Olivia Chow moves concurrence motion on immigration consultants and temporary foreign workers

November 19, 2009

    Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I move that the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented on Wednesday, June 10, be concurred in.

    This report on migrant workers and immigration consultants deals with several issues that are interconnected, one of which is immigration consultants, and the second is temporary foreign workers, especially live-in caregivers.

    The government has always claimed that it is the government that will be tough on crime. It has implemented harsher punishments for a broad range of crimes in this country and has maintained its tough on crime stance, however I am wondering whether its crackdown on crime is supposed to include a crackdown on immigration consultants who are unscrupulous, who are taking advantage of people who want to come to Canada or those who are in Canada already.

     Immigration consultants are supposed to help people who wish to come to Canada and work in their interests to get them through the bureaucracy one must go through in order to enter this country, but there are some people out there who claim to be immigration consultants but who do not really know very much about immigration law, or they know the laws but are deliberately coaching people on how to break them. There is absolutely nothing stopping them right now and these so-called consultants are taking advantage of vulnerable people.

    Immigrants can be exploited easily. They want to come to Canada so they can earn a decent wage and support their families back home. They need this money for the basic necessities of life, to feed and clothe their children, to send their children to school. We have found that some of them are advised to lie, to create fake wedding photos, to pretend to be refugees, and then they are told to pay an enormous amount of money.

    There are some potential immigrants who are desperate and they are told by immigration experts that this is the only way they can feed and clothe their children and send them to school, that this is how to get into the country, or how to stay in the country once they get in. The government is cracking down on these vulnerable people but not the people who are the criminals, and I am asking the government to crack down on those who get paid to tell people how to lie. I will give an example.

    A lady showed up in my constituency office. The consultants produced fake documents from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. She wanted to bring her father, mother and brother into Canada, a very standard application to sponsor one’s family and absolutely straightforward. The immigration consultant took an enormous amount of money. She waited for four years and this immigration consultant did not even put in the application on her behalf. We encouraged her to call the police. She did. We even went with her to the courts and it is still pending right now.

    I have a second case of Ms. Sophia Huong. A consultant helped her file for family sponsorship, despite knowing that her income level was not high enough to sponsor. She should have taken on a second job, for example, and that would have given her the income level that could have brought her parents here. She again waited for four years, paid the consultants thousands of dollars, and again was told that her father and mother could not come, and her brother, by this time, was over age so the brother would never be able to be sponsored to come into Canada.

    Not only do these immigration consultants earn a lot of money by giving people wrong information, but some of them are in fact ruining the lives of these immigrants because they are giving them the wrong information.

    Other professions that affect people’s lives are regulated by law. To be a lawyer, an engineer or a teacher, one has to prove that one has the right knowledge, but anyone can set up an office and say that they are immigration consultants and they can tell the clients whatever they want, regardless of whether it is true or now.
 
  There is no stopping them, and that is what the committee called ghost consultants.
    This is just asking for potential immigrants to be taken advantage of and it is a recipe for total disaster. People are being cheated out of their money simply because they want to create a life for themselves in Canada, and because Canada needs immigrants, the situation now is that immigration consultants are just opening up left, right and centre.

    So far the government has done nothing. The immigration committee, in the last session before the last election, put together a report with eight or nine recommendations with a very clear pathway on how to fix the problem. Yet it did not get done. The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism came to the immigration committee and said that the government knew this was a problem and it will fix it. He said it would be fixed in the spring. It did not get fixed in the spring. He came in the spring and said it would be done in the summertime. Nothing got done in the summertime. He came again later in the fall and said that the government would do something in the fall. This is almost the end of the year and yet we see no action.
   
We saw some educational ads in newspapers saying, “Beware of fraud”, but until we regulate and legislate, that will not help. The Liberals before the Conservatives tried to fix it. They did not get it done properly and that is why it has to be fixed. The government needs to implement regulations to make sure that consultants are not contributing to the backlogs, but are working on behalf of the Canadian taxpayers and their relatives overseas.
  
