repatriation is a powerful deterrent to workers' rights.
The temporary worker status also separates SAWP workers from their families, making them further vulnerable to employers' excessive demands. SAWP visas are different not only from conventional landed immigrant categories but also from other temporary migrant worker programs, in that they only allow the holder to stay in Canada for up to eight months.
There is more in my submission, but I think I should go essentially to the recommendations.
Could I just conclude with some of our recommendations?
:
Our recommendations to the federal government are as follows. We make recommendations to the provincial government and to municipal governments as well.
First of all, there should be coordination with provincial and municipal authorities. HRSD/Service Canada should move from being a labour market matching service to a service that protects workers. It should assume leadership in ensuring that all levels of government, including the Employment Standards Branch and WorkSafeBC, exercise their responsibilities. To begin the process of coordination, HRSD needs to inform provincial authorities of the number, job title, and location of SAWP workers.
There is no registry of these migrant farm workers, so the Employment Standards Branch doesn't know who they are or where they are. They have no way of knowing where they should be doing enforcement.
The federal government should develop a transparent system of pay rates for SAWP workers. The process for determining appropriate rate of pay should be transparent, represent a substantial improvement over the minimum wage, and correspond to the specific duties performed by the worker. Workers are just getting the same rate regardless of the duties they perform.
The process should also require growers to provide evidence that wage increases substantially above the minimum wage have been unsuccessful in attracting domestic workers.
The federal government should require employers to demonstrate a satisfactory record of compliance. Right now there is no test of satisfactory performance in the application for a SAWP worker. When applying for an LMO to hire workers under the SAWP, employers are not compelled to demonstrate a satisfactory record of compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and the Employment Standards Act. SAWP workers could be asked about an employer's treatment, with evidence to be considered in the reapplication. So there should be an assessment of the performance of the employer after a review of a program.
There should be a removal of the employer's right of repatriation. The employer now has the right to repatriate a worker. Growers who wish to dismiss SAWP workers must demonstrate proper cause before doing so. Illness or injury is not a cause for repatriation of SAWP workers. On the contrary, they should be covered by the B.C. Medical Services Plan for treatment here or in Mexico for the full length of recovery.
Workers must have the right to appeal dismissal to an independent body. Repatriation is the main deterrent for SAWP workers exercising their labour rights. Dismissal should not be linked to repatriation.
There should be a restructuring of SAWP. The designation of migrant workers to a single employer and housing by the employer for a specified period of time amount to unfree labour. Workers have little recourse in negotiating the terms of their contracts. At a minimum, the SAWP should allow workers to move more freely from one employer to another.
The SAWP should also explore possibilities for securing rights to employment insurance and the Canada Pension Plan for workers once they are in Mexico, or refund all employer and employee contributions.
The SAWP should enable immigration. If workers are accepted into the SAWP, they should be able to apply simultaneously for permanent resident status. They should have the right to live here with their families and become Canadians.
Finally, we would like to endorse, from the previous presentation, that Canada should sign on to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and our legislation should be geared toward compliance with the standards of that charter.
:
Yes. Thank you very much to the committee for your interest.
[Translation]
I'll be brief.
[English]
The language barrier is one of the vulnerability issues. I was involved in the building trades with the workers on the Canada Line. They were Spanish-speaking workers who were being paid less than $5 an hour on a federal-provincial project. Our taxpayers were paying them less than $5 an hour.
This case has been at the Labour Relations Board in B.C. and is now at the human rights board. We have a decision from the human rights coalition. There is coercion. There is intimidation. The employer has been ordered to pay half of the legal costs.
We're right at the very beginning of this issue, and five years from now it will be much more.... I am called daily, “Señor Barrett, se me puede ayudar?”
In another life I was a Spanish teacher. I have now become the advocate for the Latin Americans in this city, who come after being promised $25 an hour. All of their paperwork is fine with Service Canada. These promises are broken time and time again. It's widespread.
The Shangri-La tower, the Children's Hospital, two buildings at UBC, and public projects...because the construction industry is subcontracted, it might be SNC-Lavalin at the top, but it's subcontracted and subcontracted. By the time it gets to the worker, it's $7 an hour, $12 an hour on public projects. It's widespread, not just in Vancouver, but throughout Alberta.
Please take a few minutes to read our submission. Wayne can talk about these legal costs--expensive. We're not a trade union movement that has $200,000 to spend on every case.
Thank you very much.
:
Certainly, I would put in there the credentials recognition as an issue that comes out over and above this, because I didn't get to speak a whole lot about that. It's a huge issue in and of itself.
The key issue here is the vulnerability of temporary foreign workers, whether they're in agriculture or anywhere else. If we can address the issues of vulnerability, then all of that will fade away. We won't be in a position where we have to track individuals or employers or anything, if we make sure the system is working properly.
Number one, I think the key is the visa permit that is attached to the trade. These people, as foreign workers, are invited to work in Canada first and in the province second. If they're invited to Canada, they should work under Canadian standards and have all the rights and responsibilities of a Canadian.
If Citizenship and Immigration recognizes that we need, for example, 20,000 carpenters in the next year, then they should say, “We need 20,000 carpenters; let's go get 20,000 carpenters.” But when they come here as carpenters, their work permits and their visas would be in the industry in which they work--as carpenters--so they can freely move. That takes away their vulnerability. If they're being mistreated, they can move. I think that's of prime importance--absolute prime importance.
Second is the orientation and advocacy. If they are given the right and they know what their rights are, that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to be able to use those or go somewhere. Where do they go? If they're given an orientation program by someone they trust who is non-partisan, and that becomes an advocacy group, whether it's for problems they have on the job or--for example, as Joe just had to do with one of the employees who came to us--they have to go to the hospital.... They didn't know the health system. Their employer was not going to walk them through going to the hospital or going to the doctor, getting referred and all of that sort of stuff. There are many implications--and that's a simple one--of what it means to be a foreign worker in a foreign land, not knowing just the language, but also other barriers as a result of that. So an advocacy centre can be much more than just providing support for when an employer abuses an employee.
