THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, September 28, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met with videoconference this day at 11:30 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.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I would like to begin by welcoming members of the committee, our witnesses and members of the public watching our proceedings.
My name is Ratna Omidvar, senator from Ontario, and I am the chair of this committee.
Before we begin, I’d like to suggest that we do a quick round of introductions, starting with the deputy chair of the committee.
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia. Welcome to our committee, minister. It’s nice to have you, and officials as well.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: Hello. Senator René Cormier from New Brunswick.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec. I am here temporarily.
[English]
Senator Osler: Senator Osler, senator from Manitoba.
Senator Kutcher: Stanley Kutcher from Nova Scotia.
Senator Moodie: Rosemary Moodie from Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Chantal Petitclerc, Senate division of Grandville, Quebec.
Senator Mégie: Marie-Françoise Mégie, Senate division of Rougemont, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Seidman: Senator Judith Seidman, Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Dasko: Senator Donna Dasko, Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. Today, we continue our study of Canada’s temporary and migrant labour force. Joining us today for our first panel are the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, P.C., M.P., Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages; and officials from Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, namely, Paul Thompson, Deputy Minister; Lori MacDonald, Senior Associate Deputy Minister and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada; and Michael MacPhee, Assistant Deputy Minister, Temporary Foreign Worker Program Branch, Service Canada.
Thank you so much, minister and officials, for joining us today. We know you are very busy, but the study is very important, so we’re really pleased that you have joined us give us your perspectives.
As usual, we will have five minutes from our witnesses. I imagine, Minister Boissonnault, you will use your five minutes, and then we will open up to questions from the audience. Pre‑emptive forces are at play here, I see.
Hon. Randy Boissonnault, P.C., M.P., Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages: Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. You’ve introduced the officials with me today and I thank them for their time and expertise. Let me begin by saying this is the first time that I appear before a parliamentary committee in my new role as Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages. I’ve shortened it to be the minister of jobs and official languages. We have a lot of work to do together. I really appreciate your study and what you’re doing with us to make the temporary foreign worker program better.
It’s an honour to serve Canadians in this role and I do want to work with all parliamentarians, senators and members of the House of Commons, and our partners in labour and business and the non-profit sector from coast to coast to coast to make sure our workforce remains among the best educated and well trained in the world, and that we can all be bridge builders to help make sure people have a bridge between their potential and the opportunities they see on the horizon.
[Translation]
I also wish to thank this committee for undertaking this important study.
I want to say at the outset that the government is committed to a safe and responsive Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The safety of temporary foreign workers is something I and our whole government take very seriously.
We have taken concrete action in recent years to safeguard that.
The Temporary Foreign Worker Program is 50 years old this year. It has evolved over time to respond to economic and societal shifts. The program helps Canadian employers fill labour and skills shortages on a temporary basis when there aren’t enough Canadians and permanent residents available to do the work.
As you know, honourable senators, for the last few years, in specific sectors, labour shortages have been acute across this country.
[English]
Workers operating under this program play a vital role in many sectors of our economy, particularly in agriculture, hospitality, caregiving and the seafood industry. These workers sacrifice time away from their families and friends to support our food supply and our overall economy. We thank them.
They deserve and have the same respect, protection and rights of any worker. Any mistreatment or abuse of temporary foreign workers, or any worker, is always unacceptable and can never be tolerated.
[Translation]
To help enforce this, last fall, the government introduced new and stronger protections for temporary foreign workers through amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations.
The new measures include protections that ban employers from charging recruitment fees to workers, require employers to ensure workers know they have the same rights as Canadian workers, and provide access to health care services.
In fact, many employers are also required to provide private health insurance for emergency medical care until the public system kicks in.
Also last year, we provided an additional $14.6 million to improve the quality of employer inspections and strengthen measures that hold employers accountable for the treatment of workers.
[English]
We’ve also committed almost $30 million to support local community organizations helping temporary foreign workers start learning about their rights as soon as they arrive in Canada. This work includes providing airport arrival services and community-based supports to help address the power imbalance between workers and employers. They have been instrumental in building partnerships and helping workers exercise their rights and I want to thank these organizations for their important work.
Part of helping employers and protecting the health and safety of foreign workers is supporting employers that take their obligations seriously. Earlier this year I announced the Recognized Employer Pilot, or REP. It gives employers who have demonstrated the highest standards of protection for foreign workers as much support as possible to get the workers they need. We can certainly talk about that program in further detail should you wish.
Senators, we take this work seriously.
[Translation]
Let me be very clear: If an employer fails to meet the requirements or conditions of the program or does not cooperate during an inspection, there will be serious consequences. It happens.
[English]
We have imposed heavy fines. We will continue to make abusive employers pay. The fines are significant, up to $1 million. I wish to reiterate, we know that most employers are respectful toward foreign workers, but in cases of employers engaging in mistreatment or abuse or failing to live up to their obligations, we will find them and they will pay the price. There’s a new sheriff in town, and I say that as an Albertan and a Canadian. We’re not going to tolerate bad actors.
[Translation]
That is my pledge to you. Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, minister. I like your title, minister of jobs. Let’s use that as an anchor for our discussion. I should share with our witnesses, some members of the committee have just returned from a fact-finding mission in New Brunswick and P.E.I., and there are a few topline takeaways that I will put on the floor before my colleagues ask a question.
To a T, every employer we visited in P.E.I. and New Brunswick, whether they were ag farmers, dairy farmers, seafood processors or franchise owners of McDonald’s, they all said their business would close tomorrow without the migrant workforce.
We also heard from migrant workers, in private, and their associations, about the abuse; in particular, the abuse around housing and other issues they were subjected to. We have two different anecdotes here, and these are anecdotes. We are trying to get to the evidence to support our recommendations, which will be coming to you.
The first question goes to our deputy chair, Senator Cordy.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much, minister. You were able to say a lot in your time speaking with us. It’s great to have time to ask questions and follow up on a few things.
I’d like to speak to you about the foreign students who come to Canada. We heard witnesses yesterday, and we’ve also heard others who have come to Canada.
I’m from Nova Scotia, and we have a lot of universities. We have universities that have a high percentage of foreign workers who come to Canada to study. Many of them would like to have permanent residency at the end of their studies. While they are studying, many of them require part-time jobs to help supplement their living in another country.
We heard problems about the 20-hour time that they could work a week. We know that has been suspended until the end of the year so that they can work longer, if necessary. Certainly, our witnesses yesterday would like that to be permanent, that they could work longer than 20 hours.
Could you comment on that? Is there any move toward that? You may not be able to tell us, but at least that you recognize that many students do want that.
Second, we heard that employers are stealing wages. They’re not getting paid what they should be getting paid. If they complain, it’s not met with, “Oh, I’m really sorry. We’ll get you the money as soon as possible.” The response is often threatening, such as, “You want to stay in Canada? You want to be a student?”
We do know that the employees, in order to get permanent residency, need a reference from their employer, so they’re hesitant to cross the employer. The employer may decide they’re not going to write that letter for them on the road to permanent residency.
Could you speak about foreign students who are coming to Canada? I know universities in Nova Scotia depend on them. If you could comment on that, perhaps.
The Chair: Minister, your answer can be no longer than 1 minute and 45 seconds. You know the drill.
Colleagues, because of the interest, we are going to limit questions and answers to four minutes.
Mr. Boissonnault: It’s like the speed round, Senator Cordy.
Senator Cordy: We can talk later.
Mr. Boissonnault: I’m delighted to. International students are an important part of our economic fabric and of Canada, and we want international students who want to stay in Canada to stay.
The 20-hour rule, we pushed to get that removed. It’s 40 now. I had breakfast with Minister Miller and Minister Fraser this morning, and we talked about this issue. We will continue to study this issue and get the information from the ground.
I, personally, am a fan of continuing that ability. There are international students in my riding who have talked to me about this, as have international students across the country. In a time, colleagues, when we have 780,200 vacancies in the country, let’s use the labour force that is there, that wants to work. They are capable of balancing their studies and hours. We think 40 is the right number. There are some people who asked us to take it off entirely. I don’t want to go there. I’m sure the minister will share that with you when he comes.
On your other question — I have 36 seconds left, senator — I hear you on employees being reluctant to call out their employers because of the PR piece. I’m going to take that away with officials. You’ve stated that very clearly.
