THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 8, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met with videoconference this day at 11:31 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on such issues as may arise from time to time relating to social affairs, science and technology generally.
Senator Ratna Omidvar (Chair) in the chair.
[Editor’s Note: Portions of the proceedings were presented through a Spanish interpreter.]
[English]
The Chair: I would like to begin by welcoming members of this committee, witnesses and members of the public watching our proceedings. My name is Ratna Omidvar, senator from Ontario and chair of this committee. Before we begin our discussion, may I kindly ask my colleagues to introduce themselves?
Senator Osler: Gigi Osler from Manitoba.
Senator Burey: Sharon Burey, senator from Ontario.
Senator Moodie: Rosemary Moodie from Toronto, Ontario.
Senator Bernard: Wanda Thomas Bernard from Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: I am Chantal Petitclerc, a senator from Quebec.
[English]
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran from Manitoba.
Senator Dasko: Senator Donna Dasko from Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you very much, colleagues.
Joining us today for our first panel, we welcome by video conference, Jeff Loder, Executive Director, Association of Seafood Producers; Jerry Gavin, Executive Director, Prince Edward Island Seafood Processors Association; and Nat Richard, Executive Director, Lobster Processors Association. All about seafood today. Thank you for joining us. I remind witnesses that you will each have five minutes for your opening statements followed by questions from the senators.
Mr. Loder, the floor is yours.
Jeff Loder, Executive Director, Association of Seafood Producers: Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members.
The Association of Seafood Producers is the primary seafood trade association representing seafood producers in Newfoundland and Labrador. Our association represents 25 companies in the province, employing over 5,000 people across 50 processing locations in rural Newfoundland and is really the economic heartbeat of rural Newfoundland.
Species produced by our member producers include snow crab, lobster, cod, cold-water shrimp, capelin, sea cucumber as well as other groundfish and pelagic species.
Producers in the province exported $1.2 billion in value in fish and seafood products in 2022, with $760 million of that value coming from snow crab. In 2022 seafood producers in Newfoundland employed over 450 temporary foreign workers. These temporary foreign workers are primarily coming from Mexico, Taiwan and the Philippines. Temporary foreign workers are treated with the same respect as all employees in the Newfoundland fisheries, and all those employed by seafood producers.
This is a matter of pride in Newfoundland, and our association will continue to work with our members to ensure this vital segment of our workforce is welcomed and continues to play an important role in our fishery.
Going forward, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is anticipating population growth from 2022 to 2037 as positive net migration is expected to offset natural population decline.
However, long-term natural population declines are expected to continue to exert downward pressure on the population and the workforce available in this province. Combined with changing preferences in the labour force, temporary foreign workers will increasingly play an important role in the Newfoundland seafood fishery. We extend our deepest gratitude for the contribution temporary foreign workers make to creating value in the Newfoundland fishery.
As is true with all policies, the current Temporary Foreign Worker Program should be reviewed on an ongoing basis to ensure the mutual benefits underpinning temporary foreign worker programming are maximized and temporary foreign workers receive the respect and treatment they deserve.
Many Newfoundland producers have various processing facilities for various species across the province, and it would be very beneficial if we could have a general application process for temporary foreign workers so they can move throughout the island where they are needed and can, if they choose, receive additional work. Currently, we must apply per location and per region.
Additionally, the cost to apply and complete the application process is very high. As you are aware, there are additional costs, including insurance, travel to get to Canada and return costs, and transportation while in the province above the application costs. Costs need to be reviewed and discussed in the context of ensuring that they are fair and directly associated with the costs of program delivery, recognizing that if the program is cost prohibitive, its public policy purpose is being undermined.
There is also additional programming required, including educational programs, preferably online, relating to English-language training, which would be extremely beneficial to temporary foreign workers.
Properly designed temporary foreign worker programming is critical to sustaining a workforce to create the value so many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians rely on from the fishery. The objective must always be creating value for temporary foreign workers and the sector they are being employed in.
As a final note, I would like to say there was a significant delay in our largest fishery in Newfoundland this year. Producers and members of our association continue to pay temporary foreign workers and took very deliberate actions to address the fact that harvesters in this province decided not to fish, leading, effectively, to a lack of work.
For our association, this was a very proud moment. When the stalemate ended, one of the most positive outcomes was the joy across all 5,000 of our employees — 450 of whom are temporary foreign workers — who were publicly stating how happy they were to be working and to be in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Loder.
Mr. Gavin.
Jerry Gavin, Executive Director, Prince Edward Island Seafood Processors Association: Thank you, Madam Chair. The Prince Edward Island Seafood Processors Association would like to thank the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology for inviting our association to appear before you to discuss temporary foreign workers and to stress the important role temporary foreign workers play in keeping our seafood industry sustainable and prosperous here on P.E.I.
As I only have five minutes for brief remarks, I think the best approach is to offer you some key facts and concerns about seafood processing on Prince Edward Island.
Our association represents 14 lobster and mussel processors who employ in excess of 2,300 workers. The value of lobster exports in 2021 exceeded $408 million, while mussel and oyster exports in 2021 amounted to $41 million and $23 million respectively. These figures do not include seafood products exported through brokers from other Maritime provinces.
Due to an aging workforce, many of our locals are retiring and being replaced by temporary foreign workers and/or permanent residents. All lobster processors, except one small operator, employ temporary foreign workers. Temporary foreign workers in seafood numbered 630 in 2021 and 675 in 2022. That number is expected to be north of 700 this year.
In 2022, 49% of temporary foreign workers on Prince Edward Island worked in the seafood processing sector. Due to the acute shortage of locals, there is a need for temporary foreign workers to take on higher-level positions such as supervisors, lead hands, forklift drivers, et cetera. We need flexibility in the program to allow for this.
Many temporary foreign workers, especially those from the Philippines, have become permanent residents. In West Prince, where I live, where we have three lobster processing plants, there are approximately 500 temporary foreign workers who have made the transition to permanent residency. This is having a positive social and economic impact in our rural communities. This is also happening to a lesser extent in other P.E.I. rural communities, but I don’t have specific numbers today.
Approximately 60% of our workforce is comprised of temporary foreign workers and permanent residents, and this is growing. Because lobster processing is mostly seasonal, there will always be a need for seasonal workers, both local and temporary foreign.
We also have temporary foreign workers who return to P.E.I. each year to earn income to support their families back home. They have no intention of putting down roots in P.E.I. but come back each year to work seasonally. They are similar to Islanders working in the oil patch in Alberta.
Mussel and oyster processing are mostly year-round but require seasonal employees during peak times. My members find the Temporary Foreign Worker Program costly and administratively burdensome. We have been pleased with some of the changes recently made to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. However, we are anxiously awaiting additional enhancements to the program, especially those that will reduce costs and paperwork.
We are very pleased that our members and our association partake in quarterly meetings with federal officials to discuss the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and possible enhancements. We find this very helpful and would like to thank our federal officials for their transparency and willingness to work toward solutions.
Without P.E.I. seafood processing, our 1,200 lobster fishers and 500-plus oyster growers and harvesters would not be able to sell all their catch. Of all the lobster harvest, 30% to 40% is processed in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We are therefore inextricably linked to our maritime partners, so solutions and enhancements must be at a regional level.
One of the main impediments to sustainable development in our coastal communities is the lack of housing for all Islanders, including permanent residents and temporary foreign workers. This problem is getting worse every year. Many processors, although hesitant to do so, have become landlords and are providing accommodations for their temporary foreign workers and, in some cases, their permanent residents. Processors becoming landlords as a last resort face many challenges, and it takes time and attention away from their core business. Many have stated they don’t want to be landlords but have no choice. There needs to be innovative and integrated solutions to our housing challenges.
Our association supports all legislation and policies concerning temporary foreign workers and recently added its endorsement to new provincial legislation related to the protection of temporary foreign workers. We encourage continued enforcement of all related legislation and regulations.
