Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology
Issue 19 - Evidence - June 6, 2012
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 6, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 4:13 p.m. to examine the subject matter of those elements contained in Division 54 of Part 4 of Bill C-38, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in the House of Commons on March 29, 2012 and other measures.
Senator Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I hereby call the meeting to order.
[Translation]
Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
[English]
I am Kelvin Ogilvie, a senator from Nova Scotia and chair of the committee. I will ask my colleagues to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Eggleton: Art Eggleton, a senator from Toronto, deputy chair of the committee.
Senator Callbeck: Catherine Callbeck, Prince Edward Island.
Senator Dyck: Lillian Dyck, Saskatchewan.
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy, Nova Scotia.
Senator Wallace: John Wallace, New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: Josée Verner, Quebec.
Senator Rivard: Michel Rivard, The Laurentides, Quebec.
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Senator Seth: Asha Seth, from Toronto, Ontario.
Senator Martin: Yonah Martin, Vancouver, B.C.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman, Montreal, Quebec.
The Chair: I wish to welcome our distinguished witnesses, and I will introduce them by name and affiliation when we invite them to speak.
At this point I would remind us all that we are here because on May 2, 2012, this committee was authorized by the Senate to examine the subject matter of Division 54 of Part 4 of Bill C-38, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures.
Today's meeting is focused on the changes to economic class immigration included in Bill C-38.
With that, and by earlier agreement, we will invite our witnesses to speak, beginning on my left with Martin Collacott, who is the spokesperson for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform.
Martin Collacott, Spokesperson, Centre for Immigration Policy Reform: Thank you. I will comment briefly on some of the steps taken by the government to improve the immigration system and then go on to describe what still has to be done to make it work in the best interests of Canadians.
In recent decade, newcomers have on average earned far less and experienced higher poverty levels than those who arrived here prior to 1980.
This has resulted not only in frustration and disappointment on the part of many immigrants but has been extremely costly for Canadians. There is a Fraser Institute study that shows recent immigrants may cost around $20 billion a year. The government has therefore taken measures to ensure that newcomers are selected according to standards that give them a much better chance of finding employment commensurate with their qualifications. These include requiring that they are fluent enough in English or French to be able to function effectively in their fields of specialization, and that their foreign credentials are likely to be accepted in Canada.
In introducing these new and more effective standards, the government has also had to face the fact that hundreds of thousands of applicants have already qualified under the old guidelines. They formed a backlog of more than 600,000 by the time the government took office and eventually grew to more than a million.
Given the size of this backlog and the fact that those in the lineup that qualified under the old guidelines were not likely to do well in the workforce, the government has done the right thing in its decision to cancel their applications that were made before the new standards were introduced and refund the fees they paid.
Not surprisingly, this decision has not been welcomed by many of those in the backlog or their lawyers or consultants, but it is entirely justified in serving the best interests of Canadians.
The new measures introduced by the government also provide it with the means to set limits on how many applications it will accept in various categories, thus enabling it to avoid the accumulation of massive backlogs in the future. This is something Canada should have done years ago.
Another important step taken by the government is its decision to review provisions for the sponsorship of parents and grandparents. The major problem with that program is that it costs Canadians billions and billions of dollars, particularly in health care, and I can give the details on that if the committee is interested.
The government has, moreover, implemented or proposed major improvements to a wide range of immigration- related policies including, for example, the investor program and the refugee determination system.
Overall, the current government, and particularly the immigration minister Jason Kenny, have in fact done a great deal more than any of their predecessors in recent decades to improve the system and correct many of the shortcomings.
Having said this, however, I have to point out that in one critical respect the immigration policies we have today dramatically fail to serve the interests of Canadians. I repeat: They dramatically failed.
Immigration policy and immigration levels used to be related to the state of the economy and our labour needs. Indeed, the name of the department dealing with immigration was for 30 years either manpower and immigration or employment and immigration. The last government that recognized this essential relationship and acted accordingly was that of Pierre Trudeau in the mid-1980s. During this period, Canada was in an economic recession and immigration intake was lowered to less than 100,000 a year.
Since then, immigration policy has been driven largely by special interest groups with the support of myths that ascribe to large scale immigration benefits to Canada that are almost completely without foundation. These special interest groups include employers who want a larger labour pool in order to keep wages as low as possible; immigration settlement organizations that often do a good job of helping newcomers but also have a vested interest in large numbers of arrivals; and immigration lawyers and consultants, who want as many clients as possible.
Some of the myths surrounding immigration are that Canadians benefit from an ever-growing population and workforce. Immigration increases the size of the population and the economy increases, but there is no net benefit for the average Canadian. Increases in prosperity depend on sound economic policies and increases in productivity, which are negatively affected by a larger labour supply. Also, there is the claim that as the population gets older we need more workers from abroad to compensate for the smaller percentage of Canadians who are working. We have a problem with aging and additional costs as people get older, but it has been definitively shown that immigration has almost no impact on that problem. There is also the argument that Canada will have massive labour shortages that can only be met by bringing in larger numbers of workers from abroad. We have shortages and we will have shortages in various sectors of our economy from time to time, but it has been pretty clearly shown that these could be met by normal market forces within Canada. There is no justification for having among the highest net immigration levels in the world and topping this up by bringing in almost an equal number of foreign workers.
There are other impacts on Canadian society of this inflow. Our larger cities, such as Toronto and Vancouver, are becoming less livable because of high housing costs and longer commute times. It increases pressure on health care and educational facilities. The environmental impact is substantial as more and more prime agricultural land is used for housing. It also has a global impact since newcomers have an ecological footprint in Canada several times what they had in their homelands. There are also issues to be considered in relation to the cohesiveness of Canadian society. Canada has worked hard at integrating newcomers and has done a better job than most other countries. However, it would be unwise to assume that we will continue to be as successful in the future as immigrant communities get larger; and newcomers are increasingly able to function in the cultural milieu of their homelands and have far stronger connections through the Internet to travel and so on with their homelands than in the old days.
We need a comprehensive strategy for making best use of our existing workforce. We will still need some immigrants but not nearly as many as we are bringing in. We have to look at disincentives for people getting into the workforce, which the government is doing in terms of EI. We need to look at why many young people are training in Canada for jobs that we do not need them for and not going into trades, where they could be used. We have to look at whether we have the programs in place for them to get the training we need. We should be focusing on long-term labour needs and getting Canadians into the workforce, not the quick fix by bringing in temporary workers or large numbers of permanent residents.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Collacott.
I will now turn to Ms. Debbie Douglas, Executive Director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants.
Debbie Douglas, Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving me the opportunity to comment on the impact of changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act included in Bill C-38.
Briefly, I will tell you a bit about OCASI. We are the umbrella organization for agencies working with immigrants and refugees in the province of Ontario. We were formed in 1978 to act as the collective voice for Ontario's immigrant- and refugee-serving sector and to coordinate responses to shared needs and concerns. The council has over 200 autonomous member agencies across the province, with approximately 60 per cent located in Toronto, which is not surprising given how arrival numbers are disbursed.
Our member agencies provide a broad range of services to immigrants and refugees. They include settlement, employment services, language training, women abuse counselling, housing assistance, legal services, health services, shelters youth and senior services, and community capacity building. The majority of our members are community- based with volunteer boards of directors. Like the overall non-profit sector in Canada, the work is carried out often by very committed volunteers as well as professional staff.
I will focus in the first part of my presentation on the cancellation of the Federal Skilled Worker Program applications. By 2011, the backlog of federal skilled worker applicants waiting for a decision went up from 487,000 in 2005 to 508,000. By that time, the overall backlog in permanent resident applications in any category had grown by 173,000 since the end of 2005.
At that point, the Federal Skilled Worker Program applicants were waiting more than five years to have their applications processed. However, the delay was not consistent across visa posts. Applications in Damascus, Syria, took the longest time at more than eight years; and in Accra, Ghana, and New Delhi, India, it took just under eight years to process. In general, visa posts in Africa and the Middle East region as well as in Asia and Pacific regions took longer to process applications as compared to posts in Europe and the Americas.