We have a tip line, 24-7, 200 languages, available every day of the week so that people can confidentially call out their bad actors. The employees don’t have to do it themselves. Agents in their consulate or in migrant worker supporting agencies can do that kind of call-out on their behalf, and we encourage them to do so.
Senator Osler: Thank you, minister. Congratulations on your appointment.
I’m interested to know more about the Migrant Worker Support Program. You mentioned the airport arrival services. Would you be able to provide the committee with information on how projects are selected, and is an equity lens applied? How are the funding amounts for each project determined? How is the impact of the Migrant Worker Support Program measured, the whole program, and what are the future plans for the Migrant Worker Support Program?
Mr. Boissonnault: All in four minutes or less, chair?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Boissonnault: I’ll be brief and then turn to officials because it’s a detailed question, senator.
Let me tell you who we work with: Polycultural Immigrant & Community Services out of Toronto; Calgary Catholic Immigration Society out of Alberta; S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Vancouver; Atlantic Region Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies; Association for New Canadians in St. John’s, Newfoundland; Immigrant Québec; TNO — The Neighbourhood Organization — out of Toronto; Workforce WindsorEssex; DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society in Surrey, British Columbia; and, MOSAIC out of Vancouver.
Those are our partners on the ground. We’ve boosted the money. It’s now $49.9 million that goes to them. That was a request from those migrant worker serving agencies. We responded to that.
When it comes to your technical questions, I’ll turn to officials.
I met with MOSAIC within two weeks of being minister. I heard where some of the wobbles in the system are, and we’ll work with that.
Let’s be clear, we need these organizations to identify the bad actors so that law enforcement can actually step in. No government is going to be able to do the work of making sure that employers are following all the rules.
I have a message before I turn to officials. If there’s anyone in this country that hosts a Labour Market Impact Assessment worker, and is willfully or by neglect abusing a worker, we’re going to make them compliant. We’re going to fine them, or we’re going to throw them out of the system.
Now officials on the detailed questions.
Paul Thompson, Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development Canada: I would add that in addition to the 11 organizations that receive direct funding, there’s a cascading model that goes down to about 100 other organizations to maximize the geographic reach. As a result of that, we have about 100,000 client interactions through the program. So it does have considerable reach out to workers.
If there are more detailed questions on how it’s administered, we’ll be happy to answer those.
Senator Osler: Are you able to provide a quick comment on plans for the program beyond 2024?
Michael MacPhee, Assistant Deputy Minister, Temporary Foreign Worker Program Branch, Service Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada: We are in the process of evaluating the effectiveness of the program right now. It is our intent to come back in short order to provide the minister with recommendations in terms of how we see that program moving forward.
Mr. Boissonnault: Senators, your work is important to guide me. I’ve been in the file for two months. I ran in 2015 on the platform to clean this program up.
It’s a different program than in 2015. The officials can give you the actual stats, but if you take out the ag sector, 50% of people want to have a pathway to permanent residency. That was not the case eight years ago. There’s an entire stream called the permanent residency stream.
This is not a perfect program. We want to make it better. We need your help to do that.
Senator Seidman: Thank you very much for being here, minister and officials.
Maybe we have to ask every question twice so we can get enough time to get answers. We’ll just repeat each other’s questions.
I’m looking at some pretty impressive graphs, charts, received from the Library of Parliament, with data from the Government of Canada, and the very steep increases since 2015 in every respect, including unique study permit holders, for example.
You say there are huge differences since 2015. Is the government intending to make this a permanent program instead of a temporary program?
In 2022, there were 807,000 unique study permit holders in Canada. That was up from 352,000 in 2015. That’s huge. The government, during COVID, eased the work-hour restriction on these international students.
From an employment and workforce development perspective, are these newcomers best understood as students or workers? Is the federal government properly investing in services for these newcomers? Is there a strategy to deal with the ever-louder calls for infrastructure needs?
Mr. Boissonnault: I have five minutes, chair, or four and a half?
The Chair: No, less.
Mr. Boissonnault: Senators, you have spent careers in this space and in this area. Don’t say this to my colleagues in the other place, but I think the EQ and IQ goes up when I come into the building here.
I need your help and guidance on how to figure the pathway. We have five streams. We have the primary agriculture stream, we have — I don’t like the title — the low wages stream, we have the high wages stream, we have Global Talent Stream, and we have the permanent residents stream. I can give you the breakdown of the percentages of the programs.
International students are a whole other part of the system.
At the time, the way the Minister of Immigration during COVID was able for us to achieve our targets was that we had permanent residents here — people here, ready to be permanent residents. We weren’t going to bring in many new people because the borders were closed. So what did we do? We went and looked at who was here, ready to become a permanent resident, and we achieved our goals by fast-tracking those people who were already here.
I can turn to officials for more on this, but international students are here, and they’re the responsibility of the institutions they come to. The employers have a duty of care to make sure they’re treated well. There was an overwhelming chorus from employers, student activist groups and international student groups. The Graduate Student Association at the University of Alberta was a big proponent of opening up the work permit hours so that students could have 40 hours. Will that be a permanent program? I can’t say that. Is the overall Temporary Foreign Worker Program going to be permanent? That is a much larger conversation.
You can see the numbers: The program has doubled in a year. Why? We have 780,200 job vacancies. That is the sector of our economy where Canadians and permanent residents don’t flock to take up jobs. We have international partners who have come to us to say, “We would like our workers to come to work in Canada.” That’s how this started. Mexico and Guatemala are our biggest partners. We have a bunch of partners in the Caribbean, as you know from your study.
There is an international dimension to this, too. As you know from the agriculture stream, a large percentage of those temporary foreign workers want to come here for a number of months, they want to work and they want to go back to their families. How do we square that with the fact that, as you have heard, we have employers who would shut their doors tomorrow if we didn’t have this program? Yet I can’t tell you what is going to happen with the economy. I was Associate Minister of Finance for a while. I looked at the trailing numbers. Do I know if we’ll be in a technical recession? No. However, I do know there is some softening in the labour market already. We’re seeing unemployment creep up.
It has to be a system that can be flexible and attuned to what’s happening in Canada, but I don’t want entire sectors of the economy closing because we don’t have this workforce at our disposition.
The Chair: Minister, this is Canada — we’re not some third-world country — and yet we heard stories that made us shudder. My question to you: What would your response be to open work permits that are sectoral or regional in nature to meet the demands of a region or a subsector of the economy? We heard this demand from employers as well, by the way.
Mr. Boissonnault: Senator, I live in the capital of Alberta, Edmonton, in an area called Inglewood. I was across 111th Avenue in the 2015 election, and I knocked on the door. Somebody barely opened it up, and I said, “Hi, I’m here to talk about the election” and they looked around the door. Then they said something, I caught it and then I started speaking in Spanish. The person said, “You look like an official person. I can’t talk to you” in Spanish. “I don’t know if I’ll get in trouble if I talk to you.”
Then we opened the door, and we had a good conversation with Juan. I said, “If I’m your MP, I’m going to take on this case. I’m going to make sure you feel you can talk to anybody who looks like an official.”
So, senator, we know there are cases that do not meet the aims of the program. We know there are bad actors. We put more money in the compliance system to catch them.
To the substance of your question on open work permits, we are studying what a sectoral open permit would look like. We have to look at the LMIA. Why is it there? The Labour Market Impact Assessment is there to make sure no Canadian or permanent resident wants or will take that job, and second — possibly primarily — so the employer understands their obligations to the worker they bring here. Then that person become vetted.
There is a risk that if we had an open work permit, someone who felt they were not treated well would leave a vetted employer for a unvetted employer and could actually be in more peril. There’s a risk there.
I won’t call it a perfect solution, but there is a safety measure for employees who feel they’re not being treated well. It’s not ideal, senator; I agree. It is possible for people to make that application. But I will take a cue from your report in terms of the importance of sectoral work permits.
I will be pretty clear: I’m pretty sure that all employers won’t like it, but if there are data and evidence that I can say it will keep workers safe, then my mind is very open to it.
The Chair: I will tell you that some employers really like the idea, because they cannot move an employee from one workplace to another because of the closed work permit — in the same outfit.
Very quickly, what would your response be to the creation of a national ombudsperson sort of institution with representation from migrant workers, employers and government — a tripartite model — on the EI Commission?