Finally, if you don't have the compliance team in place, if you don't have a monitoring system...and that's what I meant by tracking. I don't mean tracking the individuals; I mean monitoring the system to see that it works properly.
:
Well, certainly, we wouldn't be here if they were sufficient. We've got serious cases that have been brought before us.
Part of the problem is with that aspect of the labour broker side of it. I call them the slave traders. They don't bring them in ships any more; they bring them in airplanes. But what they're doing is bringing people here in a global market, and we have to recognize that it is that global market. We can create any kind of legislation here in Canada or in a province or in a municipality that we want, but influencing other countries, the host countries, is a serious concern for us. We have asked to sign on to the human rights convention as well—or ratify it, because we have signed on and we just have not ratified it—because we believe those kinds of agreements that are made between countries right now have to hold these rights really imperative for workers and for the employers.
As an example, part of the discussion we had this morning dealt with the need to write into those agreements what the responsibilities of the Canadian government are and what the responsibilities of the host government are. If there is a broker or a contractor who is operating with people from another country and they violate, then what happens to them in that other country as well? It's not just here, because we can legislate and we can act here, but we have to make those connections.
As I said earlier, we've got one contractor right now who is intricately linked with the broker and the broker is intricately linked with the loan shark company in the country of origin, but we can't get that information to lay it down on the table and say this is what it is, because we have to access the other country and we can't do that.
So there are problems inherent with making sure not just that we have everything ready here and that everything is enforceable, but also that it is in the other country. So those agreements are very important, and we would hope that these kinds of issues would be brought up within those agreements, to ensure that everybody is treated correctly.
:
Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today.
Grassroots Women of B.C. was formed in 1995 as a discussion group by the Philippine Women Centre of B.C. Since then we have evolved into an organization of working-class and marginalized women advocating for our rights and welfare here in Canada and against systemic political and economic marginalization. We also organize in solidarity with other women's struggles around the world against globalization. We are made up of working-class, immigrant, migrant, and indigenous women.
We feel it is important, when addressing the issue of undocumented and temporary foreign workers in Canada, to understand why these workers are entering Canada in the first place. From the sharing of our members, and through the grassroots research that we've done, we know that many working-class women have experienced displacement and forced migration from third world countries because of the impacts of globalization and war. For example, in countries like the Philippines, the government is more interested in serving foreign interests than the interests of its own people. Because they are dependent on foreign aid, the government implements structural adjustment programs and signs unjust trade agreements, aggravating the chronic economic crisis.
So the Philippine government adopts policies of forced migration and becomes reliant on the remittances of overseas workers to prop up their ailing economy. For example, there are over eight million Filipino workers overseas, sending over $14 billion U.S. home a year in remittances.
Once in Canada, these workers serve as cheap labour in the service sector and in domestic work. Many enter Canada through temporary worker programs, such as Citizenship and Immigration Canada's live-in caregiver program, or LCP. Since the early 1980s, nearly 100,000 Filipino women have entered Canada under the LCP and its predecessor, the foreign domestic movement program. We believe that by looking at the experience of long-standing programs such as the LCP, we can draw important lessons when talking about expanding temporary foreign worker programs.
Many temporary foreign workers often face violations in their working conditions because of the requirements of the program. For example, women under the LCP are isolated and often work beyond the hours stipulated in their contracts. They're also asked to perform duties at any hour of the day, since they are required to live in their employers' homes. Many are victims of all forms of abuse, including rape. And even though they're covered by employment standards here in B.C., they often do not complain because of the power dynamics between them and their employers.
We also analyze the nature of the work these women and other temporary foreign workers are doing in Canada. Whether under the LCP, or even afterwards, women are often streamlined into domestic work, doing child care, cleaning, health care or service work--even after the live-in caregiver program.
Many of the workers who come under these programs, such as the LCP or the SAWP—the seasonal agricultural worker program, and now the temporary foreign worker program—or even as refugee claimants, fall out of status and become undocumented because of their inability to complete the requirements of the program or because their refugee claims are denied. Some women under the LCP, for example, are being deported because they cannot complete the strict requirements of the program, for various reasons, such as having to change employers, becoming pregnant, or their employer has passed away, and because of bureaucratic hurdles in the system and delays in processing their work permits.
Those who cannot meet the requirements—and refugee claimants whose claims are denied—face deportation and even permanent separation from their Canadian-born children, which we see as the most extreme form of social exclusion. Many live in fear of the constant threat of deportation.
Some women also fall out of status because of violence within their relationships, which may also lead to sponsorship breakdowns.
I'll share the story of one woman. Her name is Maria, a teacher from Peru, who came here under the live-in caregiver program. She's been unable to complete the requirements of the program because she speaks very little English and has worked for several employers who haven't even given her any record of employment. So she cannot claim she has actually worked the 24 months required under the program. She has a child, whose father was an illegal worker in Canada and who was deported. The child has a very serious health concern, a heart condition. Maria has now been in Canada for seven years, but her claim for permanent residency has been denied. She has no choice other than to file a humanitarian or compassionate grounds complaint—which has very little chance of being approved—or go back to Peru.
Temporary worker programs such as the LCP create problems for families because of family separation. The reunification process is also filled with a lot of problems. Again, as I mentioned in the example of Maria, women who have Canadian-born children also face many challenges. For example, here in B.C., even though your child is born in B.C. and Canada, if the mother does not have a work permit, she cannot access health care, and her child cannot access health care even though it was born here in Canada.