In any event, the backlog was not sustainable and was unfair to applicants. Some applicants gave up on Canada and instead found opportunities to immigrate to other countries such as the U.S., the U.K. or Australia. The backlog was causing us to lose much needed talent, and this impact was being felt in some pockets of the labour market.
However, while the backlog was and is unfair to applicants, the government's solution proposed in Bill C-38 to cancel pre-2008 applications is far more unfair. Essentially, applicants who followed the rules and waited in line will now be punished for doing so. The government's proposal to refund the entire application fee is only partial compensation. It cannot reverse the betrayal of a broken promise, cannot wipe out the length of time that applicants have spent waiting in line, and cannot compensate for the additional costs for medical tests, travel costs to embassies and other visa posts and fees for immigration advice that the applicants would have incurred. Since the cancellation or termination of the applications is not a decision, there is no appeal for the applicants.
The government proposes that these applicants can reapply under the new post-2008 rules. It is completely unfair to have those who have waited for several years in one line join another line only to wait again. OCASI strongly disagrees that the only solution to the backlog is to terminate the 2008 applications.
We believe that the federal government should invest the required departmental resources sufficient to deal with the volume of applications received and streamline the application process to become more efficient and less time- and resource-consuming. Canada has realigned the economic immigration selection process several times in the past. However, without adequate resources to process applications, the backlog will always exist and will grow. Our solution cannot be to terminate periodically the applications of thousands of applicants who have applied in good faith whenever the backlog grows too big. In fact, by reprioritizing resources allocated to fast-tracking temporary foreign workers, the government can fast track backlogged applications instead rather than cancel them.
We also know that the Federal Skilled Worker Program selection is driven almost entirely by the labour market. In recent years, skilled worker selection has privileged some industries over other, primarily to address current labour market needs in those sectors. However, selection should also be about planning ahead to maintain a competitive edge in growing areas, such as the green sector. Canada would benefit from selecting immigrants based not only on their skills to meet specific short-term labour market needs but also on broader human capital skills, which in the longer term will serve us as a nation.
It is also troubling, and it was good to hear my colleague to my right talk about this, that we are becoming more and more dependent on temporary labour. This is evidenced by the unrestrained growth of our Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Our immigration program should be focused on the long-term goal of nation building, but instead it is subverted to provide short-term articulation of labour market needs.
The following are some specific recommendations we have in response to Bill C-38 regarding the pre-2008 Federal Skilled Worker Program applications.
We believe the government should streamline the application process to make it more time and resource efficient and develop an electronic database that would allow the provinces and territories as well as employers to review the skill sets in the application pool. The federal government has been allowing provinces and territories to review the backlogged applications to identify and fast-track applicants that would need their labour market needs within agreed upon occupations. This initiative is separate from and in some cases higher, although I have yet to find one of the provinces whose numbers under this initiative, the pilot, are higher than Provincial Nominee Program numbers, but it is a parallel program to the PNP.
The Chair: You have used up seven minutes at this point, so if you could move to finish.
Ms. Douglas: We are suggesting that this pilot be extended.
The recommendation that we most want to press is that Citizenship and Immigration Canada should establish an expedited process for those in the backlog. We should be parallel to the process for the post-2008 applicants with a timeline of three years or so. Resources earmarked for return to the terminated applicants and the administrative dollars to implement the termination process should instead be spent to hire staff to work on clearing the backlog. There is precedent for this. Recently, the government hired 60 new staff for Canada Border Services Agency to remove just over 4,200 people from the country over three years. A similar investment with existing resources will certainly be a win-win for skilled workers in the backlog and for Canada.
I know I only have two minutes left.
The Chair: You actually have exceeded by several minutes the five minutes you were given, so you have to draw it to a conclusion.
Ms. Douglas: We strongly urge you to seriously consider the recommendations that we have put before you.
In my last 30 seconds, I also want to raise the concern around the proposal to have any fixed employment equity obligations under the Federal Contractors Program removed. I think this will essentially gut our Employment Equity Act. It is an Employment Equity Act that we believe has been successful. Our banking and financial services system is a clear example in terms of the positive impact having a federal Employment Equity Act has had. We have seen a cultural shift here in Canada where we move away from talking about tolerance to talking about diversity as our collective strength. Thank you.
The Chair: I will now move to Mario Bellissimo, a lawyer who is appearing here as an individual. He is from the Bellissimo Law Group.
Mario Bellissimo, Lawyer, Bellissimo Law Group, as an individual: Good afternoon, chair, senators and my fellow panelists. Thank you for inviting me. It is both an honour and a privilege to be before you today to discuss this very important piece of legislation. I understand that my speaking notes are before you as well as the submission from the Canadian Bar Association. I come to you today wearing three interrelated hats: as a Canadian citizen, as an immigration lawyer, and as Treasurer of the National Immigration Law Section for the Canadian Bar Association.
I want to preface my comments by stating that there have been many creative initiatives and excellent efforts on behalf of the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, as well as his staff. As I have commented in other mediums, the changes have been fast and furious. It is difficult when you are trying to weave changes into what I consider to be a very delicate tapestry, which is our Canadian immigration system. Some of the changes have been positive, and others have not. Unfortunately, Bill C-38 is, in my opinion, a serious step in the wrong direction.
I will focus my comments today on both the scope and implications of this legislation. It is regrettable that we are dealing with this in the context of an omnibus bill. The significant impact and sweeping nature of the changes and the quick time frame for its passage militate against meaningful comment or debate, but I will do my best to communicate what will inevitably come out as a very impassioned view.
As the committee has heard, Federal Skilled Worker Program applications are being returned, along with an estimated $130 million in processing fee, without interest on those fees, without timely notice of the change in policy and without legal right of remedy or indemnity or any consideration of the merits of those applications.
It also introduces unprecedented ministerial instruction over permanent and temporary resident processing. It would give the minister power not only to establish conditions by category, which is not all that new, but also to change the conditions once the applications have been filed.
We recognize the importance of ensuring that Canada's immigration system responds to our changing labour needs. However, Bill C-38 far overreaches its stated objective, much as my colleague Ms. Douglas has commented.
I highlight in the CBA submission, and echo those, that Part 4, Division 54 should be withdrawn, or at least separated and referred to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for proper study and debate.
Before looking at the implications, I want to speak to some of the underlying assumptions for the need for this legislation. By all accounts, or by many accounts, in November 2008 there were approximately 800,000 persons in the backlog. Currently, we are at about 280,000. Three and a half years later, we are about 65 per cent less.
I read with great interest the comments of Sandra Harder, Director General of Strategic Policy and Planning for Citizenship and Immigration Canada in response to questions from Senators Callbeck, Martin and Cordy, when she testified before this committee on May 31. There are four points I wish to highlight. One, she confirmed that the oldest file in the backlog is from 2003, so some applicants have been waiting for nine years. Two, she also stated efforts have been made to communicate with applicants in the backlog to close their existing application and reapply, but only 6 per cent took up the offer. Three, she commented that the backlog would take until 2017 or 2018 to clear. Four, to accommodate the admissions, we would have to raise our immigration levels from 240,000 to 265,000 to about 500,000 to 600,000 immigrants for a two-year period.
With the greatest of respect, these comments are difficult to reconcile. One, so far as applicants were contacted, they were not offered a refund or to close their application but to reapply anew. With minister instructions, one which came out on November 28, 2008, only 38 occupations were eligible, so it stands to reason that many — I understand before the committee she testified that they do have those numbers of who would still qualify under those occupations, but it was unclear.
The Chair: We would really like to get your independent content. You are now at five minutes, and I will close you off in two more minutes.
Mr. Bellissimo: Let me get, then, very quickly to the independent content, which is why these drastic measures now, as the backlog has been significantly reduced? Based on the pace the backlog has been clearing, why would another five or six years be required? Assuming a certain percentage of applicants would be approved, it is unclear why we would have to raise levels to 500,000 to 600,000.
There are also comments made by Minister Kenney with respect to ensuring that our government is sending a clear message that our doors are open to those who play by the rules. With respect, the door would be shut and we could not stand by that statement again. He has also indicated that the system must be fair and well managed and does not tolerate queue jumping. It is difficult to understand how that statement will be reconciled to someone who has been sitting in the backlog since 2005 and sees an applicant with the same occupation approved with visa in hand in 2010.