Mr. Boissonnault: It’s an interesting idea, and I look forward to reading it in your report, should it be there. Maybe my officials want to talk about what the department has done to make sure we have de facto oversight in the community.
The paper- and Zoom-based inspections — let’s be clear: Those were during COVID. We are back on the ground; people are doing the work on the ground. The other piece — I implore you — is to make sure the provinces understand their responsibilities in this space, because 90% of the regulations that employers face when they get to a province are in the hands of the province. There are some good actors. I’ve seen good work in Quebec and British Columbia. We need every province and territory to do their responsibility by workers when they need them to help their economy grow.
The Chair: Thank you, minister.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you, minister and your officials, for being here. I appreciate it.
My question will be slightly in a different perspective — more at the 3,500-foot level. The initial Temporary Foreign Worker Program was based upon an assumption that we need a short term of external labour injection utilization. It was in and out. That was the assumption.
It might have been fine for the time the program started, but it’s a different time now — decades later. What we’re hearing is that temporary foreign workers are essential to the life of rural communities. We went to Tignish, P.E.I., for example. There are exemplary workers. The Filipino community has brought life back to that community. The churches are now full, schools are full and grocery stores are actually carrying decent food.
The question is this: Why is the policy framework to this program still based on the assumptions of decades ago? Minister, isn’t it time to actually check the underlying assumptions that we have come to in order to develop the policy framework? Many of the problems we’re currently facing — and we heard all about them — at root cause are because the assumptions for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program do not meet the reality of Canada today, which is to support the growth of our rural communities as communities. So I’m asking you: Will you change the assumptions of the TFW program?
Mr. Boissonnault: Let’s have this conversation after a few more months on the file.
Let me state that I want to make sure we’re not making policy for a future time today. We’re in a labour-constrained market right now. Let’s a year or three from now we solve for 700,000 vacancies, or we have massive unemployment in a future scenario. That would change the underlying thinking about the program. We might find that, all of a sudden, communities would not be interested in temporary foreign workers coming, because people would be so interested in finding their work in their backyard.
Am I open to changing the fundamental premise behind the program? Absolutely. I do think that the data we’re collecting and the accountability we see with provinces is really part of this mix. Again, there are three departments involved: There’s us, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, and the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA. Then there is a panoply of provincial organizations responsible. I’ll be blunt: That’s where some of the patchwork of the implementation of the program happens.
In your report, if you can be very clear about what you think some of the fundamental, theoretical or philosophical underpinnings of the program should be to change to a modern workforce, I will take a look at it, because the Prime Minister asked me to do this job to build the modern 21st century workforce. If that permanently includes a workforce that comes here for a certain amount of time — the program is not temporary. It’s been going for 50 years. The workers are here temporarily. Maybe we have to change the nomenclature. Like the low wage stream; maybe we have to change the nomenclature.
I’m open to all of this, senator.
Senator Kutcher: I’m glad to hear you can walk and chew gum at the same time, minister. We can do both at the same time.
Mr. Boissonnault: Officials, thoughts? This is an open conversation. Did you see me using my scripts yet? I want to have a conversation, because we have to make the program better. Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson: There are some very different needs that are met by the different streams of the program. For example, the agriculture stream is shorter duration, recurring, with permanent needs in that regard. The other stream where we’ve seen more growth is on the non-cyclical stream which reflects a permanent shortage of workers in these areas. The minister noted that is where we have seen this greater conversion to permanent residency and a higher than 50% rate from that 2016-17 cohort that have gone on to the permanent residency. It’s important to think about the different use cases of the program where needs of the program that are served.
Senator Kutcher: All right. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: Congratulations on your new role, minister.
In this system where there are employers and employees, there are also not-for-profit organizations that provide reception and integration services. They meet two major challenges: The first is that they are in contact with the workers and they receive their complaints and concerns. However, it seems that there is no official mechanism put in place by the federal government to allow these agencies to be in constant dialogue with the federal government for sharing these concerns.
The second challenge is that these not-for-profit organizations work with francophone entrepreneurs who are asked to hire workers from anglophone regions or countries, which poses major challenges with respect to integration and language training.
Should the federal government not have a clear and precise strategy for matching these francophone countries with the francophone regions where the employees work?
Mr. Boissonnault: Thank you for the question.
I will answer the last question first. As the Minister of Official Languages, I am keenly interested in studying this issue very closely. The two departments enjoy a great partnership; I am well aware of the difficulties. We need to get to work on determining who in our existing pools come from francophone countries. We may need to consider other sources of francophone workers. I will take note of that because it is very important to me.
As for the report or comments from organizations that believe there are not enough direct ties between the government and the organizations, I will take your word for it. I will ask Mr. MacPhee to speak to this because the department’s mandate over the past few years has been to work closely with these organizations and improve them. A lot of money has been allocated to these organizations for the work to be done on the ground.
I think that when we have support from the provinces, the work is better; when we do not have that support, then things do not go as well.
If you have any suggestions or if the different organizations have any suggestions on how they could have a more direct link to the government, I would like to hear it because these are key organizations. Our officers cannot be on the ground 24 hours a day to work with the migrant workers, but we want these migrant workers to know that they have rights. The changes made to the protection program require employers to inform their employees that they have rights.
I will leave it to my colleague to address the issue of how we can connect directly with the organizations on the ground.
[English]
Mr. MacPhee: What the minister has highlighted is important in terms of the evolution of the program in just the last few years. We have implemented a series of changes that are designed to address that since 2021. In part, what is happening here is that those have not been fully communicated and we need to do a better job of getting out into the communities and making people aware of that.
In terms of the migrant worker support organizations, we just held a roundtable this past summer where they were invited to come to talk to us about the effectiveness of the program. It wasn’t just those 10 or 11 organizations that were part of it. It was other migrant worker support organizations that don’t receive funding. So we made sure we were hearing a balanced set of feedback.
Moving forward, one of the things we are looking at doing is establishing a more robust governance strategy where we have those ongoing touch points.
Senator Moodie: Congratulations, minister, on your appointment.
I agree with you, let’s deal with the here and now. As we toured through New Brunswick and P.E.I., we heard not infrequently that accountability and enforcing consequences is an issue for this program. It’s fairly well recognized that there is poor oversight, poor enforcement. Service Canada, unfortunately, came up frequently as being one of the main issues: irregular, infrequent visits or inspections; unclear processes to raise concerns from all aspects, people from across this issue.
You talk about a new sheriff in town and how you are going to fix this. Can you share with us how you think you can identify more effectively employers and bad actors in the face of this almost broken inspection and enforcement system.
Mr. Boissonnault: Senator Moodie, I appreciate your compassion and your passion on this issue. I can tell you that yesterday I issued the first of many statements that will come from my office, putting LMIA holders on notice that if they are breaking the rules, breaking the law, that the system is going to find them and fine them. And how? I’m making an appeal to enforcement agencies to make sure that they realize there is a responsibility that if companies are breaking the law, they have to do it. It’s not the government that holds people to account for breaking the law; that’s our enforcement agencies across the country. Yesterday we issued a news release to share with people, the number of inspections that were completed in the last fiscal year, 2,100, senators. Of these inspections, 94% were ultimately found compliant and 6% inspected were found non-compliant.
I’ll give you some more stats. As of April 22, 116 employers were found non-compliant with this program. Ninety-four employers have faced administrative monetary penalties totalling $1.53 million. Twenty-two employers were issued a warning and six employers are now banned from using the program, some for up to five years. Thirty seconds on this, senator, I’ll give you an example. An employer in the transport sector was penalized $258,000 and given a five-year ban from the program for failing to provide adequate wages, adequate accommodations and safe working conditions, among other violations. Another employer in the transport sector faces a $152,000 fine and a five-year ban from the system.
We are serious. I would like your recommendations on how we can do better in this space. I need cooperation from provincial governments, from the migrant-serving organizations and workers themselves to use the 24-7 tip phone line in 200 languages. There is a person to answer the phone from — you’ll tell me if this isn’t right, Mr. Thompson — 6:30 a.m. EST until 8:00 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday. There is a machine that takes the messages on the weekend and within 48 hours an agent responds to each and every one of those complaints. We are in the ninety-ninth percentile of dealing with those complaints. Officials, how can we do better to answer the senator?