To understand why the presence of undocumented temporary workers in Canada continues to flourish, we look at how immigration needs are really being fueled by employer interests. Temporary and undocumented workers are being exploited by Canadian employers who pay low wages and do not grant benefits, taking advantage of the workers' temporary--or lack of--status.
We in Grassroots Women are very critical of the expansion of the temporary foreign worker program and the recent changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We anticipate that many of the problems with the current temporary worker programs will be repeated under new programs. We also know that services for these workers will again fall back on community and grassroots organizations such as ours, who are already facing a lack of funding.
At Grassroots Women, we support the call of such other organizations as the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada and SIKLAB to scrap the live-in caregiver program. Women should have the opportunity to come to Canada as permanent residents with their families and also to have their education recognized and practice their professions. We also--
:
I've timed my speech. It should be seven minutes.
[Translation]
I apologize for not translating it into French, but I am very pleased to be here and I hope you will listen to what I'm going to say.
[English]
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak before the standing committee.
My name is Erika Del Carmen Fuchs, and I'm an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers B.C. Since 2005 we've been advocating for and working with seasonal migrant farm workers brought in under the federal seasonal agricultural workers program, the SAWP, with over 2,500 workers now coming from Mexico and the Caribbean to B.C.
We are part of the Migrant Justice Network, which includes various sectors--community organizations, unions such as the Canadian Labour Congress, churches, migrant workers, and other concerned individuals. You will hear from others in the network in coming days.
We are also part of an economic security project with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and SFU and UBC, as you heard before, which looks at the impacts of weakening provincial employment standards on immigrant and migrant farm workers. This report will be out shortly. We echo many of those recommendations.
In our numerous visits and direct contacts with migrant farm workers, we see firsthand their conditions--in particular, the sometimes substandard and even appalling housing conditions, as well as the medical, social, labour, and other problems they face.
:
Thank you. I translate all the time, so I understand; I'm sorry.
We are here to recommend that the standing committee take forward the issue of giving temporary migrant workers permanent resident status, as their temporary status really provides the foundation for the exploitation and abuse they often face. Obviously it's not by all employers, but we cannot leave it to employers to decide whether they're good or bad employers. We have to make sure it's taken care of at another level.
SAWP workers have a strong attachment as labour and contribute greatly to the economy of our country. Over 80% of these workers come back year after year, since the agriculture sector, as acknowledged by the CIC, along with the caregiver sector are experiencing a recurring or growing labour shortage. That can be debated, obviously.
SAWP is one of the oldest temporary foreign worker programs in the country, since 1966 employing workers under skill level D. It is well known for having some of the most restrictive work permits that prevent workers from exercising basic rights and freedoms that are considered fundamental for all Canadians, according to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Workers under contract have the same rights as Canadian workers, I should add.
These restrictions include the following: lack of equitable access to permanent residency in spite of having a substantial Canadian work history; lack of labour mobility, as they are tied to one single employer; lack of freedom of mobility, as they have to live under the employer's chosen accommodation, who often restrict and control their right to receive visitors, in violation of their basic civil rights; lack of appeal mechanisms, forcing many workers to remain silent out of fear of being expelled from the program; exclusion and discrimination from provincial employment standards and public medical health coverage; and lack of enforcement and monitoring of labour practices, health and safety, and housing conditions.
We are disappointed and discouraged not only in regard to the inaction of the federal government on critical issues of the program--absence of compliance, monitoring, enforcement, access to full rights, and permanent residency--but also because through new federal government initiatives such as the proposed Canadian experience class, workers' vulnerability to employer abuse will be intensified if the assessment process is slanted towards a positive employer reference. We are opposed to this disturbing trend of accelerating employers' access to temporary foreign workers without meaningful initiatives put forward to address the structural flaws with the already existing program such as the SAWP and LCP.
We urge the standing committee to push to extend the right to regularization to workers currently employed under the SAWP, and retroactively for workers previously employed under the program. Many of these workers have been coming to Canada for 15 to 20 years, yet the point system does not enable them any opportunity to gain permanent status in Canada. These new proposals coming forth keep excluding and denying these workers basic rights and citizenship.
Also, we ask for provisions for family reunification to allow migrant workers' families to apply for residency, and to end the repatriations, especially in the absence of appeal mechanisms. As the SAWP contract is an employer-sponsored one, workers are repatriated basically for standing up for their rights.
Workers' temporary status is the foundation for much of the exploitation and abuse that exists under these guest worker programs. This ranges from withholding needed and requested documentation from them, such as their passports and records of employment, to worker accidents and illnesses that have resulted in permanent disabilities and numerous deaths. Even when workers have access to the financial and legal resources to defend their rights, their temporary status leaves them vulnerable, as the case of the RAV line workers leaves very clear. And most migrant workers do not have access to any financial or legal resources to fight their cases.
I, as well as other Justicia organizers in B.C. and Ontario, have been witness to many tragic cases. I hope these cases will highlight some of the pitfalls of these programs and enlighten the standing committee to push for regularization and permanent resident status for foreign workers, instead of relegating them to a temporary status that leaves them vulnerable to employer exploitation and abuse.
In December 2005 I was with Javier, a SAWP worker, before, during, and after he had his second full stroke, which was provoked by a workplace accident, something that may have been prevented or minimized had he had access to a CAT scan after his first stroke only days earlier. But because he was a temporary worker, B.C. still had not given him MSP provincial health coverage, so he did not get the appropriate medical attention he needed. His employer, Purewal Blueberry Farms in Pitt Meadows, was prepared to send him back as he was, after the first stroke, partially paralyzed at that moment. Only because we stayed with him was he able to get medical attention. However, he is now back in Mexico, permanently disabled for life, without the proper medical attention or financial support.
I just recently returned from Mexico, where I met many SAWP workers and their families, among them two widows of two former workers--one who died a few years ago and one who died earlier this year, whom I was sadly fortunate enough to meet in December before he died.