Although innovation, automation and AI will help relieve some of our workforce pressures, the seafood processing sector will always need a workforce comprised of temporary foreign workers, permanent residents and our diminishing number of locals. We need to ensure that temporary foreign workers are always treated fairly, because without them, our harvesting and seafood processing sectors cannot be sustained.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Nat Richard from the Lobster Processors Association.
Nat Richard, Executive Director, Lobster Processors Association: Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable senators. Thank you for the invitation. I haven’t prepared remarks, so my opening comments will be brief. I’d much rather spend more time in engaging and taking questions.
A few quick words about the Lobster Processors Association. We represent 23 lobster processing operations across the Maritimes. I should say “companies” because collectively, of course, many members have multiple processing facilities as well. Collectively, I think it’s in the order of 36 individual processing facilities.
As Mr. Gavin and Mr. Loder alluded to, lobster is a massive industry for Eastern Canada — for the Maritimes in particular, but a growing resource and industry in Newfoundland and Quebec as well. It’s worth noting that in 2021, lobster alone generated $3.2 billion in export value. If you add crab, that would probably be something in the order of $1.5 billion that year.
Frankly, it’s a frustration of mine. I’m not even sure some of our provincial governments appreciate the sheer economic importance of our crab, lobster and seafood industry generally as an export generator and as a job creator. It is massive. I told my colleagues recently that if you adjust for population, it is comparable in export value to Ontario’s auto sector. It’s that important to Eastern Canada.
I’ve been involved in the industry for 13 years now. I spent the first 10 years of my career working directly for large processors, so I’m extremely familiar with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. I’ve been involved as an advocate even when I was working for processors, and I’m obviously very engaged in all these discussions in this current role.
There is absolutely no question that labour is a massive challenge for our sector. This is not new. It’s been the case for decades. As a result, almost all lobster processors are actively involved in recruiting temporary foreign workers as a supplement to their local workers. But it’s also worth mentioning that the vast majority of our workers continue to be Canadians as well.
The other thing I would add is that, as Mr. Gavin alluded to, we have seen increasingly — and this has been picking up steam in recent years — many of our temporary workers becoming permanent residents of Canada. We’re seeing that, as Mr. Gavin said, in western P.E.I. and in southeastern New Brunswick, and we have more policy tools than ever. I think of programs such as the Atlantic Immigration Program, which used to be a pilot and is now permanent, and Provincial Nominee streams. There are real challenges with that, and we can come to that later in terms of our ability to access these programs. There are real challenges because of the nature of our industry and because of the criteria to participate in those. But I do believe that is a good-news story in the sense that it is really driving immigration in a lot of our rural and coastal communities. I’m proud to say that’s being done to a significant degree by the seafood sector.
The other point I’d like to make is that I’m very proud. The industry went through a very challenging three years during the pandemic. I remember in the spring of 2020, we were seeing all kinds of industries across North America and in Europe being completely sidelined by massive COVID outbreaks. I’m very proud of our industry. We stepped up in a big way at a time when, frankly, we were dealing with maximum uncertainty. We invested massively to keep our plants and our communities safe. We lobbied actively to participate in things like the rapid testing programs, early vaccinations.
As a result of that, we did not have any significant issues with COVID. We had a fishery. Frankly, at times, we didn’t even know if we could have an orderly fishery and if we’d actually be able to sell the product. I’m very proud of our record in that respect. I know it’s been called into question by a few. Again, I’m very proud of how we stepped up and met that challenge head on.
I’ll leave it at that. A few questions have been raised as well about some of the work done by the Cooper Institute. I’d be happy to respond to any of the specific issues that have been raised, either during the previous hearings or in some of the media coverage that ensued.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Richard. We will go to questions from our colleagues. You will have four minutes each. Let’s start with the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Cordy.
Senator Cordy: Thank you so much. I’m from Nova Scotia, so I’m familiar with some of the concerns that you’ve raised, but thank you. Your comments were all very common sense, very practical, and you were very succinct in what you were saying, but I only have four minutes, so I must try to do this quickly.
First, you spoke, Mr. Loder, about the general application form for temporary foreign workers. It should be simplified, so the workers who come can move and they don’t have to stay in one particular spot, whether it’s just in Prince Edward Island or wherever it happens to be in the Maritimes.
Mr. Gavin, you also spoke about the need for processing to be done within the Maritimes, not just in Prince Edward Island, for lobster particularly.
What would have to change? What changes would have to be made so that you could have that flexibility moving around the region, without it becoming so fluid that those who have paid significant amounts of money — and that would certainly be another question about streamlining. How do we provide the flexibility without having temporary foreign workers moving, say, from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island full time or moving after the company has paid for them to come over? How do you balance that, providing flexibility but keeping in mind the fees, which you’ve already said, should be looked at?
Mr. Loder: I’m happy to provide a quick answer. If you look at the way processing works in Newfoundland and Labrador, most of the major producers have anywhere from 3 to 10 processing plants. They have a capacity of raw material that they process across these plants. It’s taken from over 250 landing spots in Newfoundland and brought to these plants. For various reasons — related to weather or different amounts of production at different times of the year — you need to ramp up production at one plant versus another. It’s all under the same umbrella of production.
But it has been set up to require an application going in for one plant, even though you could have three plants, for example, in St. Mary’s Bay, Newfoundland, with the same company. There’s limited mobility in those workers.
We’re not talking about moving from one province to another. I totally recognize that’s far more complex. There are a lot more considerations there. But why can’t you have a worker in Old Perlican, Newfoundland, move to St. Lawrence or a different place like that, which is just several hours away? It seems unnecessary.
Senator Cordy: Thank you. Sometimes common sense isn’t so common, is it?
Mr. Gavin, you raised a similar point related to people being in the same position or in the same processing plant, but often you want to move them to higher positions. That can’t always happen. You may want to move them up to a supervisor role, and that’s not allowed to happen. You suggested we need more flexibility in that area. Could you expand on that a little bit?
Mr. Gavin: Yes. The shortages we have now, like I say, are acute. We do not have locals who are willing to take on supervisory roles and higher-skilled roles. With the Labour Market Impact Assessment, also known as LMIA, the way that program works, it’s really focused on low skills. In that issue, in many cases, the devil is in the details.
From our perspective, it’s a violation if we hire somebody to be a line worker and they end up being a supervisor or being in quality control. I’m hoping that’s something where we can work with the federal government and make changes.
Often, we find the temporary foreign worker program fairly rigid. Maybe it is that way for obvious reasons, but as this program evolves and the needs continue to increase, we would like to see more flexibility.
Senator Osler: Thank you to the speakers for your testimony today. I’m interested in gaining a better understanding of the return on investment for each temporary foreign worker.
I know this committee would be interested to learn about the cost to the employer to participate in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. I have two questions. Any of the three witnesses can provide an answer.
First question: Is the employer responsible for covering costs of health care, for providing lodging and to cover the costs of travel? Second question: Is there any wage retention to the immigrant worker?
Mr. Richard: The costs are significant. There are a lot of misconceptions out there. You sometimes hear from the general public that they know it’s all subsidized by the government and whatnot. The employers who participate in this program, do not do it lightly. It’s a massively complex program. It is very costly to participate. One of our “beefs” in seafood, historically — just a small example — is the $1,000 processing fee we must pay for each worker. It’s my understanding that agriculture has never had to pay such fees, but there are many other costs in addition to that.
One of the challenges is the upfront cost as well. As I’m sure you know, we’re responsible for travel costs. Currently travel from Mexico one way can be $1,500 to $2,000. I heard from members that travel from the Philippines these days can be as high as $5,000. It is very significant.
There are also processing fees with work permits. We have an obligation to provide privately funded insurance that is equivalent to medicare because, in some provinces, medicare coverage only kicks in after a certain period of time. That can also be quite significant. Depending on the carrier, it can be as high as $500 to $700 per worker.