I know I am short on time. I get to the issue of what special efforts have been given to process these applications? Have they been given priority? Has any of the interest that has been accumulated over all these years been put towards processing this backlog? We are looking at litigation in the Federal Court, which is already overtaxed. What is the cost benefit?
Further, with respect to a minister's ability to manage and be responsive, that is a fair proposition. However, we are moving from flexibility to inability to manage a transparent or predictable and inviting immigration program. What is the problem with changing the rules mid course? It might seem flexible, but the government has spent a lot of time cracking down on scrupulous representatives. This would allow the immigration program to become a moving target, one that would be difficult to operate.
I will conclude by echoing the CBA's submissions, and there are three of those before you. I conclude by stating that the deleterious effects of the legislation far outweigh its benefits, and mere administrative expediency should not trump core values and tarnish the real value and integrity of our immigration system. There is a lot at stake at here and I urge honourable senators to take this very seriously. If this legislation passes in its current form, we will look back on it with regret.
The Chair: Thank you. I will now turn to Richard Kurland, who is a lawyer and policy analyst, and who is also appearing as an individual.
Richard Kurland, Lawyer and Policy Analyst, as an individual: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Who takes the business risk of applying to come to Canada as an immigrant? That is the key question.
Under the code of ethics in the Law Society of British Columbia and in the Barreau du Québec, it is a requirement now to advise, in writing, your client, the applicant, that they are taking the business risk of applying to come to this country and that they are on notice that the law may be changed retroactively, with no notice, to their detriment.
What happened? Historically, Canada moved a little sluggishly to regulating consultants operating off our shores. These consultants were not subject to our regulation. These consultants took on the business of bringing people to apply to come to this country. Even after the regulation, where were the consultants and those lawyers to advise their clients that the rules could change? The rules have changed. Where is the balance? Yes, individual applicants will suffer; people who qualified before will not qualify today — 284,000. Their interests are not favoured by this legislation.
What is the interest of Canada? We are here to balance the interests of this country against the interests of people who took the business risk of applying.
What does the data show? Economic performance of people who came under the old rules: not good; under the new rules: superlative. That is the backdrop here. There is anguish in people's hopes and dreams of coming to the best country in the world being dashed on the rocks.
However, unlike years past, this is not the only stream. More than 50 per cent of Canada's skilled worker flow today is provincially selected. The Province of Ontario has been foot-dragging in bringing its constitutional responsibility into operation; it is on equal footing with the federal in agriculture and immigration, section 95 of the Constitution Act. However, all the other provinces have managed well to select immigrants. Therefore, the people in the backlog can turn to the provinces.
The people in the backlog have every opportunity to apply under other streams, not just the new federal selection rules. They can do so under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program rules; so you come in, work at a job, pay taxes and have zero-cost integration and settlement when you upgrade from Temporary Foreign Worker Program to immigrant.
No, the doors are not closed.
That is good enough for five minutes, I think.
The Chair: You are in fact under five minutes. I will now open the floor up for questioning.
Senator Eggleton: Let me start with a question about the qualifications of the skilled workers in the pre-2008 backlog.
Mr. Collacott, you spoke about the old guidelines. I take it you are talking about the ones presently in effect before these. Under those guidelines, these people are not likely to do well in the workforce and you supported the decision or the request of Minister Kenney in that regard.
I also heard another comment — I think it was by Mr. Bellissimo — about the CIC knowing who in the backlog would qualify under the new one. I asked them that here, and they did not have the answer. I am still waiting for the answer. Do any of you have any knowledge of what the qualifications are for the people? They meet the 38 occupation categories but I think we are now talking about going down to 21 or something like that. How do we know how many of them meet that?
Mr. Collacott: As one example, and I am not sure you are talking about language, but there is certainly a higher language requirement. I thought the 38 were under the ministerial introductions. I might be wrong. You are talking about people in the backlog who are being dropped, are you not?
Senator Eggleton: Yes, they are being told ``you can come back and apply.'' How many of them in that backlog would likely apply and likely comply with the new regulations?
Mr. Collacott: That is hard to say. There may be some who have waited so long that they are not interested in coming, anyway. I understand that provinces and other entities can look at the people in the backlog and see if they fit current needs. I am not aware of any assessment being made individually of all the people in the backlog, whether they would qualify. I think it is up to them. I am not sure of that, but I believe that to be the case.
Mr. Bellissimo: I would like to add that I do not know what those statistics are, either. However, it is important that I should qualify that under the existing legislation, an immigration officer has the ability to refuse an applicant, even if they meet the points requirement, if they feel an applicant would not become economically established in Canada. That legislation is already there.
Senator Eggleton: Let me ask about the other provisions, because you have all talked about the backlog. There are two other major provisions. One is the further expansion of ministerial discretion, particularly in regard to this possibility of having 2,750 people in an occupation category, of which they have said at this committee that there is only one they have in mind at this point in time, so it does not sound like a lot of numbers.
Regardless, what do you suggest in terms of oversight of that ministerial discretion?
Ms. Douglas: It is one of the issues we raised in the paper; namely, that we believe the minister currently has broad discretion. We are unsure why it is that such discretion needs to be expanded. We were surprised to see that the ministerial instructions ability was also being extended to the position of Minister of HRSDC. For us, the concern here is that we continue to diminish parliamentary oversight, as well as public debate and consultation, in terms of the changes that can be made to our immigration program.
I think the ability to create new classes within our economic stream for up to five years is one example of that, although there are an unlimited number of folks who can come in through that program. If we want to create a different stream, why not have a policy paper on it? Why not talk about what gave rise to the need to create a new immigration stream and let us have a public debate about it and what it means in terms of our immigration process?
We are concerned that these changes by regulation, which do not call for any debate, will lead to a piecemeal immigration program, even more so than we have now.
Mr. Kurland: The main element is language; people in the backlog cannot pass the language test. That is your screen, not occupation. It is language, and the studies clearly show with one of the two official languages in your hand you will succeed in this country. On the other hand, the absence of one of those languages derogates you to a ghettoized socio- economic class with poor prospects.
In relation to the oversight, I get to quote Reagan to Gorbachev: Trust, but verify.
We need a mechanism other than the editorial boards that print in electronic media to scrutinize the choices politically made by an immigration minister. It is the great question, and I do not have an answer.
Mr. Bellissimo: I stated in my opening comments it is really important that there is some certainty and predictability in our immigration system. We want flexibility, but we have something in place now. We table it before Parliament here. When you have moving targets in immigration, it allows the unscrupulous individuals to say, ``Let me take your money and exploit your dreams because something might change. This changed yesterday. It will change again in a few months.'' You need some predictability. It is critical or we will take steps back from what this government has done well to earn.
Senator Eggleton: On the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which is the other major part of this, could you comment on the changes? A couple of you have made comments on whether you think this is a good idea or not, more fundamental comments, but I would like to focus on the changes in Bill C-38: the advertising and recruitment procedures, the companion decision that the minister made together with the Minister of HRSDC to in fact lower the requirement in terms of payment by 15 per cent. Do you have any comment on those provisions?
Mr. Collacott: I gather the lowering by 15 per cent is a bit of a complex formula. Minister Kenney spoke about that and said that represents the average wage.
Anyway, I do have problems with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program because employers can bring people in very quickly under that program, and there has been a major shift toward lower skilled workers with pressure now to let them bring their families, and to use a term by an American think tank, we will be importing poverty once that happens.
Our original Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which was the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, worked quite well because people stayed for a limited length of time; they did not bring their families in. We will have huge problems when we start bringing in large numbers of less-skilled workers and let the families come in. The employers will love it, but the communities will pay a fortune in terms of support for the families.
Mr. Kurland: My dear friend, Mr. Collacott: The essence of the new approach of immigration to this country is a big picture on how do we better the lives of the individuals coming while safeguarding not just our Canadian pocket but our values. In that context, we have created a seamless integration system with the foreign worker flow. You do not let anyone get a work permit. There are hoops created. Employers and employees must be examined and qualified to come here.
Once they are here, for some, not all, it is possible to extend status and enter a permanent resident gateway — Canadian experience class, provincial nominee, skilled worker — and at the end of the day, that foreign worker will upgrade status to permanent residence at no cost to the taxpayer because there are no settlement costs or integration costs. You are already here working, functioning in society. That is the direction to go in.
