Study on Issues Relating to Social Affairs, Science and Technology Generally

Moved:

That the twenty-first (interim) report of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, entitled Act Now: Solutions for Temporary and Migrant Labour in Canada, deposited with the Clerk of the Senate on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, be adopted and that, pursuant to rule 12-23(1), the Senate request a complete and detailed response from the government, with the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship being identified as minister responsible for responding to the report, in consultation with the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages.

She said: I will be brief. I have speaking notes, but I will go off script in the interest of time, because I know everybody is battling the clock. Instead, I’m going to give you a high-level overview of our recommendations in the hope that you will actually be teased enough to pick up the report and read it, because, colleagues, I tell you that the Senate Social Affairs Committee did an excellent job on an imperative and urgent subject, which is the condition for temporary foreign workers in Canada and the conditions facing their employers.

In Canada, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program was started 50 years ago, and since that time it has been added to in a piecemeal and reactive manner to the extent that it is a maze and very difficult for employers to navigate, and relatively impossible for the workers to do so.

We heard one resounding message in testimony and during our trip to New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The message from employers was this: Without temporary foreign workers, without my employees, my business would shut. And this is in essential industries such as seafood processing and the agricultural industry.

From the workers we heard that the conditions of their work, being tied to one employer, created vulnerability and conditions for abuse. We did, in fact, hear horrible stories of abuse, but I want to also admit that we met with employers who were very concerned about the bad apples in the ranks and they, too, wanted to correct the situation.

One impression stands out above all others. I believe we were in Prince Edward Island, in a very small community, and we visited a seafood processing plant. I don’t know how many of you have been to a seafood processing plant — Senator Wells has. I had not, and, whilst I love lobster, I had not realized the dirty, difficult work that is involved in picking apart the claws and finding the meat. Even though technology will come, there are parts of this job that will have to be done by workers.

In this small community, we also heard that the workers had found a path to permanency because their employer was an enlightened one. Their children were going to school. The school was revitalized because there were children and teachers. The local church was alive again. This hopeful story in this little town — and Senator Kutcher will remember — somewhere near Summerside really gave us hope that Canada should be able to chew gum and walk at the same time. We should be able to treat temporary employees with dignity, and we should be able to meet the needs of employers.

We made six recommendations, and I’m going to go over them very quickly.

Our first and most important recommendation is to create a migrant worker commission modelled on the Employment Insurance Commission. There would be a commissioner for employers, a commissioner for migrant workers and there would be a commissioner for government. It would be the first direct line of communication between migrant workers and a voice in Ottawa, which they do not have.

We didn’t want to be reactive; we wanted to be thoughtful. Our second recommendation was, over the next three years, to phase out closed work permits, because they provide no flexibility. We also heard from employers that closed permits prevent them from moving an employee from one job to another because the permit doesn’t allow that. It prevents them from moving an employee from one part of their plant located in one area to another plant because the work permit does not allow that. It prevents them from promoting their employees, because the work permit does not allow that. Flexibility is lacking.

For the employee, there is no flexibility at all. They’re tied to the employer. There is a tip line they can call, and then they have to prove conditions of abuse with photographs. For that, they need privacy and internet connections — it makes it very difficult.

Over the next three years, we recommend that the Government of Canada phase out closed work permits and replace them with open work permits in a sector/region. As an example, a seafood processing work permit for X number of employees would allow them to work in the seafood manufacturing industry, but not necessarily tied to one employer or one job or one specific location.

We also want the government to be transparent about numbers, and when they table their annual immigration plan there must be a line for temporary foreign workers. Canadians deserve transparency. I believe all of this temporariness has taken Canadians by surprise.

We recommend that the government fund, on a generous, permanent level, a migrant worker commission. These would be advocates who are able to provide legal advice, health advice and other kinds of advice to workers.

Inspections were a sore point for everyone. You have to remember there are many cooks in this kitchen. There is a federal authority, a provincial authority and a regional authority. Every one has an inspection regime, and one arm doesn’t know what the other is doing. Employers are inundated with inspections, and this gets in the way of their productivity. And, more importantly, most of these inspections are scheduled. I think we know what that could lead to: It leads to a certain kind of social engineering, I would suggest. We recommend that, as a standard, inspections should be unscheduled.

We heard about a lack of access to health care even though employers are required to provide health care, either on a private basis or through provincial health care programs, but we also determined that people fall through the cracks. We urge the federal government to enforce access to health care and, if necessary, deploy the interim federal health program as a measure.

Finally, there is a dearth of data. There is a data deficit because there are so many cooks in this kitchen. We ask the federal government to undertake a data strategy that coordinates and provides us with the information we need.

Colleagues, I hope I have given you a very superficial taste of the excellent work my committee did. I want to thank the members of my committee with my whole heart. They are fantastic, including the staff of the committee and our clerk who put all this together in a very short time and produced a report that we hope the government will respond to very positively.

Thank you.