In addition to all of that — I would totally echo Mr. Loder’s point — we have a massive challenge with housing. It’s not unique to our communities or the Maritimes or Atlantic Canada, but that is a huge challenge in our communities.
Housing is tightly regulated in the sense that we have to abide by very strict Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation guidelines which define suitable and adequate housing. Yes, unfortunately, a lot of my members have made huge investments in housing to accommodate their workers.
Just last weekend I visited a member nearby. They just opened a brand new $5-million housing complex. They had no choice. The housing crunch is acute in many of our rural and coastal communities. We know we have obligations in terms of providing good housing options, and they’re in short supply, unfortunately. I hope that helps answer that question.
Senator Osler: Do you have any answers to the second question about any wage retention from the immigrant worker by the employer to recoup or recover any or all costs?
Mr. Richard: No, not to my knowledge. I don’t believe that’s allowed in the program. Sometimes, the workers can pay —
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Richard. I will ask a follow-up question to Senator Osler’s. I appreciate the outlining of all the costs to the employer for recruitment of temporary foreign workers, but there’s an opposing argument. The government basically subsidizes the industry by ensuring that you have low-wage workers as opposed to simply allowing the competition for wages to do what it does when there is an issue of supply and demand.
Mr. Richard: Well, in fact, if you look at what has happened in our industry in just the last five years, there has been a very significant increase in the average wages paid by our members and the wages are above prevailing minimum wage levels in all three Maritime provinces.
The sad reality is that it almost seems like regardless of the wage levels, we have a systemic problem and inability to find adequate labour in our local communities. That is a broad discussion. It has to do with our demographics, our aging population.
The Chair: Mr. Richard, can I ask a quick question? Is there a wage differential between what you pay temporary foreign workers and others?
Mr. Richard: There is not, and it is not allowed in the program. And frankly, this is another issue I wanted to address. It was raised in a previous hearing.
This is a tightly regulated program. Our members are routinely audited and inspected, oftentimes unannounced. Government inspectors look at payroll records. When they come and visit in person, it is typically a two-day visit, and they will interview, confidentially, a minimum of 15 workers per visit. They also have the ability to inspect housing to ensure that housing is adequate as well.
There was this notion that inspections are voluntary. I don’t know if the situation is different in agriculture, but I assure you it is non-voluntary, and they regularly happen. I can attest myself having participated in many of those.
The Chair: Members of this committee will be on a fact‑finding mission to New Brunswick and P.E.I., and we’ll be able to touch it and feel it for ourselves.
Senator Bernard: Thank you all for your testimony this morning and the responses so far. None of you have actually talked about the place of international students, and I’m wondering if any of you could tell us about what role, if any, international students play in filling some of the wage gaps that you have.
Mr. Loder: I would like to provide a quick response to that. This relates to Madam Chair’s comments about the counter‑argument. There is no international students in Newfoundland who are willing or would, quite frankly, want to go into rural Newfoundland and work for $18 to $23 an hour Canadian.
In most of these communities, there are 80 people to 400‑500 people. There is no alternative workforce. That’s the major labour issue. There is no competition. There is nobody to fill these positions. There is nobody to hire. And there are other factors that fit into that: The seasonal nature of work and other factors.
We saw this year in our crab industry a six-week delay, and we had a major labour crunch. There have been advertisements, and before you are allowed to entertain temporary foreign workers, you have to go through the process of trying to hire locals. There is simply nobody for various reasons. I’m not an expert on that, but I can tell you across our membership, we would be more than happy to hire anybody who comes in, who is willing and able to work. The problem is there aren’t any people willing to do that.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you. I have a number of questions, but I’m going to follow up on what we just heard. Mr. Loder said there weren’t enough local workers willing to do this type of work.
I take that to mean there are people available locally but they don’t want to do this type of work because it’s too strenuous and the working conditions are quite difficult. What’s the reason for that? Did you instead mean that there is no one available locally?
[English]
Mr. Loder: I didn’t say conditions were inadequate or anything like that.
Senator Petitclerc: Okay.
Mr. Loder: If you go to a rural community in Newfoundland with a fish plant, which is the primary employer, there are 700 people within 50 kilometres, whatever the case is. There is simply no workforce to draw on. Most of the current plant workers in Newfoundland are between 55 and 70 years old. This is a transitioning labour force.
This is a problem facing everyone across Newfoundland in every sector. If anybody wants to work, please, you guys can send me the names and they’ll have jobs. It’s just a question of where are the workers?
When we talk about international students at university, international students are coming to get a master’s degree and they are focused on that part of the labour market. They aren’t focused on this sector. Anything we can do and work on together to increase that, by all means, we should do that.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you for the clarification.
Mr. Richard: I would add that we have a good relationship with our counterparts in Quebec. They are dealing with the same thing in the Gaspé region and the Îles de la Madeleine. The population is getting older, so there aren’t enough workers. The industry has an image problem. I grew up in a fishing village of 250 people. When I was little, my father would say to me that I should go to university or I would end up in a fish plant. Perception is a stubborn thing, and the industry needs to acknowledge its mistakes. It needs to work on changing its image. That’s a real challenge, and we work on it every day. Our sector has been dealing with chronic undercapacity for well over a decade.
Senator Petitclerc: You spoke of workers coming from Mexico or the Philippines. In a sector as specific and technical — not to mention a bit challenging — I would think organizations have to spend time on training. I have two questions. Do you have to think about the time and resources you need to invest in training these workers when they arrive? Do you keep any information on your ability to retain those workers? Once they are trained, do the same workers stay there or come back if it’s seasonal work? Are you able to measure all that?
Mr. Richard: I’m very glad you asked.
[English]
The Chair: I am afraid that we have to go on to our next question. Time remaining, we will get back to Senator Petitclerc’s excellent question.
Senator Burey: Thank you to our witnesses. This is very interesting.
I have a question regarding the types of work permits and the barriers that I hear from the whole witness panel here; for example, the employer-specific work permits and the open work permits and the inadequacy of the system.
Then we also have the national classification of skill level, low skill, high skill, and that seems to be causing a problem in terms of stabilizing this workforce. I would like to hear your thoughts on those two issues, and then if you could expand on whether a more expanded pathway to permanent residency could be part of the solution.
Mr. Richard: On the issue of open work permits, it’s very important to emphasize that we had a number of new worker protections introduced in September of last year, many of which we advocated for. I think they were welcomed in terms of we could talk about recruitment fees and other issues. One of the things around expanded powers is if the government ever suspected issues or had suspicions of bad treatment toward the workers, the federal government can and has intervened before to protect these workers and provide them open worker permits. That has been done.
The difficulty with this notion — and I know some have advocated this — that we should provide open work permits across the board. Understand that in our position, when we start the process of applying for LMIAs for our workers, this typically happens six, seven, eight months before the start of the season the next year. We would be starting the whole process in September, October, November, recruitment, advertising, all of the paperwork involved. That is done way in advance of when the workers actually arrive in Canada.
As I mentioned earlier, there are huge upfront costs associated with participating in the program. If there were no costs at all associated with the program, I suppose we could have that discussion. If an employer is going to invest all this time and effort and then on arrival the worker could say, look, I have decided to go elsewhere, well, that’s a real challenge. What do we do with the fish that we have to process? In the case of the agricultural sector, what do they do with the crops they have to harvest? That’s part of the challenge.
One really important issue that I tried to respond to earlier, most of my members have retention rates of over 90%. To be very clear, they have workers that return to the exact same plant in some cases for over 10 years. They are not interested in —
Senator Burey: I would like to move on so I could get Mr. Loder to comment, and then the other witnesses, please.
Mr. Loder: I would just echo what Mr. Richard said. The concept that you would invest through temporary foreign worker programs to stabilize your workforce and then not have control over your workforce is just bad policy. There is really no other way to say it. I’ll leave it as simple as that.
Mr. Gavin: If I could add further comments. If you imagine a world where it was an open work permit, you are running a lobster-processing plant, you have 200 fishers who are expecting to land their catch and your 150 temporary foreign workers arrive and half of them go somewhere else, I don’t know what you tell your fishers.