Senator Callbeck: Mr. Collacott, Senator Eggleton referred to this, but I want to ask you again. On page 1 you made the statement that those in the lineup who had qualified under the old guidelines were not likely to do well in the workforce.
Is that just an opinion of yours? You have nothing to base that on?
Mr. Collacott: No, there is plenty of evidence that the earnings, even for skilled workers, are much lower than earlier immigrants.
Senator Callbeck: I remember you said that. The question is why?
Mr. Collacott: Why have they not done well? That has been analyzed at length. It is a combination of things. One is lack of competency in our official languages. If you did not speak English or French very well, you could get lots of points if you have three PhDs. As Mr. Kurland has pointed out, you will not do well in the workforce without the language.
A number of things: There is less weight given to one's foreign work experience than used to be the case. That may be because of the change in countries of origin; and then credentials often were not often recognized, but there is absolutely no question whatsoever that recent immigrants post-1980 have done much more poorly in the workforce, including skilled immigrants, than they did previously. I could talk about this at some length, but I know I have to keep my answers short.
Senator Callbeck: With the changes that we are talking about in this legislation, do you think they will fare better?
Mr. Collacott: Somewhat better. I would not go as far as Mr. Kurland said by saying the changes are superlative. It remains to be seen how much better they will fare. Part of the problem for me is I think we are bringing in far too many people anyway and they have to compete with people already here; that is another issue, though. They will fare somewhat better.
Some of the initial analyses show in Provincial Nominee Programs they are doing much better. There are questions whether that will be maintained, and a paper recently out says that it probably will not be. They pick the low-hanging fruit in terms of people who really fit particular requirements, so there are a lot of questions out there. I think the government has made moves in the right direction.
Ms. Douglas: We cannot skim over the fact that many folks who have not been doing so well post-1990s is because of a lack of recognition of international credentials. It is an area we have to do better at, both the federal government and the provinces. It is a commitment that the federal government has made in terms of trying to look at some proposals to the accreditation bodies to be able to remove some of the barriers that exist. We also need to work with employers to develop a better comfort and understanding to trust that when an accreditation body or a credential assessment body says these credentials are equal to this Canadian credential that it is true and that these folks can do the job. It is two parts. It is about recognizing the credentials but also getting employers to recognize international experience and international education.
I also wanted to say that, around the language piece, our points system gives points for language. Language is not as much as this new proposal, but language is certainly one of the key qualifying criteria for the skilled workers program. For those who may not have very specific business language in terms of how it is that we work within a Canadian context, it is a very small investment for those coming in with the kinds of skills our companies need to get them up to par in terms of being able to participate in the industry where they are qualified to work.
Senator Callbeck: You talk about recognizing the academic credentials, and we hear about that. We all know about that because we all talk to taxi drivers, but do you see any movement here?
Ms. Douglas: I think with the various fairness commissions and commissioners that exist in the provinces across the country who are finally talking to each other we will continue to see improvement. Some industries are farther ahead than others. I think that in Ontario for example there is a real coming together of some of the major industries in beginning to put in place processes that will minimize the kind of barriers that internationally trained professionals have faced. I think that we need our provinces to continue to put pressure on the regulatory bodies to move faster.
We need to begin to develop national standards in terms of how that can work. Right now, you can qualify in B.C. yet not be able to work in Ontario. Those are the kinds of things we need to look at. If we have a best practice in Quebec, let us use it in Ontario, and let us recognize each other's recognition of international credentials.
Mr. Kurland: The government already moved on this, this year and last. For example, on the front end, the plan is to have advance credential recognition. The Australians are doing it; Canada is adopting it; it is coming in, like it or not.
On the foreign worker field, again, you can deliver at the end of the year the same number of skilled workers, just select more of them from inside Canada where this is no longer an issue because they are already here working at the desired occupations.
You are talking about reducing the risk to those applicants overseas. You also reduce the costs of the whole system because are you selecting less from overseas, more from people already here. We do not have to staff the expensive embassies.
Senator Callbeck: On the issue of foreign workers, we had the Alberta Federation of Labour here the other day, and they said that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is just a quick fix for a long-term problem. They think that if we continue with this, we will not address the shortage of skilled workers in this country. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Kurland: I completely agree. How to fix that? Hard choices. It varies by occupation and by region in Canada, but it boils down to money because the issues are the following: Will you offer more wages on the ground? Will you provide that required training and skills upgrading? Will it be the employers association? Will it be the province or the feds? It is the right question; the answers are unpleasant. It is cheaper in the short term to maintain the flow of foreign workers while pushing back in time the real solutions the senator is raising.
Senator Cordy: If you read my note, you know I am totally not surprised, Mr. Bellissimo, about your comments, and I agree that immigration should not be part of an omnibus bill. It should not be part of a 450-page budget bill. It should be stand-alone legislation where it can undergo a lot of discussion by this committee and by everyone in the Senate, instead of everyone running around trying to do a little piece of a bill.
I would like to go to the backlog, where 300,000 applicants were removed from the list. Ms. Douglas, I think you said the backlog was unfair, but cancelling the pre-2008 applicants was even more unfair, and I think that is absolutely true.
The law has changed retroactively, so we have the 300,000 applicants who are now no longer on the list, but as the department official last week said, they now have the opportunity to reapply. I am not sure that many would see it as an opportunity.
Ms. Douglas, in the presentation, you talked about specific areas in the world that had been very slow in processing applicants. You said Africa, the Middle East region, Asia and the Pacific regions were very slow in processing applicants. Would it not have been more efficient for the department to look specifically at the areas where the processing was extremely slow, discover why they were slow in those areas, put in more personnel as needed or do whatever had to be done to move along the applicants, rather than removing 300,000 applicants from the list?
Ms. Douglas: Absolutely, it is one of the proposals we have been speaking to the government about over the years, namely, that we needed more resources in Asia, in particular. Asia continues to be the continent where most of our applicants and our arrivals are coming from. We also needed more resources on the continent of Africa and the Pacific area.
If someone wants to do a demographic look at the backlog, I am sure we will see that a significant number of folks in the backlog are from Asia, so we have to look at why we have not put our resources in. I see our key recommendation is why not use that $130 million plus the administrative dollars we will use to get rid of the backlog and put in place a time-limited process, if it comes to that. If that is more palatable, let us put in place a three-year process where we will throw all of these resources against the backlog and clear up as much as possible. At the same time, we can continue the pilot projects, allowing provinces to identify skills that exist in the backlog that meet the occupations and the industries that have a shortage of labour. Let us put all of these processes in place at the same time. It is fairer to the applicants, fairer to Canada, and it will meet our economic needs.
Mr. Kurland: I am surprised by the wrong modesty, if I can put it that way. For the first time in Canadian immigration history, discrimination is off the table when it comes to skilled worker selection. The way it used to work is: Do you qualify, and what country are you from? We had resources allocated by country, and that created a situation where, if you are from a high-demand area, processing times are longer because you are in a quota by country of origin. The IBM programmer from Paris gets in faster than the IBM programmer from Beijing. That is gone because under the new skilled worker selection system, it is first-come, first-served, no matter where you come from because you are mailing that application to Canada for processing. You are processed in the order Canada Post delivers your application. I do not buy for a second that today we have a problem with processing based on your country of origin. That is wrong.
Mr. Collacott: The backlog problem is not just a question of resources. We are getting far more applications than we need or can process. That is the root of the problem. For years, the Americans have had caps per year. You apply, and if you do not make it within the quota, you know you are going to wait in a very long lineup. We have simply said: Anyone can apply, and we are going to process you and bring you in, we hope, in a reasonable length of time. Fortunately, we did not commit ourselves to how quickly we would bring them in, but it is not just a matter of throwing more resources. We do not need and cannot process. We are not going to bring in most of these people.
Senator Cordy: A couple of you also talked about the expansion of the powers of the minister, and Ms. Douglas gave some examples in her paper about the redesigning of the entrepreneurial program. In answer to another question someone said that this granting of expanded powers to the minister will mean that we will have little or no oversight by parliamentarians, and our roles should be oversight of changes to legislation or changes to the way things are done in the country.