Lori MacDonald, Senior Associate Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development Canada and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada: I would say, senator, it’s very fair to say that at the beginning of the program we really didn’t have our act together from an overall inspection compliance regime. It was new to us. We were building the program and learning as we went. We got hit with COVID, and that really set us back. We learned some hard lessons from that. What the minister has spoken about here in terms of really trying to strengthen. Over the last couple of years, we have put a lot of additional structure and support in place.
I take your comments very seriously, and we will follow up in terms of the tour that you just had. Because if there is a sense out there that it is unclear that the rules are not understood, that’s the kind of information we want to hear in order to make sure that we are actually communicating and implementing our compliance regime in a professional and appropriate way.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Minister, I too wish to congratulate you on your new role. I have two quick questions for you.
First, are the bilateral agreements absolutely necessary for foreign nationals from any country to access the Temporary Foreign Worker Program?
Second, as you surely know, I immigrated from Haiti in 1976; the Haitian diaspora in Canada already speaks our official languages. Would we not be better off regularizing the status of the thousands of undocumented Haitians and the thousands of Haitian asylum seekers in Canada, as professor Catherine Bryan said yesterday in committee in response to one of our questions?
Mr. Boissonnault: That is a good question. Thank you, senator, for your question. This question on asylum seekers and undocumented people, no matter where they come from, falls under the responsibility of my colleague Minister Miller.
As far as the bilateral agreements are concerned, I will ask Mr. Thompson or Mr. MacPhee about whether this should be official or if this simply gives us access to the consulate, if applicable, correct?
Mr. MacPhee: Yes, that is it. This applies specifically to seasonal agricultural workers. The program began in 1966 and we still have bilateral agreements with 12 countries. We review these agreements every year to ensure that they are in line with the demands of the countries.
Senator Mégie: Is there a way to add a francophone country like Haiti, not far from Canada, not far from Quebec and New Brunswick, which is also in need of francophones?
Mr. Boissonnault: When Senator Cormier asked his question, I thought of Haiti. Let us be honest, we do not have a formal agreement with Haiti, but that is certainly something we could look at. Mr. MacPhee, would you like to add to that?
[English]
Mr. MacPhee: We currently have the 12 agreements associated with the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. We are in the process of looking to see how we can expand that as part of a larger program reforms, and then we would make a determination of which additional countries we would want to bring in based upon the requirements. It is, certainly, a piece of work that’s on the agenda.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you. I will keep an eye out and my ear to the ground.
Mr. Boissonnault: Senators’ comments, whether harsh or encouraging, also help us to build programs.
Senator Mégie: That is it. Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Dasko: Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I have two questions, which are a bit of a follow-up to questions that you have already been asked.
Minister, you did say that there is a need to identify the bad actors. Senator Moodie’s question asked you about this, but I just want to pursue it a little more. When we were travelling in Eastern Canada — P.E.I. — it was known in communities who the bad actors were. Everybody knew it was these companies — everyone knew that. I wonder why you didn’t know it. Why didn’t the department know it? Why did those companies seem to continue to be operating? Is there a missing piece here? Why is it that everybody knows, and yet the system doesn’t pick it up?
Mr. Boissonnault: That’s the first question.
Senator Dasko: Yes.
Mr. Boissonnault: I think there are degrees. I talked to the officials about this before we came here. Employers have to satisfy 28 conditions. For example, during COVID, they had to make sure employees knew where the hand sanitizer was. That was one of the criteria. If that’s not done, that employer is determined to be non-compliant. They have to do basic health and safety issues. So the question is this: When the people you met said they were bad actors, what are we talking about? Was it no housing, no access to health care, not paying wages or too many people in a room? What is the nature of the — let’s use this term — infraction? Because if an employer is breaking the law, then local enforcement needs to do their job and charge them — full stop. I hope it comes clearly out of this report that law enforcement has a role to play in labour laws. If there is a crime being committed, those employers should be held to account.
From our side, I can tell you what we’ve done. We have improved training, as Ms. MacDonald mentioned. Why does that matter? Because the agents we have need to be well trained, so they know how to dig into these issues on the ground. There need to be workload strategies to make sure that people are able to get the work done. The work with the stakeholders is critical. When MOSAIC tells me that they know there are three bad actors in the interior of B.C., that is a signal to me that I can then follow up on. The tip line is very important and so are the consular inspections. When the consuls come in and decide they’re going to go and see a site, that is a wake-up call to that employer that there is probably some infraction going on or it’s time for a check-in.
Officials can talk about what else we’re doing, but I want to make sure this program has teeth. Getting rid of the bad actors is actually going to make the people doing the good work —
[Translation]
— we can promote the good employers by expelling the bad actors from the system.
[English]
Mr. Thompson: I would just add that our tip line is actually very active. It gets 5,000 calls a year, and those get immediately triaged. The urgent ones where there are significant violations get referred to law enforcement agencies, and others get referred to our inspection teams. So there is a very rigorous tracking and follow-up on these.
Perhaps some of the future work is to bring even more visibility, less intimidation and fewer barriers to using that tip line where we can pursue anonymously —
Senator Dasko: Perhaps we’re talking about delays, then, in the information that’s flowing to you. I mean, if the community knows —
Mr. Thompson: That is an area that we have been trying to tighten up, too — the delay between getting a tip and acting on it. As Mr. MacPhee was alluding to, 48 hours is kind of our ideal standard for taking action on a significant —
Senator Dasko: You mentioned earlier you have various degrees of sanctions: warnings and penalties, et cetera.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you, minister, and welcome to our committee.
What are you going to do, what is your game plan? You talked about inspections, penalties, protections, tools; the tip line keeps coming up and that is great.
On the other hand, we have heard here from people from every sector, including students and organizations that represent them. We know this exists, but the vast majority of vulnerable workers are not going to reach out to these organizations because of their vulnerable situation. These same organizations told us that these students are still hesitant and are afraid to use the tools we give them because of the inequality in the balance of power between the employers and employees.
My question is: Is anyone addressing the source of this vulnerability, this imbalance of power either through one-worker contracts or letters that students are required to have to apply for permanent residence, and so on? Is anyone addressing the balance of power, which is imbalanced?
Mr. Boissonnault: Thank you very much, Senator Petitclerc.
I want to take this opportunity to mention to the senators that we were at the Saint-Jean campus at the same time in the 1990s, at the University of Alberta, in the good old days.
First, we need to be clearer about the existing protections for migrant workers, period. Second, we need better partners to accomplish more work on the ground. Third, the bad actors need to know that we are on to them and we will remove them from the system. I want to be very clear about that.
I would also like to take this opportunity to address the temporary foreign workers: Allow me to directly tell you that you have rights and there is a tip line available in 200 languages. I want to know if there is a bad actor in the system; I am taking note of this, as minister. We will take action that measures up to your needs to ensure that you are healthy and safe in Canada [Spanish spoken].
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, minister. That was very impressive. You are using this committee meeting to talk directly to the workers in Canada.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: First of all, I want to applaud the almost Don Quixote-like energy and determination to tackle this terrible issue that is marring our reputation on human rights.
I’m going to ask you a rather difficult question. You talked about rights, practically equal rights for these workers and Canadians, yet that is not the case. By definition, farm workers have open permits, whereas any Canadian can change jobs at will depending on how they’re treated. I echo exactly what Senator Petitclerc said: It’s the fundamental discrepancy in the balance of power that makes the difference. Closed work permits are at the heart of the problem. As the rapporteur said, I worked on modern slavery as part of my bill, Bill S-211, and what we’re talking about here — a constraint akin to forced labour.
Closed permits allow employers to threaten their employees, with impunity, or make them work longer hours by saying that they will be sent home if they don’t do as they’re told. Clearly, there’s a problem. I’d like you to address this as a human rights issue. You’re very optimistic and very confident on the issue of inspections, but given the spheres of provincial jurisdiction — I’m thinking about Quebec — and terms of both inspections and police work, how can you be so certain of being successful?
Mr. Boissonnault: Thank you very much. I’ll answer your question and continue my response to Senator Petitclerc. The questions are similar, but different. First of all, I must work with Minister Miller, because he manages work permits.
That said, I’m certain that if the data or your report are able to convince me that open permits are going to help us clean up the system, I’ll look into it. We can certainly implement that solution. We have the capacity. I would need to gauge employers’ reactions to it, because they are investing time and money. The good ones won’t be nervous about these developments, because they know their employees will stay. I need the recommendations of this esteemed committee to do my job.