Alicia is a widow whose husband had chemicals spill on him at work in an Ontario greenhouse. The employer would not even allow him to take a shower after the spill, much less take him for needed medical follow-up. Based on this chemical spill, he had complications from which he later died. Alicia receives no compensation from either the Mexican or Canadian government for this. What is her alternative in this case--to come to Canada through the program that resulted in the death of her husband? She now has to take care of their son alone with no support.
Maribel is the widow of Alberto, who died earlier this year, leaving his wife and three very young children. While a SAWP worker in Ontario, Alberto was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and although he received a lot of community support, he and his family are not receiving the governmental support they deserve. I remember talking to Alberto's brothers, many of whom have also come to Canada through the program, about how, in fact, this could happen to them. It was certainly not very heartening to tell that to the family who recently lost one of their members when they are participating in the same program. And there are many cases like this.
Finally, I would like to end by emphasizing again the importance of this standing committee's taking up the issue of permanent resident status for migrant workers, rather than the temporary status they currently have. Do we really want to be a country that, by having these temporary programs that bring in workers for decades without ever allowing them to become residents, contributes to family disintegration and intense marital, family, and community problems as a result? Imagine being away from your family and your community for eight months every year for 15 to 20 years. This is the life of a migrant farm worker in the SAWP.
We recommend that Canada finally sign on to and ratify the UN convention on migrant workers, and we recommend that you take many of the recommendations in the Arthurs report on federal labour standards as a starting point for some changes to improve the conditions and lives of migrant workers. The Arthurs report identifies farm and domestic workers as among the most vulnerable, and being foreign workers only increases their vulnerability. We agree with the Arthurs report that we must consider how to ensure that all workers can live in conditions we consider decent, and that is the question central to all public policy debates. What we advocate for is just that: decency, justice, dignity, and families and communities having access to their full rights, which in the case of foreign workers here in Canada includes having access to permanent residency, and ultimately citizenship, if they so choose.
I do not want to see more Javiers, Albertos, Alicias, Maribels, and children without fathers, but if the government does not change the underlying foundation that leaves these workers vulnerable to exploitation, that is exactly what it is supporting.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs. My French is only about that much. That's all my French.
I want to thank you for allowing me to come before you to speak, and I'll try to stay within the seven minutes. In fact I think I might finish before the seven minutes.
I just want to say a few words about S.U.C.C.E.S.S. We have been around for 35 years. We currently have 390 employees, and we serve in 18 locations in the lower mainland. We provide settlement, employment, language training, and health care services to youth, adults, families, and seniors.
About undocumented workers and foreign temporary workers, the one thing I want to say is that we don't see too many of them. In fact, in the three months ending in December 2007,—October, November, December—we came into contact with a total of 20,633 individuals, but we would classify less than four per cent of those as “others”, and out of those others a very small minority were undocumented or foreign temporary workers. So we believe that from our perspective—because we actually provide services in so many different languages: Korean, Punjabi, Farsi, Filipino, Tagalog, and so on—our services have not been able to reach them or they have not been coming to our offices to ask for service.
The B.C. government recently introduced the settlement worker in the schools. So to the extent that those undocumented workers and temporary foreign workers have children in school, they might be accessing those services through the school workers. That cannot be assured.
As you have already heard today, many of them do not speak English as their first language. So our recommendation is that perhaps funding should be made available to organizations such as the ones sitting to my right, to allow them to more effectively provide outreach programs for those immigrants. As well, it would be useful if we could make funding accessible for foreign temporary workers as well as the undocumented workers, if we can find a way to do it, to improve their language skills and to provide any funding assistance to them.
You've heard the story about the government not providing medical services and providing limited access to legal assistance. Those are the areas we think are important and we should be providing assistance with. We recommend that we provide integrated services for the existing services that we provide to landed immigrants as well as to the foreign service workers.
The funding requirement, the funding we get now from our provincial government, is basically to allow us to provide services mainly to landed immigrants. There is really no incentive for organizations such as ours to extend our services, even though we would like to, to the temporary foreign workers. It's important now as we are looking at introducing the Canadian experience class, and those people who have been working here as temporary foreign workers...we are encouraging them to apply. We are encouraging them because they do not have to go back to their home residence to apply.
It's critical that during those times they are working here as temporary foreign workers that their experience is good and that they do not encounter situations as described earlier.
It is a good initiative, from our perspective, to create this Canadian experience class. However, it is not sufficient simply to create a class, but during the time they are here as temporary foreign workers we do not accord them the same kinds of services.
Ladies and gentlemen, that's it for me.
:
Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Denise Valdecantos. I'm a board member at the Philippine Women Centre of B.C.
Since 1989, the Philippine Women Centre of B.C. has educated, organized, and advocated for migrant and immigrant women of Philippine origin and their families. Our long-standing advocacy campaigns have critiqued and called for the scrapping of the live-in caregiver program.
As you know, Citizenship and Immigration statistics show that the overwhelming majority of women coming in under the LCP are from the Philippines. Our research studies and organizing work in the community, along with numerous academic studies, have documented the negative physical, social, economic, and political impacts of the LCP on the Filipino community in Canada at individual and community levels.
Yet despite the long history of lobbying work, the LCP remains intact, particularly its four pillars, which are the mandatory live-in requirement, temporary immigration status, employer-specific permit, and the 24 months of work that needs to be completed within three years. Without the removal of these pillars, the situation of the live-in caregivers will never improve due to the systemic context of their abuse. Their vulnerability remains intact when unregulated work conditions and cases of abuse and exploitation for foreign live-in caregivers are rampant.