It is my understanding that this bill will be giving significantly more powers to the minister. Could you expand on that?
Mr. Bellissimo: Exactly, it does, and we are experiencing here today an example of the problem with doing this. We have heard some opinion evidence; we have heard some reference to studies, very complex issues. We need to get down to some serious discussion and oversight, and, in that oversight, that necessarily means public consultation, which cannot happen at the pace at which we are moving on an omnibus bill when we are dealing with parts.
We spoke quickly about the temporary foreign workers. There are a couple of paragraphs in this legislation that significantly enhance the power for inspection and visits, which would affect Canadian employers, with people coming into their workplace to examine what they are doing. That may or may not be a bad thing, but who is doing it, and how will they do it? None of this has been answered because we do not have time to examine it.
Senator Dyck: I hope I can make this question clear because I am confused.
Mr. Collacott, in your presentation you said — I will actually quote you — ``in recent decades, newcomers have on average earned far less and experienced higher poverty levels than those who arrived here prior to 1980.'' Then you go on to say that these newcomers have cost Canada more in terms of the benefits, and you go on to explain why you think that is so.
When I think about that, it seems to me almost like we are blaming them. I do not necessarily think that it is their fault. It may relate to something Ms. Douglas was talking about, where the fault may be in the acceptance of the credentials and wages that are probably less than they should be; they are probably not paid necessarily equitably. In addition, we had a recession in the 1990s. I believe Statistics Canada had said to us that during the recession, immigrants suffered worse than Canadian-born Canadians.
All of those things affect the ability of newcomers to pay taxes. It disturbed me, and I wonder if the two of you or others could comment on that.
Mr. Collacott: First, I do not think anyone is blaming the newcomers. We have to blame ourselves for bringing people in, I would not say under false pretenses, but when their prospects were not nearly as good as they thought they were.
An example is what you just mentioned, bringing people in during a recession. We now know that they are permanently scarred in terms of their economic prospects because they cannot find jobs while their skills are still current. We know that from the early 1990s, and it is happening again. It is our job to figure out what will help immigrants be successful.
I am somewhat sympathetic towards what my colleagues have said about having clear guidelines and more discussion. On the other hand, the current system is in such a mess, I would give the government some leeway in trying out some new things. They will still have to be able to answer for those in Parliament in due course. I think if you start having a very long discussion, it can go on forever, though, and you will not get the changes made.
Senator Dyck: Would anyone else care to comment?
Ms. Douglas: I think your comments are right on, that we tend to blame newcomers for the systems that they run up against. They come in with good faith, and they are told that their credentials are needed in Canada. They are told that the degrees and their language levels are enough because we have put in place an objective points system. I agree with Mr. Kurland in that our points system was meant to be objective, but we cannot pretend that there are particular barriers that exist for particular groups of people.
One of the issues we have been skirting around is that while it is around credential recognition and those kinds of things, part of it is also the demographic shift that has happened. I would suggest that if we were seeing large amounts of folks coming from Western Europe, credential recognition would not be an issue. It is because there was a specific change in demographics to people coming from the global south, particularly people coming from Asia. Those are the kinds of things we need to address as a country.
I do not think the answer is to say — I do not want to say close the doors because we have a number of ways of getting into Canada. I think it is too piecemeal, but we have to recognize that as a country, we also have work to do to ensure that once folks get here, they are able to participate in the way they are expecting to and that we told them they can.
I just wanted to go back to one point. I do not think our points system as it is set up is meant intentionally — it is about screening out people, but we have to admit that we have more visa posts in Europe than we do in Asia, despite the size of the continent and the population. That is just a fact.
Senator Dyck: The other aspect to this is under this bill, temporary foreign workers will be paid 15 per cent less than the regional average. I am wondering how this may also affect things. When we are talking about newcomers not paying enough taxes and costing Canada more, if we start off paying them less, how will that make things any better? If you do that cost-benefit analysis, then that makes the situation worse.
Is that how you see it, Mr. Collacott or Ms. Douglas or the others?
Ms. Douglas: We have been hearing that it is not only about the impact on immigrants being paid less and that we are entrenching inequities in public policy, but I think we have to be concerned about what it means for overall wages even for Canadians. In certain industries, we are basically saying that we are allowing employers to decide to pay people less because of who they are, but I think in the long term, there is a real downward trend in terms of wages and worker protection.
Mr. Kurland: When I first saw that 15 per cent figure, I thought it was a misprint. First, it has been clarified; it does not mean foreign workers will get 15 per cent less. That is not the case. There is an allowance to compensate in terms of salary up to as much as 15 per cent off the median, depending on your region and occupation.
The Chair: Off the average?
Mr. Kurland: Yes. It is a median average. Although that has been bandied about, it is still fluid.
That is the direct compensation. I am concerned that it is the wrong way. The reason I thought it was a misprint is because I provided testimony. How about a quick fix? If you are a foreign worker, add 15 per cent to compensation to raise the wages so that the employers will face, as the senator pointed out, the costs for creating the incentive to address the underlying reasons for relying on foreign workers. It is a fair point.
The Chair: Mr. Collacott, do you have a follow-up answer?
Mr. Collacott: I wanted to comment on an earlier point, if I may.
The Chair: Is this a comment on Senator Dyck's questions?
Mr. Collacott: No.
The Chair: We will hold that comment until later. I will now move to Senator Rivard.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are fortunate today to have four witnesses who are experts in immigration law. We know that Quebec deals with its own immigration. I am wondering about eligibility criteria in Canada versus Quebec.
It is well-known that in Canada, the first criterion is economic while in Quebec, they require 11 years of schooling or something equivalent as well as an adequate knowledge of the French language.
I will explain to you why I am asking this question. A few months ago, I heard of a case involving a Portuguese immigrant who had an adequate knowledge of French but who unfortunately did not have 11 years of schooling. He first applied to immigrate to Quebec and as he did not meet one of the criteria, he tried Canada. So he applied to immigrate to Canada as a landscaper, as he was experienced in this field. Canadian immigration turned him down based on the economic criterion, as his field of work is seasonal and has no shortage of workers.
What do you think of the fact that, in the same country, very different criteria are used to reject a potential immigrant: education in Quebec and economic conditions in Canada? What is your opinion on this?
Mr. Kurland: There is indeed a choice. At the federal level, they are creating a system with a national goal to manage the entry of a quarter million people. Regions are then responsible for the selection of immigrants. Quebec has made an informed decision. They do not want an immigrant with this profile. Is this good or bad? That is a matter for Quebec to decide.
[English]
Mr. Collacott: I do have a problem with provincial programs in general in that you can qualify to come in as an immigrant in one province and then you can move to another fairly rapidly that may not have accepted you. Recently the minister said that the vast majority of investor immigrants who come in under the Quebec program then move to some other province where they have to pay the costs of the family. On that particular basis, we really do need to examine carefully the implications for provincial programs, whether the PNPs or the Quebec program, to see what the implications are.
Quebec's program, of course, has been in effect for quite some time, but the other Provincial Nominee Programs are fairly recent. Manitoba's has been going for a while. They have massively expanded. I do not think we have a clear idea where this is taking us. There are some real problems here. Part of it is that you can get into one province under their qualifications and immediately move to another where you would not have qualified. I think that has to be looked at.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: Mr. Collacott, you are the chair of the Advisory Board and the spokesperson for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform. Does Quebec consult you at times? If not, do you venture to give Quebec some advice without being asked?
[English]
Mr. Collacott: I have not yet been asked, senator, but I would be perfectly happy to give them advice. We have a number of people, including some from Quebec, on our board. We are happy to give advice to anyone who is interested in the issues.
Mr. Bellissimo: I should just note the Canadian Bar Association and the regional bar associations meet regularly with officials and provide input.
Senator Seth: For temporary foreign workers, most safeguards are found at the provincial level. That includes labour, workplace health and safety and even human rights. How will this new regulatory authority to impose requirements on employers be coordinated with the provincial responsibility? How will we do that?