You mentioned the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. I want you to know, honourable senators, that I take the report seriously. We don’t agree with all the comments in it. For example, the 20-hour threshold for foreign students has become a 40-hour threshold. There are other things we don’t agree with, but even the rapporteur said that the vast majority of employers here in Canada treat their employees well.
That is a question I put to my colleagues at the department. How can we send a clear signal to migrant workers that they have rights? How can we make employers more accountable so that they do their jobs properly? I am asking organizations in the field, as well as our colleagues in the labour and employment sectors, across all provinces and territories, to be our partners. Otherwise, we won’t have a system for the future.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My question was about closed permits. Does it reflect our reputation for defending human rights around the world?
[English]
The Chair: We have to ask for a written response to that question. We have five minutes left and lots of senators for the second round. What I propose is that we pose our questions and the minister and officials can get back to us in writing.
Mr. Thompson, you provided some insight into the Migrant Worker Support Program. If you could send us that data; specifically, if you have any impact evaluations or assessments on the rollout of the program.
Could you also tell us if advance notice is given to employers when you do your audits or is it managed? Third, have you done any employee engagement surveys of the temporary foreign workers? There are 204,000 temporary foreign workers. That is a finite number. You can get to them because you have access to them in different languages. Have you considered or done any employee engagement surveys?
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: I come from a province with a large seafood processing industry. Why isn’t there a program comparable to the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program for seafood processing? It’s something we’ve asked for and demanded.
[English]
Senator Moodie: I would like to focus on the Recognized Employer Pilot Program. We heard about the confusion that ensued when the program was launched. We heard about poor integration with other intersection programs, some run by IRCC that created chaos and conflicting rules. This raises little confidence that the government is managing this program effectively and efficiently.
I would like to hear about some of the ways in which you make sure that, as agencies speak to each other and smooth out some of the ripples that will naturally occur when one changes profoundly the rules around a particular stream of the program, others don’t seem to know about it. But that’s what we heard.
Senator Osler: One concern that was raised with this committee was international workers’ access to adequate health insurance. For example, employers are required to provide health insurance but insurance coverage varied. Sometimes it was travellers insurance, emergency only. Some work permit lengths were too short for the workers to become eligible for provincial health insurance. One recommendation that was given to this committee is that the Government of Canada should extend the Interim Federal Health Program to temporary foreign workers. Has that been considered? I would appreciate hearing your thoughts.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues, for your questions, and thank you, minister and officials, for your answers. As you can see, we could have talked to you for another three hours. But we will be in touch. The report will be coming forward at some point, and we expect a robust response to our recommendations. Thank you very much.
Joining us today for our second panel, we welcome, from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, also known as IRCC, Christiane Fox, Deputy Minister; Louise Baird, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy; and Jean-Marc Gionet, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations. Mr. Michael MacPhee, Assistant Deputy Minister with Employment and Social Development Canada, also known as ESDC, is staying on with us to give us further perspectives on this topic, and he will be available to answer questions. Thank you so much for joining us all today. We know you’re very busy people with very important jobs, but we really value your input into our deliberations.
You will have five minutes for your opening statements, which will be followed by questions from our members.
Ms. Fox, I assume you will be speaking for your department.
Christiane Fox, Deputy Minister, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to appear, and thank you to the members. I want to start by acknowledging that we are here today on the unceded, traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.
[Translation]
I’d like to start by saying that immigration plays an important role in our economic and social policies. Canada’s recent labour force growth has almost entirely been due to immigration, a trend that should continue in the future. However, we need support, decent plans, good policies and programs to support the arrival of immigrants.
To support employers and the economy, the Government of Canada offers a number of programs for temporary foreign workers and thousands of people who become permanent residents each year.
[English]
Many of our programs are employer-driven, where a demonstrated lack of available workers in Canada has been identified. It is important to note that all foreign nationals working in Canada have the same rights as Canadian citizens, including fair wages and workplace protections. IRCC works alongside Employment and Social Development Canada, and provinces and territories, all of which play a role in worker safety, legislation and regulations.
[Translation]
The federal government has a robust compliance system to create safe working environments, inspect working conditions and ensure workers’ essential rights.
Last year, we further strengthened regulations by requiring that employers inform workers of their rights, that an employment contract — which includes wages and working conditions — be in place, that no costs or fees be passed on to workers by employers, and that there be protection against employer retaliation when workers file complaints. In addition, employers are required to provide health care services in the event of occupational illness or injury.
[English]
Through enforcement measures, employers face fines, or temporary or permanent bans from foreign worker programs for violations. The majority of employers follow requirements and respect workers, and we do conduct inspections to detect those that do not.
We have several different pathways to permanent residency for temporary workers seeking to remain in Canada. Through them, 177,000 temporary residents transitioned to permanent residents in 2022. Those include workers, students, et cetera. This includes targeted programs in the past, such as the temporary resident to a permanent resident pathway for workers in health care, recent graduates from Canadian educational institutions and other essential workers outside of health care.
We are also working on pathways for undocumented workers. In the Greater Toronto Area, or GTA, IRCC worked with labour leaders on a pathway to permanent residence for out-of-status construction workers. We did similar initiatives for Guardian Angels home care providers. Candidates who entered Canada legally, who had their status lapse and were continuing to contribute to the construction industry or through Guardian Angels program through home care and PSW work were able to stay and continue a path to permanent residence.
Overall, temporary residents continue to make up an important part of Canada’s immigration efforts. Our increased processing capacity and the modernization of our efforts are speeding up the reviews and reducing our inventories.
[Translation]
We are aware of the consequences of immigration, particularly in areas of the country where housing is hard to find. Housing is a complex issue and immigration is not the cause of the current crisis; it is one of the contributing factors.
We need to remember that foreign workers are helping to build more housing to alleviate this problem.
[English]
We will continue to work with federal partners, provinces and territories to develop programs and policies to respond to the challenges the country faces.
Thank you very much for having me today. I look forward to having a conversation and answering your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Fox. We will go to questions. Colleagues, we will have five minutes, as usual, for questions and answers.
Senator Cordy: I’ll ask two questions.
We heard of the agents that students or temporary foreign workers use. We heard that most are very good agents, but unfortunately, as with many things, there are some who might not be the best; they might, in fact, be unethical agents. Is there a registry available so that people can look at it and find agents they should use with a proven track record?
My second question is related to health care. I know you and minister both spoke about health care for temporary foreign workers who come into the country. There was a recent case in Nova Scotia — I’m not sure if you heard about it — where the temporary foreign worker came to Canada and, a short while later, was diagnosed with cancer and unable to work. So the employer — I’m not going to say “fired her” — but she didn’t stay with the employer, so she immediately lost her health care. It was lucky that she had some really good people within the community who were able to help her. She did receive health care and she did find shelter to stay in.
What happens with those cases? It can’t be an isolated case. Do the temporary foreign workers have somebody they can call and say, “Help me out of this situation”?
Ms. Fox: Thank you for the question. I would start with the issue of consultants. Obviously through our communications and efforts, we always encourage people to use licensed consultants.
We officially launched, back in November of 2021, the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, which is intended to be an agency outside of government that looks at the operations of consultants. It promotes a list of consultants people should be using. Then, when they do investigations and they find that perhaps there’s someone not acting in a way that is of conduct, then the college has measures in place to deal with that.
The reason why it’s important for us to communicate effectively is the college manages their registry of registered consultants. There are a lot of actors in this space who don’t register and they charge enormous fees. Our push is to use this space, be clear about what you should and should not be paying as fees. Then when there are issues with consultants, the college can deal with it directly and we can have follow-ups with either the employers or the workers themselves.
We’ve obviously tried to strengthen those ethical practices that we need to see out of consultants and tried to be clear on the expectation to operate in this space.
On your second question, this is not an easy balance between people who want to come to Canada on a temporary basis. We have this notion of the circular economy where they can give back to their countries and they like to come to Canada on a rotational basis and go back home. There are people who come here with the hope of permanent residency, which is why we created these pathways.
In the context of health care workers, we are very mindful of the gaps that exist.
When a worker finds themselves in a bad situation either because of abuse or health, we have other options and tools we can deploy to help the individual worker.
For instance, in the context of a closed work permit aligned with an employer, we can look at what are the options to offer an open work permit. That can be as a result of someone claiming that they have been abused in a workplace, that their working conditions are not up to standard, and as such we can make that decision.