Exploiting people desperate for entry into our country is criminal, and just like any other crime that hurts people, we should be doing what we can to prevent it. We recommended that there should be a regulating body, and if a person does not belong to that body, they cannot practice. They cannot help their clients put in an application form, and if they do, then it is a criminal offence.

    We also recommended that there has to be enforcement of this law. Australia has a website with a list of all the consultants who are qualified and immigrants are supposed to follow this list. Any consultant who does not qualify is on another list. Those who have been rejected are on another list and it is a criminal offence for them to practice. That is what Canada should do.
   
Another section is about live-in caregivers, who are the most exploited in this country. We have noticed that the Auditor General recently brought forward a report which says that the current practice for temporary foreign workers really does not ensure the program is delivered efficiently and effectively. Currently, work permits could be issued for employers or jobs that do not exist.

    A week and a half ago a call came to my office about a live-in caregiver who came all the way from the Philippines, and when she arrived at the airport, the employer did not show up and cannot be found. That is a fake job. The caregiver has travelled halfway around the world and is completely stranded since her arrival in Canada.

    The Auditor General also said that the department has no process or systematic follow-up to ensure that employers are complying with the terms and conditions of the jobs they are offering. These offices are buried in paperwork without a quality assurance framework to ensure decisions are fair and consistent. We see here that temporary foreign workers and live-in caregivers are being abused in some cases. Instead of recognizing them as nation builders, the Conservative government is treating them as economic units.

    So far this year and last year, 2008, over 200,000 temporary foreign workers came to the shores of Canada. If we add up the others who are already in Canada, we are looking at 364,000 temporary foreign workers last year who are working in Canada.
 
    The Auditor General also said that the human cost of these findings is these workers are left in a vulnerable position unaware of their rights. Internal citizenship and immigration reports dating back to 1994 raised serious concerns about the exploitation of live-in caregivers and still no serious action has yet to be taken to fix the problems.

    There is this unfortunate policy that the Conservative government has of let us use them and then toss them out and that is not what is best for Canada.

    The committee then proceeded to make a series of recommendations and they are very good recommendations. The first one said that we need live-in caregivers permanently. It is not a temporary situation. Canada has needed live-in caregivers for at least 20 years because we do not have a universal child care program or a home care program for seniors. As a result we need live-in caregivers.

    Therefore the committee recommends that we allow live-in caregivers to come to Canada as permanent residents on the condition that they accumulate 24 months of work during the first three years in Canada and then the conditions would be lifted.
    If this is implemented what we will see is that these live-in caregivers would not be separated from their families for five years and they would be able to bring their families into Canada and they can then contribute to their employer and to Canada but also would not suffer the hardship of being separated from their families.

    As well, there is no reason that live-in caregivers are seen as low skilled workers. Many of them have college certificates. They have degrees. They are well trained. They should be seen as high skilled workers. Under the current immigration program people who have some skills are coming in as permanent residents. There is no reason that live-in caregivers would not fit into that category.
    The committee also recommended that the Government of Canada extend coverage under the interim federal health program to caregivers denied coverage under provincial health plans. It is important that the people who work for Canadian families are able to access our health care so that if they are healthy that means that the families they are working for would also be healthy.

    Another recommendation is that the Government of Canada should waive the requirement to obtain a study permit for live-in caregivers. Some live-in caregivers are encouraged by their employers to study, to go to college, to upgrade themselves with certain skills and that should be able to happen naturally that if there is a permit or if they are coming in as landed immigrants of course then they do not need a study permit.
    Even if they come in on a work permit, that work permit should also allow them to have a study portion so that they can in fact upgrade themselves in Canada.

    We also heard various witnesses. These witnesses talked about the exploitation that they have suffered through the hands of their employers. One of them talked about how the statement of earnings was not given to them, that their passports were confiscated and they do not know how to open a bank account. That is why the committee recommends that there is orientation for these live-in caregivers to make sure that the employer provides a statement of earnings with every paycheque, that the caregivers be given access to a complete statement of earnings and deductions in order to meet the conditions of becoming a permanent resident and a procedure so they can learn how to open a bank account because sometimes they are paid in cash and sometimes under the table.
 