Mr. Collacott: It is complicated. You raised a good point because there are three different departments involved in approving them. There is Citizenship and Immigration, Human Resources and Skills Development and Canada Border Services Agency. I am not quite sure, frankly. It has been raised in quite a good paper published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy in 2010, how we fully coordinate this.
All I can say is yes, as you pointed out, most of the protection of temporary foreign workers is a provincial responsibility and yet bringing people in is largely federal. That is a good question. I do not have a quick answer. There are some issues there.
Mr. Bellissimo: Again, it is an excellent question. We are moving towards, with HRSDC, an attestation model where there are more things attested to at the front and the risk assessment is done at the second stage. This is all being contemplated at a time when funding to the department that handles that is being significantly reduced. This is also part of the problem when we are discussing refunding $130 million in fees here, having interest here. It has to be a holistic approach because when it breaks down, it breaks down exactly as you are suggesting, Madam Senator. You have problems where one does not know what the other is doing.
Mr. Kurland: These are Seasonal Agricultural Worker Programs. There are a lot of people going to many provinces with that, and in order to qualify, the employer must sign a uniform, standard contract, protecting the employee. That contract has been battled out between the federal level and the provincial level and even foreign governments such as the government of Mexico, so that you now have not only our domestic framework of safeguards but you have the private law of contract at your disposal for case-by-case adjudication.
Senator Seth: Sorry, is it not that if foreign workers come to Ontario, Ontario law should apply, because there are safeguards there? Why would federal law be applied? Should it not be enough?
Mr. Kurland: That is why I like the imaginative, creative approach here, because you can take the seasonal agricultural worker model contract and bring it into play in other categories of foreign workers. It is a good idea.
Ms. Douglas: The issue, though, is lack of consistent oversight. The federal government says these things, as, you are right, the contracts are in place, but unless there is someone monitoring to ensure that employers are following through on their contracts, worker exploitation can continue. Because it is complaint-based, when you are in Ontario, for example, it is the province that is responsible for enforcing labour laws; a disconnect happens. First, to get agricultural workers to file a complaint or even think about filing a complaint, the consequence may be that you are removed from the program, which is basically your family living. Some people have been in this program for 10 or 12 years. It is certainly a disincentive to raise concerns about your employment with a particular employer, but I think that the federal government has to ensure that it puts in place enough resources to do the monitoring and, at the provincial level, that the provinces are also paying attention at the enforcement end when those complaints do come in, whether or not they are first person or third person complaints.
The Chair: Mr. Collacott, did your want to make a comment?
Mr. Collacott: Yes. I think the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program has some value but this is a totally different kind of program. It is people who come in for a few months. Some of their wages are withheld because they will collect them when they get back to Mexico or the Caribbean. It was never intended to be long-term nor permanent. We are dealing now with a totally different situation. We are bringing people for one, two, three, four years or even longer and we are into a whole new ballgame. Some think tanks think that any temporary worker program is bound to fail. It will create more problems than it is worth. It is great for employers who want a quick fix on labour shortages, but it is not good for local workers or, in the long term, for the country receiving them.
Senator Martin: I do agree with the comments that several of you have made regarding the need to fix the system. In order to create a more transparent, predictable immigration system, as you said, Ms. Douglas, in your presentation, the government needs to streamline the application process, become more efficient and less time- and resource- consuming. I think that is exactly what these amendments are proposing to do, to streamline it and to make it more efficient.
One other thing you said I wanted to clarify. You mentioned that in reducing these backlogs, and as unfortunate as it will be for those applicants, and I cannot express that enough, you also are concerned that they apply in good faith but whenever the backlog grows too big we can make some more changes. I thought the officials said, when we questioned them about this backlog, that once this is addressed with the streamlined system, this big backlog that we have at this time will not reappear in this form and that they are looking at ways to ensure that this problem is addressed in a more predictable manner.
I wanted to know whether any of you would comment on that. It is one thing to reduce the backlog but what about future backlogs? That was a question I did ask the officials.
Ms. Douglas: We continue to take applications, not only in the skilled worker program but we have other ways to get into Canada. We have a backlog in the grandparents and parents stream. Unless we put resources to process those, are we going to get to a point where we eliminate the backlog? That is certainly a suggestion. In fact, I flagged it with expanded ministerial discretion.
The point we are making is that if we are going to have an immigration program, it needs to be well resourced and efficient. That means if we continue to have 15 different streams of ways you can get into the country, and throw resources into the Temporary Foreign Worker Program — because we have decided these are the 39 occupations but have capped each that fits into an overall number — it is unnecessarily complicated.
It is an inefficient way of meeting our labour market, social, cultural and demographic needs in terms of our aging population. We need to take a step back and decide that yes, Canada is a country of immigration and we expect immigration to fill our labour market needs, but we also know that immigration is really about nation building. As a way of ensuring a real balance in terms of our long-term needs and short-term labour markets needs, this is the kind of program that we are going to putting into place.
This is the criteria. We are not going to have in shifting targets. We will not have Canadian Experience Class on one day — which I think is an interesting policy framework, but only for a particular group of people — while we continue to bring in thousands more who are low-skilled but not allow them to stay. However, we do not have the resources to ensure that they leave after four years, for example.
Let us be clear in terms of what it is we need from immigration. Let us say this is how you get into Canada and these are the interventions we will put in place to order to maximize your opportunity to participate fully. These are the resources that we will make available as part an important part of our budget going forward.
Mr. Kurland: I was able to find the numbers for the backlog: 98,000 in New Delhi, and 55,000, the next leg down is in London, England. After that you are down to 22,000 and 15,000 in the Middle East. We heard something about Asia earlier, those are not the statistics.
This is not an issue of resources at all. This is a question of the immigration pie being finite and how you will slice it. The only reason resources percolated up on to the table is because of processing times. You do not hit processing times with resources or issues of visa competency. Our officers in the field are competent; they have the resources to deliver their target.
The problem was we were taking in more files in a year than we could possibly process, inevitably leading to backlogs and processing times, unacceptable in high volume demand areas. That was the problem: the immigration sins of the past. Now the government has capped intake. We no longer accept more files in a year than we can process and guess what? Processing times will be a year or less. It is not rocket science. It will not matter where you come from.
The Chair: We are running out of time on this question. Do you have additional questions?
Senator Martin: For those who are caught in the cancellation or refund and who reapply under the new system, some of them will actually be approved faster than had they stayed in the backlog, is that not correct?
Mr. Kurland: That is the irony. It is counsel of record. If they are competent, they are. The immigration bar can assure you of that. Any of our clients we determine could qualify any other way than languishing in the backlog, you bet that would have been done any other way.
Senator Seidman: I would like to ask very basic question about the intent of the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. As I understand, it is to create the legislative framework of establishing a demand-driven economic immigration program to address Canada's labour market needs.
I think Mr. Kurland touched on that. I am asking you to make some observations or comments about that intent.
Mr. Kurland: The intent is political courage, frankly. Realistically, historically, rare is the time in our history where we do have a double majority; any party. This is the time when the heavy lifting and politically unpopular stuff gets done. I want to point out for the record that the key decisions on capping intake — the equivalent of kissing the political third rail in this country — 416, 905, 604 — was done in a minority government. Capping intake when you could have taken the hit politically was done when things were hard, not easy like today.
As I see it, the intent today is the follow-up on the political exercise of recent past and to put us on target. Inside of the next 18 months, I project that skilled workers coming to this country will know where they stand: transparent, predictable, timelines of a year or less. It is the same in the other categories we have witnessed. The investors, if they can hit the cap, are here in a year or less, not seven years or the 15,000 languishing in backlog. For skilled workers, eight years plus? Under the old way of doing business, parents, grandparents would see their coffin before a visa. I think we have picked up the slack and are on track, and that is the intent of this legislation.
Mr. Bellissimo: That may be the intent, but the consequence of this — and here is the problem — is when removing a backlog is a measure of almost first resort as it has occurred here, you have a problem. Why were letters not simply sent to all these applicants asking, ``Do you still have interest in coming to Canada?'' You might have wiped out hundreds of thousands just doing that.
My worry is that as we go forward, because this has been a measure — and Mr. Kurland spoke about the intent and the certainty — that uncertainty will exist as long as the ministerial instructions are not changed mid-course again. Or they suggest that we now have a backlog from 2012 that is up to 150,000 and we need to clear up because who we needed in 2012 is not who we need in 2014. Flexibility, yes, but management, due process and fairness are critical. We are a democratic society, not an arbitrary one, and that is the way we are moving.