I also want to make a point, if you don’t mind, on international students. In Charlottetown we have the university. We have a seafood processing plant that’s about an hour away and they do hire temporary foreign workers. We have a program that provides a bursary for any student. I wanted to make that point. This idea that there are all these workers out there that are not working or just banging at the door to work at a seafood processing plant, I’ll just give a real example. I also represent mussel processors —
The Chair: I’m going to have to cut you off —
Mr. Gavin: Okay.
The Chair: — because there may be other questions from the floor. I do have an answer that we are waiting for Senator Petitclerc’s question.
Senator Kutcher: I would like the previous witness from P.E.I. to continue, because I think you were on to an important thing and we sadly ran out of time. I would like you to continue that. All clarity here, P.E.I. has a soft spot in my heart, so please continue.
Mr. Gavin: I’m going to make the point that I do have members that operate mussel processing plants. They pay on average $4 more an hour for labour and their recruitment strategy was basically to just take workers from other plants because they were paying higher, and they cannot find them. They are now up against the wall. There are cases where their management staff have been out working on the floor. Now they are looking at temporary foreign workers.
I know a previous senator mentioned permanent residence. That is a really positive result here in Prince Edward Island where we have, like I say, in West Prince 500 permanent residents. There were temporary foreign workers, and now they are permanent residents. They are new locals. They are in our churches, and their kids are in our schools. It’s just so positive. I also want to stress that in addition to permanent residents, you are always going to need a temporary foreign workforce because there is seasonality in the lobster sector. I wanted to make the point, as my colleague Mr. Richard has mentioned, it’s a really good-news story in terms of the amount of temporary foreign workers that have become permanent residents in our communities.
Mr. Loder: If I could add just one more comment on that. Temporary foreign worker programming is designed to deal with a specific labour need. There are all kinds of other programs designed for other types of labour issues including temporary access to trade agreements and NAFTA where I believe there are 72 different classifications of professionals that are allowed to work in Canada for various types of business transaction reasons. To suggest that the answer be to have an open-work-in-Canada type of situation is completely outside of the reality of how targeted policies related to bringing labour into the country work. Unlike some of the temporary entry provisions under NAFTA for engineers or consultants, that’s not what is needed here; this is something completely different. This needs to remain focused on what it’s designed to do.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you for that. There have been concerns raised about exploitation of temporary foreign workers in the seafood sector, and we have heard substantive comments and concerns about it in the agricultural sector. Would any of you have knowledge of this? Would your organizations be involved in this? Do you monitor this? What is your response to concerns that have been raised about that?
Mr. Richard: Well, certainly I’m sure you are familiar with the reports that have been published by the Cooper Institute, the first one being focused on P.E.I. and the second one this March focused on New Brunswick. As you might expect, I have major problems with the approach and methodology that was used for this and I have major problems with some of the claims and allegations that are advanced as if this is systemic to our industry. As I mentioned earlier, I have been involved in this industry for 13 years, and the vast majority of processors understand how critical this is to the viability of their businesses, and they take their obligations toward their workers extremely seriously. In terms of the Cooper report —
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Richard. We may well get back to this point.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Mr. Richard, I’m not sure whether you remember my last question. You started answering. I had asked about the resources invested in training workers and your ability to retain those workers.
Mr. Richard: Yes. No, it’s very clear. My personal sense is that there’s a tendency to discredit the type of work done in processing plants. That’s absolutely true. I worked on a production line when I was younger. It’s obviously not for everyone. It’s extremely hard work. That’s true for both Canadian and international workers.
Certainly, employers provide training, but you raised a crucial point about retention. Many of my members have workers who have chosen to go back to the same processing plant every year for more than a decade, and they are under absolutely no obligation to do so. If the working conditions and accommodations were as poor as some claim, I don’t think those workers would choose to come back, because they are choosing to do so.
The other thing I want to say is that it shouldn’t be assumed that every foreign worker wants to become a permanent resident. I myself know many workers from Mexico and Jamaica who like coming here for the processing season. Unfortunately, the season isn’t 12 months long. Products aren’t available year-round. They like going home for the off-season.
Why do we have to impose the idea they all want to become permanent residents? Many opt for that, and their employers help them with the process. I think that’s wonderful, but we should be careful about stock statements that giving everyone access to permanent residency would fix the problem.
Mr. Gavin touched on this, and it’s no different. A whole generation of Atlantic Canadians left to go out west to work. Trust me, if they had been told that they had to stay out west forever, they wouldn’t have gone out there to work, because they wanted to return to Atlantic Canada. I would definitely draw that parallel.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Richard. I am struck by some generalizations being made here. This is the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. We need to see data. And we have asked for data. We do have data that suggests to us that if given the choice, temporary foreign workers would choose to become permanent residents. I know there are lots of anecdotes around this. But we will have time to probe with you and the Cooper Institute when, hopefully, we are with you.
So I make the point. You may feel this. You may emote this. We have heard about employers who insist their temporary foreign workers are like members of their family, but we need to see the data.
Senator Moodie: Thank you to the gentlemen who are witnesses today.
I wanted to follow up on the whole question of data, and we have heard from you, Mr. Richard, that in fact, enforcement is not voluntary, that you speak about the industry players adhering as a whole to the rules and conditions. Do you have any data to support that? This data piece is really important. The study suggested that there were issues, the number of the sample is small, and that is appreciated. What data do you have to suggest otherwise?
The second question, do you have any numbers around what percentage — what proportion of members of your industry are actually being inspected, of the whole, of the total?
Mr. Richard: I don’t know if the committee has been briefed by Employment and Social Development Canada, also known as ESDC, and Service Canada. I seem to have an echo here. Certainly, those departments would be in a position to give you very precise numbers on the number of inspections, what triggers inspections. I think they have a regular program. Even employers that have a pristine compliance record will get audited on a regular basis.
As I mentioned, when they do on-site visits, it can last two days. They will interview confidentially at least a minimum of 15 workers. They look at payroll records if there are issues around that. They look at compliance with employment standards. They can visit housing. It’s a very robust and stringent process, and rightly so. It should be that way, and the federal government has expanded these protections last year.
Mr. Gavin: I was just going to comment that I agree with Mr. Richard, and I suggest that you contact Service Canada because they would have that information. When we had that negative report two years ago around treatment of temporary foreign workers and handling questions, I had a lot of my members call me and they were so upset. They said, “Where is this coming from?”
And dealing with the press, we don’t have access to that information. I often felt, I wish maybe if Service Canada or somebody could make an announcement and say, “Yes, there have been inspections,” and this is what they found. I found that very frustrating back then. I would suggest, yes, the data is there, but we don’t have it. My colleagues would agree that we don’t have anything to do with the enforcement area. We can’t penalize —
Senator Moodie: Follow-up with a quick question, then. Because this is your impression, so I’m happy to take impressions. Is there any room for improvement, in your view, on the conditions that temporary foreign workers are being exposed to in the industries that you represent? Your impression.
Mr. Gavin: My impression would be I think there is always room for improvement. Like I said before, there are a lot of good news stories out there. But I can’t speak for every temporary foreign worker that’s in housing.
I obviously say to my members, if there are any bad actors out there or whatever, that’s got to be addressed. Let’s get more inspections done if that’s what’s needed and make those improvements. But I can tell you that I have seen some of the housing of some of my members, and it’s very good. But, again, there is always room for improvement.
Temporary foreign workers, you are hearing that loud and clear from my colleagues, they are key to the survival of our industry, and not just the processors and people in the plants. It’s the harvesters. It’s the fishers out there. They depend on us, and it’s not easy — and nobody talks about this — but you —
The Chair: Thank you, sir, we are coming to the end of our time. I apologize to you and my colleagues. I will make a general observation, though. Yesterday we heard from the Fisheries Council of Canada and again, we noted that the councils and the associations themselves are not collecting evidence. Maybe it is a lack of capacity. I don’t know.