   Furthermore, in these sessions it was suggested that if there is inappropriate behaviour by the employer such as confiscating passports, failing to comply with Canada Revenue Agency rules regarding pay and records of employment, failing to make required deductions, employing a caregiver without a work permit, paying less than minimum wage, requiring caregivers to work longer hours than is reasonable or assigning caregivers tasks entirely unrelated to their prescribed role, the caregivers should understand that this behaviour is not acceptable and they would be given a chance to report it to the appropriate authorities.
    Other than a briefing session, the committee also talked about there having to be serious enforcement of the law. Therefore, we are asking that the government investigate the allegations of former live-in caregivers in the residence of the member for Brampton—Springdale.
    Some may recall that there was quite a story about the live-in caregivers of the member for Brampton—Springdale. This issue went to the immigration committee and the committee requested that government bodies investigate the various complaints and, upon completion of the investigations, they send the results to the immigration committee. So far the committee has not received a report about the investigations. Those are the various recommendations from the immigration committee.
    Let me conclude by saying that there is no doubt that Canada needs workers. Canada needs immigrants and there should be a target of 1% of its population that would come to Canada as permanent residents. That would be approximately 330,000 landed immigrants per year.
    Two days ago it was reported that 43% of Canadian businesses report labour shortages. We know that Canada needs workers. Fourteen per cent of businesses said they cannot find enough unskilled or semi-skilled workers. We know that Canada needs workers, whether they are highly skilled or unskilled. The question is whether they come in as temporary workers or permanent residents so they can build a communities and neighbourhoods in Canada.

    We also know that youth unemployment stands at 20%. Why? Why are young people not able to work when employers are saying they need unskilled or semi-skilled workers, which some of the young people might be?
    Statistics Canada pointed out that Canada has one of the highest proportions of low-paid workers in the industrialized world. What is happening is that employers are hiring people at very low wages and, as a result, even if people are working full time, some have to rely on food banks in order to survive.

    These low-wage conditions are made worse by the Canadian government’s practice of bringing 200,000 temporary foreign workers into the country. It actually drives down wages and keeps them low. As a result, it does benefit Canadian taxpayers.
    It is time to increase the number of permanent residents in Canada. It is time to train and upgrade our workforce. It is also time to stop bringing such an enormous number of temporary foreign workers into Canada. As well, it is time to crack down on unscrupulous consultants and make sure that live-in caregivers come into Canada as landed immigrants and nation builders and not just as temporary foreign workers.
 

    Ms. Olivia Chow: Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question.
    Unfortunately there seems to be a vacuum. The federal government has said that employment standards are really a provincial responsibility. On April 1 Manitoba brought in very clear-cut, strict guidelines of what employers can or cannot do. Ontario has said it is going to copy that legislation. It has not been made law yet.
    There were quite a few live-in caregivers who came to the committee. They were in tears when they described what they have gone through and the experiences they have had. They asked the committee to investigate.
     That is why the committee recommended the Government of Canada and other provincial bodies investigate. We have not heard back. This could include Revenue Canada as to whether taxes were paid or not it could include Immigration Canada as to whether the person is working with or without a legitimate work permit. It could involve employment standards, a provincial responsibility. It could include whether or not the Government of Ontario has noticed that the person was working at a job where her labour rights were violated.
    We have not seen a report back, unfortunately. I am looking forward to seeing what happened with these investigations. One way or another we need to clear the air and give justice to either the live-in caregivers or the employers.
 