Senator Seidman: We see countless media reports about the serious situation we have in terms of shortages of skilled workers in particular categories, workers we do not have in this country. On the other hand, we sat here today and listened to a lot of information about difficulties that immigrants have when they come here with unemployment, underemployment and poverty.
It seems to me that the intent of this legislation is to be economic, demand driven, in terms of what our country needs. Again, Mr. Kurland touched on that when he asked a very challenging question, which is the immigration system for Canadians and for Canada and to develop a stronger economic base for this country.
I would suggest that we have talked about backlog and about serious issues of underemployment and unemployment. I would again say to you, Mr. Bellissimo, perhaps it is more to suggest that people who have been on a waiting list for 10 years may be unhappy with what they find if they were admitted here, as Ms. Douglas suggested.
Mr. Bellissimo: Yes, they may have been. However, I reiterate again to make them part of the process. Simply ask if they still want to come before we engage in something as significant and internationally echoed as this policy. I agree with the intent, but I just think there are ways to do it that do not undermine us.
Mr. Collacott: I have to agree with the senator. The unfairness began years ago when we started building up a huge backlog when we could not possibly process it and did not need it. It is not nice to be told after you have had your application in the lineup for seven or eight years that it is no longer valid, but we have to face the fact and get on with it. I think that the government is quite right in doing that. We are not doing anyone a favour, least of all the people of Canada, by admitting a lot of people who we know are not likely to do well.
Senator Wallace: I listened to the responses that each of you have given. I would say that each of you obviously has very detailed knowledge and experience in these matters. Each of us, to some extent, is catching up on all of this; so it is very helpful to us.
When I listen to this, I stand back and look at the overall intent of what I understand the government is trying to achieve and at the world financial situation and Europe. There are some scary situations out there, and we want to protect our country from that. From my days in the private sector, I know that at times you have to have flexibility and to move with a hard hand and be decisive. There is time to talk about things and a time to get into action. If you are not prepared to do that, businesses fall, and worldwide countries can suffer the same dilemma. When we look at countries right now, even as current as yesterday, we see that these are scary times.
I am thinking back, as I have listened to each of you speak, to the presentation made by Minister Kenney. My understanding is that the government feels we must be nimble and flexible, and that we have to be fair in everything we do. Of course, that can be pretty much a subjective test, but we have to be nimble. In the case of our economy, it is critical that the Canadian economy perform as well it possibly can perform. Not every decision made in the country is an economic one, because there are human issues as well; and I understand that.
To match the needs of our economy with the labour force we have domestically and in foreign countries requires flexibility and the ability to react quickly to changing circumstances. I say all of that and think back to what the minister had to say to us in his presentation. The purpose of removing the backlog in the way that he has described, having the expanded discretion through the use of ministerial instructions and creating the new regulations for the minister of HRSDC is not to take away rights, as I understand, but to create the flexibility to be able, almost day to day, to gear our needs as a country to the realities that we face that day.
For many it is a concern. If you grant discretion and flexibility, then matters get compressed in time. In the view of some, the time for this oversight must take place. At times it is a bureaucratic cumbersome process that can work against the end results of the country.
I know there is probably nothing that you are not well aware of, but as we go through the details, which are extremely important that you highlight, I come back to that. It strikes me that that is the reality of our country that we face. We have to be targeted and flexible; and to do that requires some faith. There has to be trust that those we have elected to positions of authority to run the country will use that discretion wisely. We may not agree with everything they do, but on balance that is the best we can do, as opposed to having a system that is rigid, time consuming and inflexible to respond to changing needs.
Do you agree that is the position that our country should be in? I am not asking if you agree with each amendment proposed by the bill. Is that not what we have to strive for? Is this bill not a somewhat reasonable attempt to accomplish that?
The Chair: You do not have the same length of time as he took to ask the question.
Senator Wallace: I rest my case.
Mr. Kurland: The global velocity of capital and labour today requires us to be nimble in our policy. However, our regulatory process-making is cumbersome and lengthy. It boils down to precisely this question of political philosophy between small ``l'' liberal and small ``c'' conservative: We are government. We know what we are doing. Trust us. You are government. You do not know what you are doing. We do not trust you; and hence, a division of approach. I prefer in today's society, given the benefits to Canada, that we go nimble.
Mr. Bellissimo: I agree that we need a nimble and responsive system. First, it is not necessarily only about a lack of faith in our elected officials, which is a subjective thing and you have tension on both sides. However, what happens in the trenches if the actual foundation is too volatile, not in reality but in the perception of those who practice and navigate through the system? You have so much room for unscrupulous and untoward exploitation of these individuals. That is a key point.
Second, I do not think we disagree with the end game; I just disagree with how we are getting there. I think we all want to get to the same place. Third, the act enshrines not only economic interests but also social and cultural issues. As we move totally in a large way toward economic, if we forget about the social and cultural, we forget about the fact that all of us have to live together in a society once we are here. That has to be part of the equation. As we eliminate or significantly reduce the family class, when these individuals become ill or have children or need assistance, who do they turn to? The hope is that you are part of a cohesive social and family unit and not relying on the state. This is all part of a complex mix and why I echo Senator Cordy's comments that we need much more study.
The Chair: I would like to see if I can get clarification on some of the things that I thought I heard during the testimony to this point.
Mr. Bellissimo and Mr. Kurland, you referred to those on the backlog who will have their deposit returned. You indicated that if you were representing clients on that list, you would be aware of what this legislation is and the minute that it looked like it might become a reality of opportunity, you would be advising clients on that list. Did I hear you correctly when you said that?
Mr. Kurland: It would be earlier than this legislation. There is no way you can leave a file seven years in the filing cabinet.
The Chair: I do not want to put words in your mouth. I just wanted to have you clarify that.
Mr. Bellissimo: I echo Mr. Kurland's comment, but here is the flip side of that: This is a system that encourages individuals not to use lawyers and consultants and that you can navigate your way through without any of our assistance. By doing that, you penalize those individuals who did not have the benefit of our service.
The Chair: My point was that you made the point that you would be advising them in advance.
Mr. Bellissimo: Absolutely.
The Chair: Thank you very much. There is a second thing I want to be clear on. A number of you spent a great deal of time referring to the temporary foreign workers. Could you show me where they are included in this bill?
Mr. Kurland: The bill states:
Section 32 of the Act is amended by adding the following after paragraph (d):
(d.1) in relation to the authorization of a foreign national to work in Canada . . .
The Chair: With regard to Division 54?
Mr. Bellissimo: It is clause 705.
Ms. Douglas: Under ``Minister's Instructions.''
Mr. Kurland: Division 54.
The Chair: It is within the ministerial instruction. I wanted that clarification.
I have a couple of observations. It is my understanding, under the existing regulations with regard to the points system, that years of scholarity count regardless of the area of scholarity. I do not want to use examples, but a PhD in A is equal to a PhD in B in terms of points.
Mr. Bellissimo: If you are at the PhD level, yes. It gets a little more complicated with a masters degree.
The Chair: Drop me down to any level, but the understanding is that it is actually the qualification, the degree, the certification, that is equivalent. Certification at a given level is equivalent regardless of the discipline or subject.
Mr. Kurland: Yes.
The Chair: In terms of language requirement, having been an academic for most of my career and having been part of universities that had language proficiency requirements, and it is not that long ago that I was involved in this area, one would expect that universities could do as good a job as any organization in terms of evaluating things like language capability. Given that the universities I was associated with relied on highly professional organizations in foreign countries to give them that determination, it was universally my experience and that of my colleagues that those who were identified by those organizations as meeting the standards often had enormous difficulties with the language when they arrived. Therefore, the kinds of situations that you have been referring to in terms of the way it has operated in the past as opposed to giving determination in advance with regard to qualifications and language skills in the existing situation is highly problematic in terms of really having a good handle on what one is being advised with regard to things as direct as language skills, let alone with regard to qualifications. Is that a reasonable observation in this case, not just in the university?
Mr. Bellissimo: I think so.