But if temporary foreign workers are so essential to the future of your industry, perhaps data would help us, and you, a great deal.
My many thanks to Mr. Richard, Mr. Gavin and Mr. Loder. Your perspectives have helped us gain wisdom and insight that we did not necessarily possess before this panel. We really appreciate the time you have taken to inform us.
Joining us for our second panel, we welcome by video conference Mr. Ryan MacRae, Coordinator at the Migrant Worker Program at the Cooper Institute; Ms. Adriana Vega Guillen as an individual; and Mr. Aditya Rao, Board Member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre. Thank you for joining us today.
Please note that, for this panel, we have interpreters who will be interpreting from Spanish. I remind witnesses that you have five minutes allocated for opening statements, which will be followed by questions from senators.
We also have a witness who will be participating with their camera off and who will be on audio only for this panel.
Presenting will be Mr. MacRae, followed by Ms. Vega Guillen, followed by Mr. Rao. You have five minutes each. Thank you.
Ryan MacRae, Coordinator, Migrant Worker Program, Cooper Institute: Thank you, chair.
In preparation for today’s meeting, I decided to review the first document that was ever published by Cooper Institute regarding temporary foreign workers in Prince Edward Island. The report was produced in 2012 by a previous coordinator, Josie Baker, and it is entitled Changing Hands. It was the starting point for Cooper Institute’s continued engagement with migrant workers in the province. The report highlighted many different challenges faced by workers, including improper housing conditions, unregulated recruitment, difficulties in community integration and a big emphasis on lack of access to permanent residency.
It saddens me deeply to share with all of you here today that many of those issues that were present over a decade ago still exist today. Not only that, but we have also seen an increased reliance on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program over the same period of time.
The federal government continues to announce expansions into new economic sectors without addressing the systemic power imbalance that is embedded within the program itself. The long-term use of temporary work is becoming a permanent fixture in our economy.
I have worked for the Cooper Institute for about a year and a half now. We predominantly work with folks who enter through the agriculture stream, the low-wage stream and the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, because many of those individuals are ineligible for settlement services. It did not take me a very long time to realize that closed work permits should have no place whatsoever in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Tying a worker to a specific employer strips them of their labour mobility, taking away their ability to leave an abusive situation.
The current mechanisms that we have in place to support workers experiencing abuse are inadequate and inaccessible. The application for an open work permit for vulnerable workers requires an academic level of English or French, access to a working computer with tools such as Adobe to compile documents to submit evidence, numerous hours of intensive labour and sufficient privacy to fill out all of those things. Most workers do not meet one, let alone all four, of those requirements.
I remember the first application I ever took part in. It was a colleague and me, and both of us were two English-speaking, university-educated individuals with a lot of familiarity with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. It required us to work two days non-stop on the application, only to have it rejected in a situation we clearly saw as abusive. When government and industry point to this program as a viable tool to support and protect workers, they are either unexperienced in using this system or blatantly lying.
Our organization has also stopped using the ESDC online tool for reporting abuse, since our experience has shown that after a complaint is filed, employers are informed of the reason behind the ensuing inspection, which can put workers in potentially dangerous situations, especially in smaller workplaces.
While it is important to note that there are a lot of different temporary foreign workers; they’re not a monolith. But a lot of them do want access to permanent residency, and the majority of individuals we work with simply do not meet the criteria under any of the immigration streams. Most, if not all of them here in Atlantic Canada, require a full-time, non-seasonal job offer. That is a remarkable barrier, given that most of the region’s economic sectors are seasonal: agriculture, fisheries and tourism.
Without permanent residency, workers are forced into a perpetual state of temporary status. Temporary status is precarious and can change overnight. We have seen workers with implied status have their work permit extension denied on a technicality or sometimes without any reason at all, which leaves them without the ability to work, often without access to health care and without status to even be in the country. Their entire lives can be upended by a single email.
Industry, media and government continuously say there is a labour shortage in this country. If that is true, and we do require foreign labour to fill these gaps, then we must offer them the same privileges and security of all citizens and permanent residents. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. MacRae.
Ms. Adriana Vega Guillen, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.
[Interpretation]
Adriana Vega Guillen, as an individual: Good afternoon, members of the Senate. My name is Adriana Vega Guillen, and I’m from Costa Rica. I came to Canada a year and a half ago exactly on January 10, 2022. My dream was to work in a country, free, where being a woman wouldn’t be limiting. An agricultural company, whom I’m afraid to mention because of retribution, hired me for 24 months to work in their facilities in New Brunswick.
The 24 months that my contract allegedly was lasting, only allowed me to work six of those months, and in terrible conditions. In effect, at the end of June 2022, the company contravened the terms of my contract, deprived me of my ability to work and receive income. I understand this unilateral decision is a repercussion that I suffered as a consequence of denouncing physical and labour harassment from my peers, who not only insulted me, but they threw rotten apples and other objects at me. They beat me. They mistreated me during work hours. I had bruises. I was in fear of working in a place that was not safe. Likewise, my peers established hierarchies, whereby I was denied basic services that the company would provide, such as using the microwave or washrooms.
Notwithstanding the fact that I came to work early, the company sent me home. They reduced my shifts. In the field, my peers kept on working. They perpetrated the same abuse on other workers, who, fearing repercussions that I have suffered, did not denounce this behaviour. Notwithstanding the claims and denouncements to the employer, no action was taken.
Much to the contrary, my shifts were reduced. Several months, they were reduced to zero. It was my employer who denied me the opportunity to be listened to and to take action in the face of the abuses perpetrated by my peers. The closed work permit forces us to work with the employer, despite the conditions that were inhumane.
On the other hand, my peers, who have claims raised against them, are free. They’re working. While I was able to work again in September, repercussions continued. The mistreatment did not stop; in fact, it worsened.
In an act of courage and desperation, I sought help through the web pages of the government. I communicated with the labour board. They referred me to WorkSafeNB. They mentioned that the company itself assesses the situation and determines the measures that must be taken to remedy the situation.
Likewise, they demanded evidence of mistreatment, evidence that I had to obtain by hiding in the bathrooms, again fearing repercussions. It was dismissed. Once again, the decision was in the hands of my employer.
Regrettably, the closed work permit allows the employer to own all the decisions of the employee. They limit support on everything that I’ve suffered. I tried to change to an open permit, but it was in vain. To obtain it, I would need an open offer of work, among many other requirements, and the information provided is very confusing. The work permit forces us to work with the same people that marginalize us, and they mock our situation.
Worse, when I was denied the permit by the Canadian government, this reinforced the injury, the mockery and the humiliation that I’ve experienced.
It’s worth noting that this request was something that I sought in a situation of extreme stress, anxiety and anguish. Today, I have the advice of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre in New Brunswick, and I hope that I get results that allow me to have a prosperous, dignified life.
Members of the Senate, I want to be the voice today of people who are experiencing the same situation, the voice of those who require your help to continue working in dignified conditions without fear for their physical integrity. All of us who have a work permit that are experiencing abuse from the employer, have been denied not only the opportunity to keep working in dignified conditions but also the opportunity to have a dream of a life that considers welfare, both physical and emotional.
Today, I am in a situation without an exit. I fear for my safety. The only support that I’m seeking is to work in a place with safety, in a place that complies with what has been established to protect people, that does not infringe upon what has been established or stipulated by contract or law. I want to stop being just another asset of a company, but rather be Adriana Vega, an immigrant worker who is seeking a dignified life in Canada.
Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Vega Guillen. We are sorry to hear your distress, and I’m sure senators will have questions about that.
First we will go to Mr. Rao, Board Member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.
Aditya Rao, Board Member, Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you for inviting the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre to participate in this important committee meeting. I’m a founding board member of the centre. We provide support and services to migrant workers in New Brunswick.