We can also issue temporary resident permits, or TRPs, quickly. These are meant to be on a humanitarian, compassionate, urgent case basis to help people regularize their status as we work to what we will do in the future.
I can’t speak to the specific case of Nova Scotia, but we look at pathways and channels to support temporary foreign workers if they find themselves in an unreasonable situation or a difficult, challenging situation.
The Chair: Colleagues, I will give Senator Cormier his five minutes, as he must leave by 1 p.m. I hope you agree.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: During our missions, we heard a lot of anecdotes, but clearly there is a lack of conclusive data, making it harder to understand the immigration situation, especially on the ground.
What steps are you taking to enhance your data collection and analysis? How might data collection for immigration programs be better standardized across departments and jurisdictions? We lack verifiable facts, so it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the challenges faced by employers and employees in the field.
Ms. Fox: Thank you very much for the question. I would say that data sharing is essential to collaboration within the federal government. Between the two temporary workers programs, there is a fair bit of data on applications. We collect data almost every month, and it gives us a picture of the number of workers who are in Canada over a given period and in which sector, and whether they are meeting the labour shortage challenges. There is a decent amount of data.
There needs to be greater collaboration with the private sector when it comes to sharing data. That would foster a better understanding of future labour shortages and challenges, meaning that we could have strategies in place to meet the needs of specific employees in specific sectors. Absolutely, we could be better at sharing data.
Also, in terms of the public, we could ensure that there is greater transparency with respect to what departments require of private companies in order to participate in the temporary worker program and have specific access. We have internal data showing that there seems to be a need there. More of an effort could be made.
In the past year, we’ve posted more information on active applications, processing times and country-of-origin data, but we’re open to other suggestions if that’s not enough.
Senator Cormier: Do you have more specific data on working conditions and employee complaints? That’s our concern here at the committee. We want to get an accurate picture of the situation for workers, based on facts and data.
Ms. Fox: I have some data I can share now, and we can provide more later. The department has a system that allows people to file anonymous complaints. As a result of these complaints, we were able to carry out almost 570 inspections. That’s an important statistic.
Last year, in 2022, we were able to issue over 1,000 open permits following reports of incidents, abuse or problematic working conditions. That’s another statistic. This year, so far, from January to August, we are seeing approximately the same numbers.
We could send you this kind of data to give you an overview of the number of inspections and the actions that follow. We also have details on penalties, on the sums of money paid out following administrative financial sanctions. We’ve collected this data from the department, and we could certainly provide it to the committee.
Senator Cormier: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Seidman: Thank you for being with us.
Throughout our study, my colleagues have heard from all sides that Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program is difficult to navigate. Because it’s so difficult to navigate, as you’ve heard, there are unscrupulous middlemen taking advantage of workers. What is the federal government doing to make IRCC’s programs easier to navigate?
Ms. Fox: It’s an excellent question and one that we’ve at times struggled with. Obviously, the complexity of the immigration system at times is important for the right checks and balances in place along the way. We have consistently tried to challenge ourselves to think less about lines of business, transactions and programs and inventory, and turn it around to think about the people who interact with our system. How do we do that in a way to be a bit more transparent, to have a system that’s easier to navigate?
We have an opportunity through the modernization of the immigration system to hit just that. What is that client journey when they come into our process? In a kind of paper-based environment, for a long time, we didn’t necessarily always have the flexibility to be able to pivot and respond quickly. What we’re working on within our department and what we’re trying to deploy incrementally is two things. One, we are working on a modernized system where we’re mapping out client journeys. You want to come to Canada as a worker, here are the things you should know. You may want to come as a worker and study here. Here’s what you should know. Modernizing that approach to what is the platform that they experience?
In the interim, while we continue to design that work — and that’s not done overnight and there are complexities in doing it — how can we add a bit of client service focus to our existing programs, things like even application trackers and for people to better understand where they are in the process, where they can seek help?
I won’t hide the fact that over the COVID period and when we were in the heat of our backlog challenges last summer and when I arrived in the department, we had a lot of work to do to get through the backlog. Putting in place a system where we can have active conversations and have more real-time information that is user-friendly is a focus of ours to avoid the use of people.
I met with an individual. It really worried me when I met with this individual, who is an international student now working in Canada, who knew that there were shortcomings in the system but knew our system exceptionally well. He went to a series of consultants. In almost every case — he was almost testing out the system — those consultants were trying to charge him for things that he didn’t need to be charged for. For me, it was very telling that this is the reality that people experience.
We need, as a government, to be more upfront with our information and user-friendly, with plain language, with our information to avoid that and try to decrease it and encourage people. If we can align a modernized service with good processing and service standards, then people won’t feel the need to try to work around the system, that they can use the system effectively.
We’re not quite there yet, but that’s definitely where we want to get to as an organization.
The Chair: Ms. Fox, while we were in the Maritimes and New Brunswick, we met a lot of Filipino temporary foreign workers. They informed us that the Filipino government requires them to use an agent for processing their papers and that they must pay a pretty hefty fee. Were you aware of this?
Ms. Fox: I am aware that some countries do have a front-end process through their exit requirements. I wasn’t familiar with the Filipino example specifically. I’ll definitely look into it after hearing about it. Unfortunately, sometimes there is not a lot we can do outside our jurisdiction. I think through better communications about what people need to come here and better bilateral engagements — the Philippines is obviously a country we work closely with. We have a bigger footprint now in Manila with some of our strategies around Indo-Pacific, so this is definitely a conversation we can have with them.
Senator Osler: Thank you all for being here. I’ll build on some of what we’ve been talking about in terms of navigating the system and some of the middle people that we’ve heard about.
In your vision of modernizing the immigration system, how do you see some of these immigration consultants fitting into the system? Despite the establishment of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants in 2021, the committee has heard multiple stories of issues in-country and in their source countries with immigration consultants. For example, there seems to be significant variations in the fees that are charged.
Does the college have caps to the fees that are charged to the immigrants? Who determines the amounts charged by the consultants? Finally, what would your vision be for the new system? Will the government be able to become that source of information such that the workers might not need to rely on immigration consultants to such a large degree?
Ms. Fox: That is an excellent question. My reflection on that and what I would share today is the college was, in fact, created, and it’s pretty early days. We’re probably not yet seeing the full impact of, hopefully, where we see a system that gets better over time.
The registered consultants who act on behalf of their clients in a manner that represents integrity and respect and fits into the system, there will be a place for them in the system moving forward. If we can be clear on not only the expectations of professional standards but the consequences of not necessarily abiding by those standards, I think it will help us build a stronger immigration system. That has to be coupled with good information, not just to consultants but as we work with other countries, employers, and directly with clients who want to come to Canada. We have to do a better job of communicating the benefits, the importance and, frankly, the expectation that people will deal with consultants who are registered, who are part of our system, who can help them navigate without taking advantage of them.
That’s the end state and the future state. As we get there, we need to constantly think about how we, as a government, put systems in place to take away the power of these consultants to navigate the system.
I’ll give a similar example. In the international student program, this is a very big concern. The integrity measures that we need to think about to enhance our international student program are partly aligned with how you remove these bad consultants from the system. We’ve been talking with universities and colleges across the country and saying, “We have a huge international student population. There are enormous benefits to the country with that, but do we have the right integrity measures in place to avoid some of the unintended outcomes of bad actors?”
Some of the models that we’ve been looking at are, if you want to have access to the international student program, what integrity measures are you putting in place as an institution to have access to the program? You could mirror that with the trusted employer model. That’s probably not the right word, but you mirror that so that by the criteria you set, you hopefully weed out the opportunity for people to take advantage. Sadly, there are people who try to do this all the time, but if we can refine those criteria, I think it helps us get to a better end state.
Senator Osler: Thank you.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you, deputy. It’s nice to see you again.
My follow-up will be on the student issue. I thank you for those discussions about university accountability. Certainly, listening to what you’re talking about. I think that’s really important.
I’d like to focus on a slightly different area that we heard about recently, the issue of wage theft for international students and protections for international students who are currently in the workforce. There are many issues around this, but the wage theft issue is an important one.
There was a recent study done in 2020 out of the University of New South Wales on this particular issue in Australia, and it showed that about three quarters of international students were being paid below the minimum wage, and about 40% of those students did not report issues because of fear of reprisals. We heard anecdotes about this from witnesses testifying to us yesterday.