Mr. Kurland: Yes.
Senator Callbeck: Ms. Douglas, in your brief you spoke about the removal of the fixed employment equity obligation in the Federal Contractors Program. That will affect women, people with disabilities, visual minorities and first peoples. I would like you to talk about that a bit and just comment on the real effect you think that elimination will have.
Ms. Douglas: I think we all should agree that the Employment Equity Act has really made a difference in the industries that are federally regulated. In spite of good intentions, we often need legal policies or legislation to force folk to do the right thing. I think we talk a lot about merit but, as I mentioned in my report, we cannot get to a merit system until we have levelled the playing field. I wanted to put that on the table directly because often the argument against employment equity is that it is somehow not about merit, that it is about quotas and special favours and hiring those who do not qualify, when it is actually the opposite. Everything being equal, we recognize the historic wrongs and we recognize what was happening, we recognize the barriers that continue to be in place, and we provide interventions to remove those barriers and to ensure that particular groups of people who have not had equal opportunity, like the groups that the senator mentioned, first peoples, people with disabilities, people from marginalized communities and women, do have that opportunity to participate.
My concern is that this is the beginning of an end to employment equity in Canada. We have had made huge leaps. Women in particular may have benefited the most over the last couple of decades in terms of advancement, not only being hired but in terms of promotion and issues of leadership. We know that the glass ceiling still exists. We have a long way to go in terms of people living with disabilities, in terms of first peoples, not only within our various industries but even within the federal government itself, which must comply with employment equity. To begin to chip away and remove these kinds of obligations from companies and industries that do business with the federal government and are regulated by the federal government and to make it voluntary will, in the end, undo 25 years of good, progressive practice.
Senator Callbeck: I agree with you. I was really surprised to see this in the act.
Ms. Douglas: Me, too.
Senator Callbeck: I think it is a big step backwards.
Senator Eggleton: Let us go back to the backlog again. There has been a fair bit of comment that we need to have a nimble system, as Mr. Kurland said. We need to be able to adapt to our current realities and economic conditions. I do not think we have any disagreement with that. The disagreement is coming over what we are doing about the backlog that is there now. I would like your comment on two aspects of it: fairness and reputation.
We take pride in being a country that treats people fairly, and we operate by the rule of law. Some of these people who applied several years ago put their lives on hold. Maybe they did not get married, did not have kids, did not go to other possible jobs because they were waiting, because they had every reason to expect that Canada was processing their application. There was no guarantee it would be approved, but they had every reason to expect it was being processed. Now we are going to tell them, ``Sorry, we have changed the rules now. You can apply under the new rules, but you are starting over. We are no longer processing the application.'' It is hard to understand that in some sense of fairness, and maybe it even does not meet the rule of law either. I do not know. Let the lawyers figure that one out.
I am also concerned about it in one other respect. Many of these people will be very unhappy about this. They will be saying to other people, ``Canada does not treat you fairly. I put my life on hold, waiting, and all of a sudden I am told I am removed.'' I think that hurts our reputation as a country. Notwithstanding what Mr. Collacott says, we will still need talented people in this country. In fact, we are going to find it very competitive to get some of the most talented people we need, whether we are getting them into their university system or getting them post-university education or post-education of any kind of skill. We will be in a tougher marketplace perhaps in future trying to attract the right people. If there is a bad smell out there about Canada, it will not help us. Could you comment on that?
Mr. Kurland: I measure damage to reputation with the available evidence, and I was parsing for a reduction in intake of immigration applications to this country. I have not found it. We are still the number one choice because we are the number one country in the world. If our reputation was down there, people would not be applying. But guess what, more people want to come here than available spaces.
Senator Eggleton: They have not got their letters yet.
Mr. Kurland: Of the backlog, I feel for the people who were there. I was one of the class counsel who sued back in 2003-04, the very first class action in the Federal Court on precisely this issue. What is different today is the data, the evidence, the disclosure, the transparency and the legality of what has been going on.
To come back to my very first point, the business risk with this group was not the same as the business risk way back when. We changed the law and our policies to put the business risk of applying for an immigrant visa on the head of the immigrant. If they receive bad advice, how can Canada be blamed for that?
Mr. Bellissimo: It is an old saying: It is nice to be important but it is important to be nice. I often hear the argument that Mr. Kurland made that because we are so popular we will never run out of people. With respect, I do not think that is the way to measure this.
A component of reputation is integrity. The integrity of the system is being challenged, and here is why: In 2008 a more frank discussion could have occurred with these applicants. We could have said, look, unless this backlog is cleared we will have to take some drastic measures. Are you still interested? Do you wish to continue your application? Involve them in the practice.
This decision, with very little notice, to take away these rights and then actually instruct officers globally to stop processing before they had the legal right to do it, I agree with you, senator, those letters have not gone out yet. This will be difficult to measure. Again, why this is so difficult to accept is because it is not necessary. If we take other steps we will get to the same end point. I urge that we not go here until we have evidence it will work.
Mr. Collacott: The people in the backlog will be very disappointed but they, in fact, have been waiting there for years and years. It should have been obvious that something was wrong with the system. It may damage our reputation, but so many people want to come here I do not think it will have much effect on the number of applications. There is a bit of a parallel situation. When the Australians changed their guidelines on sponsoring parents in the 1990s, people said, well, if you cannot bring your parents you will not come here. It had no impact at all on the number of people applying to go to Australia. If we toughen up on our family class it will not have any impact at all on the number of people applying to come here.
Having to return those applications is not nice, I would not suggest it is, but I do not think it will have any significant impact on people applying to come here.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: I want to follow up on my colleague's question. He mentioned the international reputation of a well-known host country such as Canada. Don't you think that the worst thing that can happen is for a qualified immigration candidate to have to wait seven, eight, nine and sometimes ten years when there are other countries like Australia where I am told a qualified worker can get all the paperwork completed, immigrate and start to work in 12 to 18 months?
I agree with you it is difficult to say to people that the system is not working and that other measures have to be taken. At the same time, you cannot say that this will impact the number of applicants in the future because I think we are already losing some people who could probably do wonderful things for our economy, here in Canada, simply because our system is not working and it takes too long to process applications while other countries have faster systems.
Mr. Kurland: This is an interesting comment. It is true that if you wait for a bus for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours or 3 hours, at some point you will decide to explore other options.
[English]
Senator Cordy: Mr. Bellissimo, I just want to confirm what you said. Did you say that visa offices were instructed to stop processing applications before this legislation has even passed?
Mr. Bellissimo: Correct.
Senator Cordy: I guess that would be expansion of the minister's powers, would it not?
Mr. Bellissimo: Yes.
Senator Cordy: Ms. Douglas, I wanted to go back to Senator Callbeck's question about the Employment Equity Act where this bill will remove any fixed employment equity obligations from the Federal Contractors Program. How will this effect, in the long term, immigrants who are women and visible minorities?
Ms. Douglas: Not only immigrants, but Canadians. This was put in place as a way to, as I said, recognize and begin to redress the historical wrongs and to have interventions to circumvent the barriers that continue to exist. As you can see, immigrants are not one of the named groups, but immigrants of course also fit within the four classes that have been named.
I think that, as Canadians, we have to be concerned that we are chipping away at an act that we put in place that speaks to our commitment to equity and equality of opportunity.
It is so out of left field. There has been no public discussion around the change to such a fundamental policy that we have in Canada around equity and the promotion of equity that I would hope that as senators it is something that you would flag and would recommend be pulled out of the budget bill.
I think that if we are going to rethink Canada's equity policies we need to have a fulsome public discussion about what it means in terms of where it is that we are heading as a country, what it means in terms of our ongoing commitment to equality of opportunity and to issues of equity and what it means on the ground floor for people with disabilities who need those kinds of interventions to be able to participate up to their potential, what it means for ``racialized'' communities, what it means for First Peoples, whose social, economic and cultural outcomes are not where they should be.
As I said, to so fundamentally change who we are as a country demands a fuller debate rather than have it buried in a budget bill.
The Chair: On behalf of my colleagues, I want to thank you all for your frankness, the clarity of your answers and for being here with us today. With that, I also thank my colleagues for their questions.
(The committee adjourned.)