Our centre is based in Fredericton, and we work across the province on the stolen lands of the Peskotomukati, Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq. Our centre is named after Madhu Verma, a child refugee who moved to New Brunswick in the 1960s and currently lives in Fredericton. We are inspired by her work and her lifelong commitment to build a more welcoming and just province.
As you just heard, I am joined here today by Adriana Vega Guillen, who has courageously come forward to share her story with you.
In 2022, New Brunswick received more migrant workers than any other Atlantic Canadian province. The majority of migrant workers are in the seafood industry, followed by farm workers and then other jobs such as care workers in group and private home settings.
There was a 50% jump in a number of migrant workers between 2022 and 2021. This trend is only expected to continue, and so your effort to study the experiences of migrant workers is timely.
I want to begin by stating one thing clearly: The Temporary Foreign Worker Program is exploitative by design. By this I mean that exploitation is a necessary outcome of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program as it is currently designed. It’s not an accidental outcome. It’s not a mistaken outcome. It may not be an intended outcome, but it is a necessary outcome.
The fact that someone could face deportation, family separation and have their lives turned upside down because they lose a job is a feature of the program, not a bug. This is because the program is premised, fundamentally, on maintaining precarity in someone’s immigration status. It privileges the employer’s access to labour over the worker’s ability to exercise their rights.
This is the closed work permit system. Your immigration status is tied to your employer. You think twice before speaking out. You might rather suffer abuse than risk losing your job, because you are not allowed to work for anyone else.
The existing government tip line and pathways to open work permits are not reliable, because there’s no guarantee that you will get the help that you need.
The fact that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program results in abuse is no longer seriously disputed. Even industry accepts that there is abuse; they just dispute the extent to which it exists, but that’s not a surprise. Industry, after all, stands to profit from a captive workforce who cannot easily change jobs and whose lives they can control.
Dr. Raluca Bejan from Dalhousie University and Dr. Kristi Allain and Dr. Tracy Glynn from St. Thomas University published two reports detailing the conditions faced by migrant workers in P.E.I. and in New Brunswick. These reports can be accessed at tfwmaritimes.ca.
The findings include exploitative recruitment practices, unsuitable housing, dangerous labour conditions, xenophobia and limited access to health care. Dr. Glynn is also a founding board member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre. The reports were produced with the support of the Cooper Institute, who you are hearing from today as well. Our organization endorses the recommendations in the report.
One recommendation that I want to highlight is that the only solution to ending precarity is simply to end precarity. This means permanent residence status on arrival, but as a clear next step, ending the closed work permit system and replacing it with open work permits for all migrant workers.
I want to note that as time has passed, governments have increasingly begun to view their role essentially as facilitating industry access to migrant labour, but somewhere along the way, the human rights of migrant workers have been cast aside. This has become a conversation about finding a balance between the employer’s need to access migrant labour and the human rights of those workers. It has become a conversation about a shortage of labour when what they really mean is a shortage of exploitable, disposable labour.
We must ensure that migrant workers have the same rights as other immigrants and newcomers. Tying workers to their employers is fundamentally unjust. Workers deserve to be free to live and work in dignity, and that means the freedom to choose whom they work for, the freedom to choose to stay in Canada or to leave Canada, the freedom to speak out without the fear of losing their immigration status and to refuse unsafe work without worrying if they will be called back next year. Migrant workers deserve, quite simply, to be free.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Rao, Ms. Vega Guillen and Mr. MacRae. We will proceed to questions from the floor. With the permission of my colleagues, I’d like to ask the first question and first make an observation.
Mr. Rao, you say that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is exploitative by design. The employers we heard from say it is necessary and needs to be designed to meet the needs of the industry. We have to find the truth.
My question to you is about your recommendation that temporary foreign workers simply enter the country as permanent residents with the rights of other workers, the right to choose where to work, leave that employer if they don’t like the workforces, et cetera.
As you well know, Mr. Rao, the entire immigration program is capped and driven by numbers. The number today is roughly 400,000. As you well know, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has no numbers attached; it can keep rising. If one were to take those numbers and put them into the 400,000 cap, what would that do? By how many would the government need to increase permanent resident figures?
Mr. Rao: Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. I think the answer to that question can only be answered with another question, and that question is: What do we believe is just? We have a system that we know results in abuse. There’s evidence. This is not the first time this issue has been studied. It has been studied by the House of Commons already. You have also intervened in the Senate, senator, in the past on this issue. We know that there are studies across the country on this issue. In Quebec recently there was a report showing abuse, and there was also a national report jointly released by FCJ Refugee Centre and the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking that shows there is abuse.
I think the question we have to ask ourselves is if we provide everybody with open work permits when they arrive as a first step — of course the goal being giving permanent residence to everybody because it ends precarity and makes sure folks have access to health care and services and don’t have to be faced with precarity and the possibility of exploitation. If we do that, the question I want us to ask ourselves is: What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that people will have the right to change their employers? Are we afraid that people will have the freedom to move? Are we afraid that people will be able to stand up for themselves without the fear of the consequence of deportation, without the fear of the consequence of family separation? What are we afraid of?
If we are afraid of that, then I think we have a much more important question to ask ourselves as a country that believes that we are a paragon of human rights.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Rao. Our next question will go to the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Cordy.
Senator Cordy: Thank you so much. Your testimony from all three of you have been — I’ll use the word riveting, and it is certainly making all of us pay attention to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and to be able to ask questions related to that.
Thank you, Ms. Vega, for being so courageous to come forward and tell your story.
Mr. MacRae, you spoke about the systemic power imbalance. We have temporary foreign workers coming over and they have a permit to work in one particular job in one of the many industries you listed, the agriculture, fishery and tourism industries, which tend to bring in the temporary foreign workers.
The whole complaint process — you all spoke about that — as soon as you bring forward a complaint, it certainly puts your whole status in jeopardy. When we spoke earlier about — not just to this panel but other panels — why can’t temporary foreign workers come over and if they don’t like where they’re working or they find they’re having a not good situation, that they can actually move. They all spoke to us about the costs of bringing to Canada temporary foreign workers and that they would bring them over and then two weeks later they might be gone to another job after they’ve paid to get them here.
How do you finish the circle, I guess is what I’m going to say? Because certainly the stories we’ve heard from you today are unacceptable. They’re unacceptable not only in Canada but anywhere where workers are in danger for complaining about their work situation. What do we do? Do we get the government to pay for temporary foreign workers so it’s not a business that’s paying? I don’t know the answer to it. I’m wondering if any of you could answer that.
Mr. MacRae: It’s a good question. I would refer back to Mr. Rao’s point, what are we afraid of? I was lucky to sit in and listen to the previous presentation. Madam Chair was getting to this, what are we afraid of? If we abolish closed work permit systems and give workers labour mobility, we will see competition in the labour market. What that means is we’re going to see likely higher wages, increased employee benefits and overall better workplaces.
I think these are all things that migrant workers under a closed work permit system have difficulties to advocate for this themselves, as they’re constantly under the fear of being sent home under this employer-specific system.
Mr. Rao: I would suggest that if the concern is that workers who are brought under the program will leave and move elsewhere, I would ask: Why do you think they’re going to leave your work? Why do you think they’re going to leave your business? What is it that you’re doing that is driving people away from your business? I would ask: Is truly the answer to these questions to tie people under penalty of losing their immigration status to your business? Is truly the answer to this question denying people their mobility rights that every other Canadian and permanent resident takes for granted in this country?
Senator Cordy: Ms. Vega, you spoke specifically about what has happened to you. What would you see as being the best way forward?
[Interpretation]
Ms. Vega Guillen: I believe the best way would be to give workers the option of mobility through permanent residency. This would allow workers who are victims of abuse mobility, and they would no longer be in the hands of the employers who are causing that same environment.
[English]
The Chair: When you were working with this employer and having all these problems, was there anyone you could turn to for help? Were you helped by someone? Were you abandoned by the system? Was there some support system for you?