Do we have an idea of how common this problem is across the country? Is there a database? Is there a collection of data from international students that looks at their work experience in a way that we can actually find out what their work experience is? Is funding provided to student organizations that support international students that would allow them to advocate on behalf of those students to the federal government? Also, the issue of provincial Labour Codes and enforcement, that bedevils us.
The other thing is that Australia has a Fair Work Ombudsman. It may be an interesting model to look at for international students who really have that challenge. That’s the issue.
Ms. Fox: Thank you very much. I would say that these are all excellent points. Some of them we’re grappling with within the department in the context of how you facilitate international students contributing to the economy and, frankly, having an opportunity to work and earn wages while they are here in Canada, without taking away from the fact that they’re here on a study permit to study. How do you get that right balance?
This came to a head when we put in the measures around COVID to lift the 20-hour workweek for international students. It was unlimited if you worked on campus; it was 20 hours if you worked off campus.
I think there was a mixed reaction to that. On one side, people were quite happy that students were able to contribute to the economy. To a certain extent, if it’s done through appropriate employment-employee codes and standards, then you maybe avoid that wage suppression and being paid below the minimum wage. We were hearing anecdotally a lot of students were working 20 hours and then would work other jobs under the table. That’s when the surfacing of perhaps less-than-ideal working conditions were being brought to our attention.
We are thinking about the 20-hour workweek and seeing how you preserve the benefits of having the ability for students to work regular work hours in work conditions that Canada supports, which means minimum wage and up and the balance between they are here to study and we don’t necessarily want the bad actors to have people come here through a study permit where, really, it’s a conduit to a work permit. So it’s trying to get that balance right.
We do have data in terms of how many students are working, but if they are working sort of under the table, obviously that would not be reported through our measures.
The other thing you talked about student organizations and student supports. We, as a department, fund a lot of settlement organizations and I think some of them are based on campus and some are, by de facto, the college or institution in the rural or regional area. I think there are some supports from the federal government.
Part of the reflections we have been having around the student population and the international students, because we want international students to perhaps take a pathway to a permanent residency here in Canada, what types of supports do they need to make that transition successfully for themselves, for the country. The questions that we are also asking institutions are those institutions are charging a very high amount for international student fees, and part of the criteria that we are reflecting on for a model that looks at the student program differently is how much of those fees are going back into the student, mental health supports, employment supports. That would be an interesting model to look at because there is a high reliance on tuition fees to operate the universities or colleges versus going back into the students, and that’s one thing we’re having an active conversation on.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: I asked the minister a question, and he said that it was more the responsibility of his colleague, Minister Miller. I think Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or IRCC might be able to answer me.
We know that temporary foreign workers want to obtain a permanent visa, always with the aim of filling labour shortages. I am wondering if it would be advantageous — given what was in La Presse today about new asylum seekers and the exploding number of temporary workers — or if there would be a way to regularize the thousands of undocumented migrants, the thousands of asylum seekers currently living in Canada. According to Quebec’s minister, they’re spread all across Canada, and she is okay with that. Is there a way to appeal to them too and offer them a permanent visa?
Ms. Fox: Thank you for the question. Indeed, the department is working closely with several organizations to identify options for regularizing the situation of people here in Canada who are in vulnerable situations because they don’t currently have status. We’ve taken steps, starting with construction and personal care services, such as orderlies. We need to look at the systems in place to regularize people’s status.
This is not an easy challenge to overcome. Estimates of the number in Canada range from 200,000 to 500,000 people. These figures are based on information provided by our partners and the data we have here. In the government, we’re thinking about the best options for offering permanent residency status.
At the same time, how can we create conditions so that people feel comfortable raising their hand and telling us they are without status? How can we think about integration based on immigration thresholds? The government tables an immigration plan every year. How do we integrate 200,000 to 500,000 people? The department is thinking about that.
If there’s one issue I’m particularly concerned about, it’s asylum seekers. Internationally, there are 110 million displaced people around the world. Because of its geography, Canada doesn’t receive the same volume as its partners in Europe. However, we have seen exceptional volumes in this country. There were nearly 92,000 asylum seekers last year, and we’re expecting even higher numbers this year.
We need to look at the decision-making system for protecting people. Last Saturday in Toronto, I met asylum seekers in our social housing system. They told me they want to contribute. They want work permits, and they want to use their skills to help Canada. We need to make an effort to work with the private sector and individuals so we can match them up, recognizing the assets of people who come to Canada. It’s not an easy file to manage, but it’s one that’s close to our hearts here at the department.
Senator Mégie: Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Moodie: Thank you, deputy, for being here today. You have undertaken a significant amount of work, playing catch-up, fixing, rethinking. But there are real issues in real time emerging in the system in which agencies operate in parallel and fail to communicate effectively. You mentioned the Recognized Employer Pilot program. We heard as we were travelling through Eastern Canada, in New Brunswick and P.E.I., about the confusion when this program was launched. We heard about poor integration with other intersecting programs that created chaos with conflicting rules. This raises a lot of concern and lack of confidence, frankly, that the government is managing the programs effectively.
I would appreciate your comments and how you think your agency can communicate better to ensure that as things are rolled out such as a critical program like this, that you are talking to another agency, where rules that directly conflict can be adjusted prospectively and not in hindsight.
Ms. Fox: Thank you for the question. The utmost priority of the federal departments involved in the temporary foreign worker space is to ensure that the same rights we apply to Canadian citizens are applied to foreign workers who find themselves with different employers and companies across the country. We’re trying to navigate a system of being responsive to what the country needs in terms of economic labour force and balanced by rights of employees through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and our International Mobility Program.
We work very closely with ESDC on enforcement, measuring the impact of our interventions with employers, and communications. Is there room for improvement? I would say, always. We learn from the models that we put in place. We work very closely together to strike that right balance and being clear on the expectations that we have on companies. Through those discussions is how we try to improve.
As a result of discussions between ESDC and IRCC and communications with some of our employers and employees who have been part of the TFW program — like in September of last year, we decided to try to do more because people didn’t necessarily understand the rights they had in Canada. Doing more on communication, that was really about what we heard from temporary foreign workers who had gone through our system, and the fact that through that joint work we know that there was a gap. That was one change.
Have a signed employment agreement. Again, these are practices that temporary foreign workers wouldn’t necessarily know unless we made sure that they were aware and making sure that employers know what their responsibilities are with respect to access to health care, if issues arise at the workplace, et cetera. I flagged these kinds of additional changes that we made in September because it’s a direct result of what we’re hearing on the ground.
We’re also trying to set up systems where people can make complaints anonymously. They can make complaints to organizations like ours to try to change their work permit. If someone comes to us and says, “I’m in a bad working condition,” we have the ability to give them an open work permit. We have the ability, through not a lot of disclosure information but through compassionate and facilitative grounds, to offer open work permits. If there is a lack of clarity through some of the employers that you met in Atlantic Canada, we want to know more about that because we want to try to fill those gaps.
I had a lot of conversations in Atlantic Canada with the private sector about needing more workers for their communities to survive and for their plants to operate. So we created the New Brunswick Critical Worker Pilot. We asked not just for governments to facilitate workers, but we actually placed accountability on the employers to say, “Can you do on-the-job site language training? What types of supports are you providing people? What are the housing options in your location?” That’s one example of a response, but there could be more.
Senator Moodie: To clarify, many of the organizations we spoke to are family organizations. They’re small operations. They don’t have deep resources with HR. Complicated processes are difficult. You heard earlier about how to make it simpler, more transparent — and I’m adding this next word — and aligning with other programs.
Ms. Fox: Okay.
Senator Dasko: Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
I have a question that I wanted to ask the minister but I didn’t have enough time in my spot in the last hour.
This program seems to be an integral part of the ecosystem of the country in terms of supplying labour force and an integral part of the economy, as we have learned over the last several months.
The key to the program is the tied contracts with employers. We have heard from activists who came to speak to us that we have to get rid of this because this is the source of exploitation. We have also heard from people, for example, labour representatives, who said, “We actually don’t need the tied contracts because if workers were paid more, we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.”
Is there any way to run this program without the tied contracts? Is it possible to run it without that or is this an absolutely essential component of this program?