Another challenge faced by these women and their families is the long process involved in the sponsoring of their children and the dues and fees involved. Often the years of separation result in trauma of these Filipino youth. A recent study with UBC found that family reunification and family separation have resulted in the youth's lack of integration and isolation here in Canada.
We are deeply concerned about the expansion of Canada's temporary workers program without the full and critical examination of the negative impacts of existing temporary workers programs like the LCP. We are further concerned about the potential short-term and long-term negative impacts on the Filipino community.
The Philippines is a top-source country for temporary foreign workers in Canada, yet there are not sufficient safeguards to protect the rights and welfare of these migrant workers and their families. Many of the women are trained as Filipino nurses, and they are often tasked to perform nursing care duties for the elderly and disabled. With the current nursing shortage in Canada, we call for the full accreditation for these nursing professionals.
We stand firm in our position that permanent residence should be given to these workers coming from the Philippines to Canada, and they should be allowed to bring their families with them. We also support the call of SIKLAB, which is the Filipino migrant workers' organization, that Canada should ratify the UN convention on protection of migrant workers and their families.
Thank you.
:
My name is Mildred German, and I'm with the Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada, the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, which is a group of youth and students who address the issues affecting youth in the Filipino community in Canada. We are formed through the Philippine Women Centre.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak about the situation of Filipino youth. The Filipino community is the third largest immigrant group in Canada. Current estimates show that there are nearly half a million Filipino immigrants and migrant workers living in Canada. A good portion of the Filipino community is made up of youth and students, and this is one of the reasons we would like to speak here today.
I'd like to speak about the impact of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's live-in caregiver program on Filipino youth. Since the early 1980s, nearly 100,000 Filipino women have been forced to migrate to Canada as live-in caregivers; 95% of workers under the LCP are Filipino women who cannot bring their families when they enter Canada to work.
Filipino youth are the most affected, as they are the ones left behind while their parents are working abroad. When youth are finally able to be reunited with their parents, they are reunited as strangers--the result of many years of separation. At the same time, Filipino youth who immigrate to Canada usually find themselves in an unknown environment, isolated and segregated as they adjust to their new life here.
Most newly arrived Filipino youth are also faced with the trauma of immigration, family separation, and reunification. A recent study at the University of British Columbia found that Filipino youth experienced an average of five years of separation from their parents, who come to Canada under the CIC's live-in caregiver program, and in many cases the separation is longer.
Adding to the trauma of immigration, family separation, and reunification is the lack of genuine support and services culturally appropriate to Filipino youth and the Filipino community. It is therefore not surprising that the study at UBC also found that Filipino youth have the second-highest high school dropout rate from Vancouver schools. Studies have linked this issue to the economic marginalization of the Filipino community. In fact, youth often have to work and contribute to the household income to help sustain their family's needs. The majority of Filipinos in Canada are working class, marginalized in the labour sector, and are the new generation of cheap labour here in Canada.
We Filipinos have noticed how underrepresented our community is when it comes to the issues affecting us. The ongoing underrepresentation of the Filipino community is a reflection of the systemic barriers affecting the Filipino community. When certain community groups question and criticize the Canadian government on policies such as immigration, the community is usually disappointed with the answers they are given--such as what happened on January 21, 2008, when the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, alongside other immigrant organizations and community groups, questioned the CIC on the social impact of their policies, particularly with the temporary workers program, the Canadian experience class, and the live-in caregiver program. The CIC deputy director of the permanent resident policy and programs development division, Katherine Pestieau, admitted there is no money for the integration and settlement of our immigrant communities here in Canada. This disappointing response could only further impact the racist policies implemented on our community and other immigrant communities.
As mentioned, the Filipino communities' experience with the LCP...the impacts are tremendous: the trauma of immigration, family separation, and reunification. This is why it is urgent to look into the social impact of Canada's immigration policies: the temporary workers program, the live-in caregiver program, and the Canadian experience class.
We demand the scrapping of the live-in caregiver program. Allow Filipino migrant workers to come as permanent residents and allow families to come together as their choice to avoid the long years of family separation. We also demand more resources for the integration and settlement of our immigrant communities here in Canada.
:
Thank you. I'm going to share my time with my other colleagues here.
Erika, I listened to you, and all of you, in your passion. All of you are doing God's work, or if you don't believe in God, then maybe you're Santa's elves, because we know there's not big money in what you're doing. But boy oh boy, there's a lot of passion in your vocation. I know that.
I agree with you, and this is why I'm not going to do a lot of questioning. If we have to have workers come back again and again because we're short of workers, then perhaps after a certain period of time they should be allowed to apply to stay in Canada.
When we're talking about older workers...and for every case you see of abuse and racism and exploitation, I guarantee there are five or six others out there. I want to know how you contact people about changes and how you're able to assist them. Would giving a senior's pension to landed immigrants after two to three years in Canada alleviate some of the employment and financial situations where older workers are exploited?
We know the point system doesn't work all that well. We have cabbies and sweepers with Ph.Ds, with doctor's degrees and dentist's degrees, working and being way underemployed. With the point system being what it is, would it be beneficial if we either eliminated the point system and based it on what our needs are--and certainly unskilled labour is still a need within Canada and probably always will be--or do we add another classification to the point system in order to accommodate people to be landed as permanent residents?
I'd like the first two women to answer that, please.
:
I think we will bring it to a close right there. I want to thank you for coming before the committee with a very, very interesting presentation indeed. Thank you.
We've kept the Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society of British Columbia and the Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners waiting for over an hour. We do apologize for that. We'll try to get under way within a couple of minutes. We invite you to come to the table and we will get on with it.
I just want to inform the members of the committee, while I have a moment here, that Ms. Grewal has invited everyone to supper at her house—the entire committee, that is--approximately half an hour after the meeting.