[Interpretation]
Ms. Vega Guillen: Nothing worked. It was all in vain. When I complained about my employer, they misrepresented the facts, notwithstanding the photographs. They said, I hope you don’t have enough evidence. In desperation, I made internet searches on the government websites. It was very confusing. I couldn’t understand exactly where I was supposed to go. The requirements were cumbersome. So I kept working despite the conditions, the bruises, the humiliation, this was a daily occurrence.
I went to the IRCC, the immigration program. They said that I could apply for something related to vulnerable workers. I would have to explain everything. I sent photographs. If a few days later, they said that I had to prove that happened at work. And I know that the fact that I used my phone at work could cause more bruises. I had another bruise happen just a few days later at work. Ultimately, everything was rejected. I was not given the opportunity to get an open work permit. They said the evidence was insufficient, and they gave me just a few days to provide further evidence to the file.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Guillen. I’m sorry to have you caused you further distress.
[Interpretation]
Ms. Vega Guillen: That’s all right. You need to hear about the experiences of the workers and the obstacles that we need to overcome in order to obtain the help that we need. And the government doesn’t guarantee this help.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Guillen, I’m sure we will have further questions, but thank you for being generous and sharing your experiences with us.
Senator Osler: Thank you to today’s panel, and gracias to our worker witness for your important personal testimony.
My first question is directed to Mr. MacRae and Mr. Rao. This committee would appreciate hearing your comments on any unintended consequences that could come to either employers or to workers if the Temporary Foreign Worker Program eliminated closed work permits and went to open work permits as you have recommended.
Mr. MacRae: In terms of unintended consequences, I’m not entirely sure. What I can say is it would give employees and workers the opportunity to change jobs if they are experiencing abuse. I know we’re talking about extreme situations, but here in Atlantic Canada, we know that the fishery season ebbs and flows. There are a lot of changes. I have heard from workers who come here with the expectation that they will be working full‑time hours, but then all of a sudden they are only getting 10 hours a week, and they are getting pinched. They still have to pay rent, they still usually have to pay a recruiter a fee and are indebted to a recruiter, and then they are also having to send money back home. Giving them an opportunity with an open work permit gives them the ability to work elsewhere.
As I mentioned previously, I think this will bring up labour standards across the industry. I think that the chair said this earlier. Having more competition in the labour market will hopefully increase wages and provide better working conditions for workers.
Senator Osler: I’m going to ask you to put a different hat on, Mr. Rao. We have heard about the good consequences that could come from switching to an open work permit, and I’m going to really ask you to think of what the unintended consequences could be for either the employer or for the workers.
Mr. Rao: Certainly, the consequence that this will have for workers is — I can only echo what Mr. MacRae has already said. I know you are looking for unintended consequences for workers as well, but this is something that workers have been asking for and it would really just address that ask.
On the side of employers, we don’t pretend to take the interests of employers at heart. We are an employee side, workers’ rights organization, but I can say that the impact of moving to an open work permit will be to force employers to behave better, to have better business practices, and to think about what recruitment and retention actually means when they don’t have people tied to them on penalties of loss of immigration status. It will force employers to pay better wages, ensure that the working conditions are better and that health and safety are respected. Those are some of the consequences that having an open work permit will have on employers, in my view.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much. Chair, you asked the question that I intended to ask, so I’m going to reframe my question somewhat to hopefully not ask more of you in terms of causing distress, Ms. Guillen. I would like to create the question for anyone who has been working with you and is familiar with your situation, if you would prefer that they answer my question. It is to help us understand what I think I heard described as a kind of turning point in your case, in your experiences. What made it possible for you to give your testimony to us today? What kind of support are you receiving now that you weren’t receiving in the earlier parts of what you described to us, the abusive situation that you experienced?
Ms. Vega Guillen: Could you ask Mr. Rao for that information? I don’t feel comfortable answering it.
Senator McPhedran: Whoever is comfortable answering, please.
Mr. Rao: Thank you for that question, senator. Currently, we are supporting Ms. Guillen through a reapplication for an open work permit for vulnerable workers. We have, as was noted earlier during the break, somebody with her right now, supporting her while she is providing testimony, Dr. Tracy Glynn, who is one of the board members of our organization. She was also supported by our case worker, Cristian Sanabria, who has been working really hard over the last couple of days to make sure that Ms. Guillen’s questions were answered and that she had the help that she needed. We’re doing our best to make sure that she is supported.
Senator McPhedran: In this very concerning case that you have brought to us, can you help us understand if this is the profile of a typical case for you? What is the frequency? What is the pattern? This is not in any way to diminish this particular individual’s experience, but to try and understand if you are seeing a pattern and similarities. If so, what are your case numbers in this regard?
Mr. Rao: Thank you for the question, senator. When we started our work last year formally as an organization, because we had started as a group of volunteers very quickly brought together over a crisis situation in Fredericton involving around a dozen workers whom it later turned out may have been victims of trafficking. In an effort to support those workers, we founded the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre. Within just a few months of starting, before putting out any information or even properly launching a website, we had a dozen more workers contacting us trying to get support.
After two months in operation, just over two and a half months in operation, we had to close our doors because the funding that we had received from the federal government ended. I want to point out that it is a pattern of sporadic funding from the federal government to support organizations to do this work, but only under very strict guidelines and with very restrictive rules around the length of time the contracts can last and so on.
We lost our funding, not because we were the applicant but because the applicant that had received the funding to then redistribute it had lost their funding. So, overnight, dozens of organizations like ours lost.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Rao.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you to the witnesses. Ms. Vega Guillen, your testimony was very moving. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
I didn’t catch something during your presentation. Did you come to Canada for a job in the fishery sector or the agricultural sector?
[English]
[Interpretation]
Ms. Vega Guillen: In the agricultural sector. I was working in the fields, and I was harvesting apples in a processing plant.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you. In the previous panel, we heard from witnesses in the fishery sector. One of them told us — and the others agreed — that because some workers had been coming back for 10 years, it was proof that they were treated well. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have come back. They also told us that some employers had inspectors visit their sites.
Mr. Rao or Mr. MacRae, what are your thoughts on that? Had inspectors visited the workplace regularly, Ms. Vega Guillen may have been able to talk to someone. What do you think?
[English]
Mr. Rao: I can jump in.
[Translation]
Thank you for your question, senator. I would say that it’s really a matter of choice. We are always glad to hear that people keep coming back, but the question for us is whether those workers chose to come back, or whether they were basically forced to choose the same employer because that’s where they worked, that’s where they know people and that’s where they made money last time. Every season, they have to stay on good terms with their employer. If they don’t have a good relationship with the employer, it could mean that the employer doesn’t invite them back the next year. In many cases, the employer is the one who gets to decide which workers will be invited back.
I just want to say that, from our standpoint, it’s about whether it was the worker who made the choice.
Senator Mégie: Are you aware of inspectors doing regular or surprise inspections? Does that happen?
Mr. Rao: Yes, senator, it does, but I’m going to let Mr. MacRae answer that.
[English]
The Chair: Mr. MacRae, I’m sure you will come at the question in a different way. We have three senators still on my list for asking questions.
Senator Moodie: I just want to assure you that your dream of a life with dignity, without fear and without abuse is one that we support. Thank you for your bravery and your eloquent description of the abuses that you met. And your testimony is profoundly disturbing.
But I need to dig more, and my apologies for that. I’ll offer the other to members, Mr. Rao, if you could also contribute an answer, that would be great.
We will be on a fact-finding visit, looking for areas where we can uncover some of these abuses, particularly around agencies where individuals may be expected to be receiving support that they are not or where they may be putting in reports, submitting reports or raising concerns. Where should we be looking and focusing on to learn more about the prevailing number of cases, the details of these cases, the outcomes of these cases, so that we can have more of a firsthand understanding of how the system that’s supposedly in place to support workers is not working for them?
The Chair: Mr. MacRae.
Mr. MacRae: Thank you, sorry.