Ms. Fox: That’s an excellent question. We have reflected on that a lot. Even if you talk to some of the businesses in this space, obviously they have an interest in a closed work permit because they have recruited a workforce and they are coming. Those who are good actors sometimes say that if we opened the permit, then they would invest all of these resources to bring in people — sometimes small businesses; sometimes large — and then people could go to work for someone else and maybe not have the greatest experience. That’s kind of the business perspective.
On our side, sometimes the benefit of a closed work permit is you know exactly who the employer is and you can then put them under our regime. If somebody comes here and they are linked to an employer through an employer-led work permit, then we can do inspections and monitoring and have interactions with that business. The level of an open work permit would make that a more challenging environment from an enforcement standpoint because tracking the worker employment would be challenged by an open work permit.
That said, there are programs that are temporary in nature and have open work permits built into them, like the International Mobility Program. There are options where, if someone is working in bad conditions, they can get an open work permit. We issued over 1,000 last year in that context, where people come to us. It is a delicate balance, and we continuously challenge ourselves to think about better ways to administer it. However, the closed work permit does allow for an enforcement that you don’t see in an open work permit.
I don’t know, Mr. MacPhee if you want to add anything from an ESDC standpoint.
Mr. MacPhee: No. Chris has done a great job of articulating that. In the last hour, the minister highlighted that we are interested in hearing the findings from the committee because we recognize that it is a tension point and a source of where a lot of the issues are being raised. We’re looking to undertake any way in which we can enhance the program and make it beneficial to workers and employers.
Ms. Fox: We did do a public policy piece that allows for people to change employer. They come in on a closed work permit, and they can change employer. That could be as a result of the plant that they were working in closed and they’d like to stay in Canada, so they go somewhere else. It could be as a result of abuse or of a change that they wish to undertake. It’s not impossible to make that change. We have put in public policy to facilitate that. But we are very open to hearing views and what you have heard from both businesses and workers in that standpoint.
Senator Dasko: We have heard that this is the source of the dependency and exploitation contained in the system. That is the crux of the problem from that perspective.
The Chair: Thank you for the question, Senator Dasko. Let me explore that a little and share with you what we heard in the region. There is nothing quite like travelling across Canada and talking to people to get a sense of where their lives are.
The fear of reprisal is huge. People have heard about the closed-to-open work permit stream you have, but migrant worker advocates tell us that it is extremely difficult and individuals have suffered as a result of coming out in the open.
Have you had any policy discussions about open work permits that are limited to a sector in a region? In that case, you would be able to balance the needs of both workers and employers. I should tell you that employers tell us they don’t like the closed work permit because it prevents them from moving an employee from one of their plants to another of their plants. This year, the lobster season has not been impressive and they have not been able to provide 30 hours of work. Those workers could have easily worked in blueberry picking but, again, the closed work permit does not allow them to do that. This is texture that we would like to share with you. Have you considered a work permit that is limited to a sector and a region?
Ms. Fox: Thank you for raising that, Madam Chair. Definitely, we have considered it. That is interesting to hear. The two things that you have said around open to a sector and a region would be helpful for us in the context that there are big labour gaps across the country, but capacity to absorb is different across the country. If you think about arrivals in Toronto versus St. John’s, New Brunswick, those are very different pressure points of our capacity to absorb. Sector and region would allow for that flexibility, where not everybody moves to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa and beyond.
The other thing that we have been contemplating is, if you think about a kind of 12-month cycle, could you have work permits that are open to multiple sectors, for example, if it’s a seasonal sector. These are things we have discussed and we have heard, through our consultations, would be helpful. Your pathway to permanent residency is easier then because people are here for a full period of time. Again, there may be people who don’t wish to be here for that long, but for those who do, could we facilitate that and work with sectors to try to complement those seasonal labour shortages.
The Chair: As one of my colleagues said, the model was made for a different time.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: I want to continue in the same vein. You are offering some solutions. You are saying that if a worker, an individual, is in an abusive situation, we can do something.
We definitely understand that, but if I understood you correctly, you even said we can go as far as helping, facilitating permanent residency or going down that path. We understand that. What I’m trying to understand is that, at the same time, we’re also being told that, because of the nature of the employer-employee relationship with a closed permit, employees are vulnerable and dependent. In any situation where the relationship involves dependence of any kind — in this case linguistic, economic or cultural — people don’t report it. People don’t speak up when there’s abuse.
I’ve asked this question many times, because even if we have great solutions to put in place, until we create a space where the person feels safe to speak out about what happened, no one will come forward or, at the very least, we won’t be maximizing the chances of that happening. What do we need to do?
Ms. Fox: I think that’s an important question, given the context. Within the federal government, we want to put in place the mechanisms and tools to enable a person to access the support they need. You’re absolutely right: If someone doesn’t feel comfortable doing so, none of the mechanisms we put in place will be useful. We need to create conditions where people feel comfortable. That’s not always easy when we’re talking about communication and employer expectations.
Open permits need to be considered. We can’t not consider them in our discussions on future policies and programs. Once again, there are also benefits to having closed work permits. Many employers across the country offer and manage support services, particularly in smaller communities; it’s a kind of community hub for employees. They’re aiming for positive integration, but that’s not always the case.
In areas where that is the case, it can really allow a community to flourish. If we think about regional immigration to the country, and we want to try to evenly distribute immigration, this is an important element. It could apply by sector, by region. It may be worthwhile to consider it and see what could be done.
I’d be curious to know what conversations you’ve had with the private sector, especially the smaller players, the small businesses that don’t necessarily have the same resources as the larger ones, who would go out and get temporary workers, and who could effectively lose them very quickly if they don’t have a closed permit. I’m also concerned about the impact on small businesses.
[English]
The Chair: Ms. Fox, if I may ask you a question, but first an observation.
I think Canada has a very good immigration program. It has its problems, definitely, but one of the reasons it’s good is because it’s highly managed. We pick and choose very carefully everyone who comes into the country. It’s a high-touch program. One of the ways we do this is that we plan for it. We have an annual Immigration Levels Plan. Why don’t we have an annual plan for temporary foreign workers? We have no numbers. I’m not asking for a cap, but I’m asking for transparency. Why don’t we have that?
Ms. Fox: Madam Chair, that’s an excellent question. Minister Fraser — our former minister — and I, over the course of January to May of last year, did a cross-country consultation on immigration and what does Canada’s immigration system of the future look like. It was informative to talk to people who have used our program, who have views about social cohesion, et cetera.
Part of it was about the artificial, in a way, conversation around the levels plan. Every year we table what our permanent residents plan will look like. But when you think about who comes to Canada every year — and we have seen the Statistics Canada data — it is much greater than the people who become permanent residents. So the pressure point is less on the permanent residency program and more on the temporary resident program.
In a time when we’re seeing in our projections enormous growth in the permanent residency program, but also in our temporary resident program, we get to a point of having a conversation with Canadians around what is Canada’s capacity to absorb. I find that the temporary lines of business are a bit unpredictable. We have seen enormous growth in the student programming. We see steady growth in worker arrivals year to year. Of course, we have an important humanitarian growth and now an asylum-seeker population growth. When you put all these things together, absolutely.
Do we want to talk about caps or do we want to talk about how do we better align our systems to ensure that when people want to come here, they can be absorbed and welcomed in the right way?
That’s why the student program is about a model that will set criteria for participation in order to have a better outcome. That’s why the employer model seeks the same thing. We need to have a conversation with housing and infrastructure and health around who is coming to Canada. How do we utilize our systems?
We have a new Express Entry system where we can draw and allocate points to construction workers, health care workers, francophone teachers and francophone immigration. We have these tools. How does that translate into foreign credential recognition? How does that translate into employment?
We have to have a conversation, as a country, to be holistic about our Immigration Levels Plan, and it’s beyond the Department of Immigration. It has to be with a skills strategy and a housing strategy. We have to communicate that in a way that we are piecing those things together and people see that government is piecing those things together. If you set the right conditions, hopefully you have success in your program.
I definitely agree with you that the growth in the temporary residence space is a pressure point. It is a pressure point for the department in terms of processing, but it is a pressure point for the country, and we need to think about it differently.
The Chair: Thank you, Madam Deputy Minister and colleagues. This has been a most interesting conversation. Our time has come to an end. I wish to thank you very much for adding to our perspectives and to our understanding of this complex issue.
(The committee adjourned.)