I want to welcome to our meeting, from the Canadian Bar Association, Mr. Alex Stojicevic; from the Law Society of British Columbia, Carmel Wiseman, who is a lawyer for the policy and legal services department; and from the Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners, Nancy Salloum, chairperson, and Elie Hani, vice-chair.
Thank you for coming. Sorry to keep you waiting, but we got off to a very shaky start. If you were here, you saw that.
In the meantime, you know what the procedure is, and I'll pass it over to you, Alex.
:
Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, about some important issues that you are travelling across the country to study. I've heard some of the discussion that occurred before us here, and you certainly have a lot of lively issues that you're considering.
I don't envy you your task of balancing a lot of different regulatory or legislative changes and their impact, as well as conflicting priorities that you're being asked to look for here.
I speak to you as chair of the citizenship and immigration law section of the Canadian Bar Association. The CBA is a voluntary association of approximately 37,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and students across Canada. My section has approximately 900 members who practise immigration law across the country. Our mandate includes seeking improvement in the law and administration of justice, and that's the lens through which I am speaking to you today.
I would like to address specifically two of the issues you have raised, although given the liveliness of some of the other things you've talked about, I have views also on the live-in caregiver program and other programs. But I'll leave that for the members.
In any event, the two issues in particular—and you have copies of my speaking notes—are the impact of Bill on temporary foreign workers and the issue of undocumented, as well as licensed, immigration consultants.
We've raised our concerns with the government about both of these issues. We do have existing submissions to the minister's office on both.
Our concern with Bill really flows from the broad and relatively unreviewable powers it gives the minister, which, in our view, risk eroding the rule of law, plain and simple. We think the existing measures within IRPA and the existing regulations and processing procedures can be used more effectively to meet the government's objectives. In many instances, including as far as Bill C-17 is concerned, in terms of the stated goal, which was to protect certain workers such as strippers from being exploited, it can be done in other ways that don't require Bill C-17. Ministerial instructions are too severe and too unnecessary an approach to take when, instead, strong guidelines from the minister's office would likely achieve the same goal.
Also, we wonder if it's necessary to have a system of ministerial instructions centralizing power in the minister's office when we have a handful of these stripper visas issued to begin with. I've heard conflicting reports of between 4, 18, and 20. It seems not very many to really have to change a law. If that's the principal motivation, we question that somewhat.
The existing act and the existing procedures provide for transparency and objectivity that we feel Bill erodes. We have some of the same concerns on the government bill that was put forward, I'm told, in the House today, Bill . If you take a system that's already difficult for the end user, that at least now has some rights accruing to the end user by the use of such words as “shall” be issued a work permit, or “shall” be issued a temporary resident visa or permanent resident visa, and if you erode that objectivity by changing the language to “may” or by having a scheme of ministerial instructions, you make it that much more complicated.
That's the danger of eroding the language in the act, as far as we're concerned now, even though we recognize that there are some really legitimate public policy objectives that inform some of these two bills. Certainly, we applaud the government for moving forward on those objectives. It's just that I'm not sure legislative changes, especially the ones that are being contemplated, are necessary for those objectives.
We ask that you recommend that the government use the measures that exist in the act, rather than the issuance of ministerial directions, to fulfill these legitimate public policy directions.
The cornerstone, in our view, of the proper administration of justice is transparency, and our concerns with the direction the government has taken with Bill and with a number of legislative initiatives, including the other one that I alluded to, Bill , is to sacrifice clarity and transparency for the sake of giving more direct control over processing issues to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. This trend, in our view, will have the net effect of centralizing authority over processing in the hands of the minister and the department, rather than where it exists now, which is within the body of the regulations.
It is a very interesting line that we're taking. The minister has gone on public record today as saying that any changes she puts forward in these ministerial instructions, under both bills, will involve consultation with stakeholders and will also be pre-published and gazetted. As far as that's concerned, we applaud the minister, but what about the next minister or the minister after that? Once these powers—the ministerial instruction power under Bill and also, potentially, under Bill , the ability to pick and choose which immigrant visa categories that are already provided for in regulation can be moved forward.... We are concerned that this centralization isn't necessary for the government to meet its immigration objectives. What's more, it causes a risk of abuse down the road from either the department or from a future immigration minister, if not this one, using it in ways that are fundamentally undemocratic and that will not allow immigration changes to be properly debated, in this body or any other, but rather will involve senior government officials talking to other senior government officials to make policy.
We recognize the need for flexibility, and we recognize that the minister and the government are dealing with some very complicated and challenging problems, balancing numerous different and competing policy goals. This has been the reality of our system for as long as I've practised immigration law. It's not an easy balance to maintain.
Certainly building a system that's responsive to both Canada's current economic needs and long-term economic needs as well as its humanitarian objectives is a challenging one. Despite the fact that this goal requires a certain degree of flexibility to adapt to economic changes, it must not be at the price of a system that uses objective criteria. This risks the use of arbitrariness, upon which I've already commented, and essentially allows the minister to override objective criteria that are already contained in regulations, and this, we feel, is wrong. Canadians want transparency.
Another issue I want to address today is immigration consultants. I have a lot of personal knowledge of the history of this brief in particular. It was the Law Society of British Columbia that brought forward the Mangat case in the late 1990s, which resulted ultimately in the Supreme Court of Canada deciding that there was a role for immigration consultants to play if they were regulated. What we have is the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants as a result.
I want to address two issues there. First, the Canadian Bar Association has some concerns that at the moment CSIC appears to be poorly funded to handle disciplinary measures. It is at least worth investigating how good a job they are doing so far in terms of disciplining their members. Do they have the budget to do it?
Members of the committee, thank you for inviting the Law Society to take part in the hearings today.
The Law Society of British Columbia has its mandate set by the Legal Profession Act, and first and foremost in its mandate is its obligation to protect the public in the administration of justice. It's under that mandate that I appear here today.