I would probably recommend just engaging with the community organizations that are involved in this work. Mr. Rao did mention that there are some groups that have been receiving funding. Now, he did also begin to mention some of the difficulties with that funding, and I just wanted to continue that conversation. Most of the funding that organizations like ours have received is project-based, and a lot of times there are pilot programs. The current one is only for one year, and it’s difficult to plan long term to do this work when we only have short-term funding; the funding is pretty meagre. It’s attached to numbers that were used from questionable sources on work permits that were issued in previous years, and we know that the uptick in the use of the program is increasing significantly. It’s also important to think about, you know, we see a settlement agency that is overcapacity, and they have a significant number of employees and resources, and it’s needed. It’s very much needed.
But I think it’s also important to look at folks that are working specifically with the populations that we are. We are incredibly underfunded. You are looking at two organizations of the very few in the Atlantic Canada that are doing this work. We have seen over the last decade, more people are entering this country with temporary status than folks coming through with access to permanent residency. I would encourage engaging with us and if you are looking to visit employers to do inspections, I think you should do that.
I would recommend that on the note of inspections, one thing that we have seen is that often when ESDC or other groups, environmental health groups, go to do inspections, we typically do see that the employer is kind of hand-selecting workers who will be doing these interviews. So that is something to be considered, if you are looking at doing those inspections and to have that noted.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Dasko: Thank you to our witnesses, particularly Ms. Guillen for speaking with us today and stepping forward in this way. I think we have learned a lot from listening to you.
My questions are also about inspection, and I wanted to ask all three of the witnesses whether or not Ms. Guillen’s workplace was ever inspected. Do we know where she worked or does she know whether where she worked was ever inspected? If so, what the result of that inspection might have been. More generally, I have further questions about the usefulness of inspection. How does it help? Does it help? And how does it help if it does? And what suggestions you might have as to how inspections might be improved? So, first of all, about her workplace. Thank you.
[Interpretation]
Ms. Vega Guillen: With regards to my workplace, I did witness an inspection. I saw that they sent some employees home without the right to work when that inspection took place. I was one of the people that was sent home when an inspection took place in my workplace. I didn’t have the right to go to work that day.
[English]
Senator Dasko: What was the result of the inspection? Was there any change in the workplace? Was there an improvement? What happened?
[Interpretation]
Ms. Vega Guillen: No, everything continued the same. There were no improvements. With regards to health standards, they were the same, and in my case, I can say that the health standards were not adequate. I did not see any changes.
I would like to say that the government did approve — did allow for the company to continue working, but they continued to use the minimum requirements for health standards, and there continued to be cases of abuse at the workplace.
[English]
Senator Dasko: I would appreciate hearing from any of the witnesses about inspections. Do they serve any purpose whatsoever, then?
Mr. Rao: I can say that the research that has been done has shown that it’s very difficult to draw any conclusions from this data. It’s hard to access this data. The government is not forthcoming in terms of proactively publishing this data, and inspections are not done proactively enough. The Auditor General’s report that came out has also detailed some very serious issues with the system. Industry has referred several times to changes that were brought in recently, but our concern remains that these are Band-Aids on a fracture. This is not a system that can be fixed simply with more inspections. It needs a fundamental shift, and one part of the fundamental shift is open work permits.
Senator Dasko: So there is nothing that can be done to make inspections better?
Mr. Rao: There are some recommendations in the report that we endorse that detail specifically some of the issues with respect to inspections and how they can be done better, including more proactive inspections, making sure that —
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Rao. We will look at that report again as we conclude our study, which is not happening for some time, by the way.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you for being here today and for sharing your expertise and experiences with us. It’s very helpful.
I think my question is for Mr. MacRae, but you can decide who should answer.
My take-away from what you’ve told us today and what other witnesses told us is that there’s a pretty disturbing gulf between what employers and employer organizations are saying and what you’re saying about the way workers are treated. That is quite troubling.
A number of measures have been discussed from better inspections to education. Do workers know their rights? Do we need to do a better job of educating workers and making them aware of their rights? Access to the complaint process was also raised.
Given the relationship imbalance between the employer and the worker, will all of those things I mentioned make a difference if the underlying nature of the relationship and the lack of equality do not change? I’m not sure whether that’s clear. Do we need to address both at the same time?
[English]
Mr. MacRae: Thank you for the question. I think it’s a big one. One of the key things is that as long as we have a system of closed work permits, there is always going to be a significant, like you said, imbalanced power dynamic that exists. This is also further blown up due to the fact that a lot of migrant workers face dynamics that a lot of permanent residents and Canadian citizens don’t face, even in terms of economics. A lot of them are in debt to a recruiter, and many of them are sending money back home to their families. This incentivizes a lot of workers to work long hours, as many hours as they possibly can, and endure poor working conditions because they don’t want to be sent home. This is incredibly profitable for the industry. That is a very profitable incentive. This also highlights the fact that we talk about — I don’t want to talk too much about the previous session, but there was a lot of discussion around a labour shortage, and we hear this often, right, and I would just question if it’s a lack of available labour or if it’s a lack of interest to work due to unsatisfactory working conditions.
If we went on the Job Bank right now, I could highlight all of the jobs that I would see where employers are doing the bare minimum to recruit but not actually recruit Canadian citizens to do work just so that they can go through the process to get the LMIA to hire foreign labour. A lot of times there are different incentives at play, and this also leads to some tendencies that I am sure a lot of us hear — and I have often heard from people, especially employers — that Filipinos or Mexicans are great workers. It comes from that dynamic.
The Chair: Thank you. We are going to the last question, which is Senator Burey.
I would just like to make a point about recruiters. The recruiters who are part of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program are licensed. You can look them up. This is a theme we could potentially explore.
Senator Burey: Thank you so much to our witnesses, especially Ms. Guillen for sharing your very courageous testimony. Our thoughts are with you, and we support your journey through this process.
My question is really for Mr. MacRae and Mr. Rao. Are there any countries that Canada could look to — maybe not — in terms of the open work permit for temporary foreign workers? If so, tell us if there are any and just share your thoughts on that.
Mr. Rao: Thank you very much for that question, senator. If you don’t mind, I’ll jump in here, Mr. MacRae.
I want to note on the question of the gap between the positions that our organizations and the speakers in the previous session have in what we are asking for. I want to encourage folks to ask the question of who benefits and what do we have to gain from what we are asking for? When the employers get what they want, they are going to make a lot of money. When we get what we want, workers are going to have better rights. We have to ask that question first.
On the question of — on your question, senator, of which countries to look to, unfortunately, I think Canada is the country that other countries look to for how to best exploit a temporary workforce. You may remember that President Trump has spoken very favourably about Canada’s immigration system. It’s an immigration system that we believe and pretend to be very equitable, but it is one that is highly exclusionary. It was brought up earlier that temporary foreign workers have no access, very limited access, to some of the other pathways to permanent residency because those pathways to permanent residency are highly exclusionary. Parent and grandparent sponsorship in Canada is a lottery. Family reunification in Canada is a bit of a myth.
We have to talk about our Temporary Foreign Worker Program for what it really is. It is, in many ways, the gold standard for the world on how to best exploit a vulnerable workforce.
Mr. MacRae: I just want to add —
Senator Burey: Is there a country that we could look to learn best practices? Could you answer that part of the question?
Mr. MacRae: The only comment I’ll make about that, if you want a specific answer, is that after the World Cup tournament that FIFA had that saw thousands of migrant workers die in Qatar, the Qatari government announced that their kafala system, which tied workers to their employers — they are going to explore dismantling that aspect of the system. If that is happening in Qatar, I think Canada should also be considering, at a minimum — a very minimum — getting rid of closed work permits.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. MacRae. Thank you, Ms. Guillen, in particular, for telling us your story. Thank you, Mr. Rao. You have enriched our understanding of your life, Ms. Guillen, and of the context and the conditions under which temporary foreign workers work. We look forward to continued conversations with you, either formally or informally.
(The committee adjourned.)