You'll be pleased to know that I'm going to limit my comments to one thing only, and that's the issue of unregistered immigration consultants. The Law Society is concerned and continues to be concerned, as it has been for many years, that the public continues to be harmed by unregistered immigration consultants who provide legal services to the public with respect to immigration matters, even though they are neither registered immigrant consultants nor lawyers.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the regulations made thereunder, only authorized representatives are entitled, for a fee, to provide legal services to clients involved in immigration proceedings or applications. Authorized representatives, as set out in the regulation, are lawyers, Quebec notaries, and members of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. This is to ensure that only qualified individuals who are regulated by a responsible body are allowed to take money for representing very vulnerable individuals.
While the regulation provides that only authorized representatives can provide legal services in relation to immigration matters for a fee, unregistered immigration consultants continue to provide legal services, often very badly, or offer to provide legal services contrary to the regulation. Unregistered immigration consultants may mask their involvement in the preparation of immigration documents by having the applicant sign the documents on his or her own behalf. Occasionally, clients do not learn that the immigration consultant is not registered and will not be able to represent them at a hearing until just shortly before the hearing takes place. You can imagine how upsetting that is for these vulnerable clients. In other cases, unregistered immigration consultants say they can provide immigration services; they charge and collect a fee, but they never in fact deliver the services.
The Law Society of British Columbia, even years after the Supreme Court of Canada said in Law Society of British Columbia v. Mangat that immigration consultants were a federal responsibility, continues to receive complaints from members of the public about the quality or lack of services provided by unregistered immigration consultants. Some complain that they have paid thousands of dollars to these consultants and have received little or no services or that the services provided were inadequate. Sometimes the advice they receive harms their immigration applications; they're given bad advice on how to complete the forms.
The immigrant community is vulnerable and requires protection from untrained, unregulated, uninsured, and at times unscrupulous unregistered immigration consultants. A problem with the regulatory regime as it currently exists is that there are no effective enforcement provisions in the act to deal with unregistered immigration consultants who provide services contrary to the act and regulation. To be effective, the act should specify that providing services contrary to the act and regulation is an offence. It should further specify punishment, generally in terms of a jail term and/or a fine, for persons who provide legal services contrary to the act and regulation. Finally, it should provide for an enforcement framework, either through the police or through a division of the immigration bureaucracy.
Without effective enforcement, unregistered consultants will continue to take advantage of immigrants and potential immigrants, seriously harming Canada's standing in the international community. The Law Society of British Columbia submits that the Canadian government should adopt an effective enforcement scheme to protect this vulnerable group. How are lawyers different? I'm getting this question from the committee. The answer is that lawyers are insured, they're trained, and they're regulated.
Is every lawyer a good one? No, and of course we know that. The Law Society disciplines lawyers who aren't good and makes sure they are either disciplined.... And that's all public; that's on the Law Society's website. All our disciplinary proceedings are posted. We have practice standards reviews, and we can disbar lawyers who are dishonest or lack integrity, and so on and so forth. What's more, the public, in its dealings with lawyers, is protected because lawyers are insured.
They're not only regulated, they're also insured. None of that can be said for the unregistered immigration consultant. There's a difference. Being a lawyer doesn't guarantee that you're great, although we do our best to try to make sure we get you there. The difference is that if you're a client of a lawyer, you have some recourse. If you're a client of an unregistered immigration consultant, you have little recourse.
I was reading on the Immigration site today the policy dealing with the use of representatives who are paid or unpaid. There's a section there that tells you what to do if you work in Citizenship and Immigration Canada and you get a complaint about an unregistered immigration consultant. Do you know what clients are told? When they're dealing with a non-registered immigration consultant, they're directed to inform CSIC, which has no effective enforcement ability against unauthorized representatives, and to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and if they can, to bring a small claims action on their behalf.
These are people who are struggling with a system. They're immigrants; they're vulnerable. That doesn't help them. They have no recourse, effectively.
Those are my submissions. I'm happy to come in under the seven minutes.
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Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I appreciate the invitation, even though it was last minute on Friday evening and we had very little time to prepare a submission. However, we've prepared 32 pages, but as we have only seven minutes, I'm going to pick and choose some of the points.
I'm the chairperson and the registered federal lobbyist in-house for the Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners. With me also, of course, is the vice-chair, Mr. Elie Hani.
I'm glad that the chair of the CBA and Ms. Wiseman brought up a good point; however, I have a different point of view and position on the point they just raised.
I just want to give you a brief background. CSIP is an NGO, a non-government organization, non-profit, and its practitioners have been providing pro bono service since November 2005. We have over 9,000 members. Those members do not pay membership; they pay money from their own pocket to assist prospective Canada Immigration clients. Our society does not receive any type of government funding. We, as practitioners, use our homes, we pay for offices, and at the same time we look after refugee claimants who have no access to legal aid, because legal aid was cut off a few years back.
CSIP functions as a unified regulatory body for its members and represents the interests of immigration practitioners in Canada and abroad. CSIP is seeking self-regulation with federal recognition of paid representatives, and it seeks to introduce prospective Canadian immigration clients with protection.
Let us be clear, immigration practitioners are committed to acting under professional regulation, and we feel we accomplished this on April 13, 2004, when the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants was created, which we supported initially. Our opposition is that we are very disappointed in CSIC's administration and behaviour, its biased mandate and bylaws. It is not to avoid regulation, but to avoid the wrong type of regulation, which has spun into self-gain for a specific group.
The journey toward regulation for immigration practitioners has been unconstitutional, since it was not approved by the Senate. Are immigration consultants really regulated, even with the existence of CSIC? I don't think so. The consumer protection is lost. There has been no such consumer protection since 2004.
There is a gap growing between the CSIC members, immigration lawyers, and the immigration practitioners of CSIP, who provide pro bono services. Since August 2005 we have had five directors of CSIC who have resigned due to misbehaviour and mismanagement. Also, close to 1,000 immigration consultants have resigned from CSIC as well, because of the type of mandate they are providing.
CSIC membership fees are too high, and therefore a lot of consultants are moving out of that society. Five lawsuits have been issued and filed against CSIC since its creation.
Our association has been encouraged to expose the public to the concerns facing CSIC's uncontrolled members. Complaints were received from the public, from consumers, and from previous CSIC members. Recognized professionals with long-term experience in immigration law were told that they had not passed the exam--repeatedly, several times--and that was surprising to us, because among them were retired and former professional senior immigration officers and previous practice lawyers.
These members did not have the privilege to approach the administrator at CSIC and be given the opportunity to negotiate another marking of their exams. The marking had been done by the staff of CSIC, not by a recognized educational institution. Although the members were entitled to that, since they had been charged high exams fees, they were shut out from the legitimate approach. Their rights were violated behind closed doors.
We also have grave concern with regard to how the membership exam was prepared for the members. Who are these experts in immigration law who were hired by the CSIC board at a cost of $760,000? Actually, the taxpayers had to cough that up, as that amount is part of the initial $1.2 million.
CSIP recognizes that Canada Immigration in and of itself will not resolve all of Canada's immigration challenges relating to consultants' practice, but it can be--and should be--a key instrument that can address some of these challenges, of course with the honourable minister's approval.
CSIP's efforts today are to find any abuse within the federal jurisdiction, which today is not in question. In recent months we've become aware of such abuse within the Canada Border Services Agency and the Immigration and Refugee Board. In a recent letter to CSIP, the Minister of Immigration, the Honourable Diane Finley, agreed with our position on investigating two appointments that were given to CSIC consultants with conflict of interest. At the moment, this investigation is being done by the two ethics commissions.
In 2004 CSIP published and delivered a discussion document calling attention to the importance of the recommendations submitted to the former minister. However, that submission was shredded and ignored. Instead, recommendations that were provided behind closed doors were implemented to benefit former Canada Immigration officers, their friends, and their supporters.
On behalf of our CSIP members, partners, and stakeholders, we propose the following agenda.
First, allow the minister to recognize other regulators for better accountability, transparency, and consumer protection across Canada.
Ensure predictability and stability through an escalator mechanism.
Find common principles through broad engagement with Canada Immigration across Canada, including lawyers.
Measure and monitor outcomes, sharing innovation and best immigration practices free of discrimination. Allow freedom of association and freedom of expression to all consultants, whether they are CSIC members or not.
We suggest that the honourable minister go into deeper inquiries until this situation is resolved in order to save time and taxpayers' money in the CIC department.
Finally, give our society federal recognition as an authorized immigration practitioner. After a deep examination of our administration, we hope the honourable minister will give us the chance to prove our professional knowledge and honesty in this matter.
Our society membership has increased to 9,000 members in a very short time--over the past three years. To this end, several steps have been taken to ensure that CSIC, as a federally authorized, not-for-profit society.... Its administration is not able to fulfill the mandate being given to it in the $1.2 million initial funding by the taxpayer. Unfortunately, four years later, CSIC has failed in its public consumer protection.
Is there any abuse of power within the federal jurisdiction? Yes. On April 13, 2004, CSIC board members claimed to be operating at arm's length from the CIC. Since the director of CIC....
I'm done?
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French or English, I'm going to speak in both languages.
The complaint filed by the Quebec government touches the health ministry and medicare cards--there was someone inside the department playing with the medicare cards--CIC on both sides, and automobile licences and insurance. Most of his clients live abroad and have never been in Canada. Among them is the son of the President of Lebanon and many diplomatic people. This was in the news, sir. I'm not creating this story.
There are many, many other members doing the same, without any control from the society. We've advised many people to write and complain to the society. Their complaints are thrown in the garbage; there is no reaction.
Besides the lack of response, I would like to point out one major issue, which is the selection of immigrants here in Canada, which has been going on for a few years. It is very bad. We have people, very well-educated people, coming here and creating jobs and investing money and everything. Their applications inland are thrown out. They came as refugees. On the other hand, many others are on welfare and in street gangs, and their files have been passed through one, two, three, and they've been accepted. This is amazing. It has touched me and touched my family, as Canadians. This is something we have to look into very sharply and very seriously. We are asking the minister to put more controls on the agents and decision-makers inland and abroad.
Especially in the Canadian embassy in Syria, in Damascus, there is a lot of mumbo-jumbo going on. We are aware of it and have the proof, to prove it at any time.
Mr. Chairman, I'll just make the point that when an issue is raised by the presenters, I am completely within my rights to question on that issue. When we talk about what committee would be appropriate to have this thing go forward to, it's being sent to the finance committee, as everybody knows, which is the wrong committee.
The point I was getting to is that for somebody to become an immigrant, they have to make, first of all, an emotional investment. This applies to all those issues. Secondly, they have to make a physical investment. Thirdly, they have to make a financial investment. What we are in danger of doing is sending out a message to the world that if you want to get to Canada, you have no rights, it's a lottery, and you might be better off buying a 6/49 ticket. Then what we're going to have is that people will choose other countries, which are governed by rule of law and not by ministerial discretion.
As I said before, the whole thing around the temporary workers and trying to wrap it up in strippergate is not really an issue, but it makes good political theatre, which is being shamelessly exploited.
I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to question you on this in the future, in terms of the Canadian immigration bar, because obviously I don't sit on the finance committee. We will have a fight to get it before this committee. Let me put the question to you, Mr. Stojicevic, in terms of what I just said. In terms of the chilling effect for trying to get immigrants into this country when there is an international competition going on, how do you see it from the perspective of the immigration bar?