 
    Ms. Olivia Chow: Mr. Speaker, actually, it is quite straightforward. During the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, Canada allowed people to come into Canada as permanent residents. Then the balance of power was more simple, more equal. Employers did not have all the power, so that at least if a job paying minimum wage was dangerous, then the employee had the right to walk away.
    In the case of temporary workers, if they walked away from a job, not only would they lose their chance to work in Canada, they would probably be deported, after probably having incurred a large debt in order to come to Canada.
    Remember there are consultants that I am talking about. There are some consultants who charge enormous amounts of money to bring people into Canada to work in these temporary working situations. There are even fake jobs or there are no jobs involved or the jobs are not really what they are supposed to be because of these unscrupulous consultants. We have situations where these consultants work with an employer, knowing full well that the jobs are not necessarily safe or the jobs pay less than minimum wages. Also, these go-between people earn money from the employer and also get a cut from the employees.
    Some of these kinds of consultants are seen as worldwide consultants and en a lot of credibility, but they are out there exploiting people. It is most unfortunate.
    Ms. Olivia Chow: Mr. Speaker, I was in Winnipeg last week and spoke with a lot of immigrant service agencies and professors at the University of Manitoba. They observed that Manitoba brought in very strict rules. In Manitoba, people have to register in order to practise. Manitoba has enforcement units. There are inspectors out there inspecting whether things are done properly. Manitoba has very straight guidelines so that the potential immigrants know what their rights are. So, from the taxpayer side, from academics and from people who work with immigrants, I have heard a lot of success stories because of the legislation in Manitoba.
 

    Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP): Mr. Speaker, one of the issues addressed in this report is also one of unscrupulous consultants.
    The Liberals had a chance in 2002. At that time the committee said, during the debate on the same topic of unscrupulous consultants, that the problem and the situation must be fixed. Unfortunately, the former minister of immigration did not get the job done in a way that would establish non-share capital corporations, so that practising as an immigration consultant without being registered or licensed by a body would be a criminal offence. That did not happen. Instead what has occurred is that there is an organization.
    What does the member think of the recommendation in front of us which recommends starting–
    Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the second part of the report deals with immigration consultants. One of the recommendations said that we should require anyone when they are applying during the application process that they must have an authorized representative. If not, the immigration department would not accept such applications. Is that a recommendation that the member supports.
    As well, would she support other recommendations, for example, that we must establish a none-share capital corporation that could govern every single immigration consultant who is practising, that if they are not registered with the corporation they should not be allowed to practise?
    That would get rid of the whole notion of ghost consultants and fake consultants who have no qualifications.
    Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP): Madam Speaker, perhaps the member can describe some of the stories we heard during the committee discussions on this report.
    There were some live-in caregivers who came in and talked about their experiences, and some of them were in tears. There were situations brought up during the travels, this was a year and a half ago, of how some of the consultants felt they were not being regulated properly or were being discriminated. There were stories of unfair practices.
     Perhaps the member could enlighten us on some of the things the committee heard, especially to do with the live-in caregivers.
Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP): Madam Speaker, how has the government dealt with the issue of consultants? There are still hundreds and hundreds of consultants that have not necessarily gone through any regulations, or any tests, or any registration of any kind. They are practising out there. Yesterday the newspaper reported: “world-famous immigration consultant with suspicious footprints”. I do not know whether this consultant who has now been arrested with serious allegations of some criminal activities overseas or here and whether this person is registered or not, or that this person is regulated in any way.
    How has the government dealt with the issue of consultants? The report that is in front of us that we have a series of recommendations talks about setting up an enforcement unit, setting up a team that would investigate and deal with those consultants. It talks about setting up an agency they would have to belong to in order to practise. It talks about serious criminal offences and about the need to take immediate action. Where is that action now?
 
    Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP): Madam Speaker, does the member support one of the recommendations that said only people who are authorized immigration consultants, the ones who are registered, can represent people at the immigration department to put in an application on a person’s behalf and that the applicants must disclose whether they are using consultants or not?
    Would the member support such recommendations, which would get to the heart of whether the consultants being used are legitimate?
Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP):
    Madam Speaker, we know that implementing the refugee appeal division would save time and energy in the federal court. We also know that if it is implemented, we probably will not need the pre-removal assessment process.

    Would the member agree that it would save taxpayer money in the federal court because there would be fewer appeals there and then the PRA, the pre-removal assessment, process would not likely have to occur?
Olivia’s Statement on the state of Canada’s refugee system

Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina, NDP):
    Madam Speaker, the refugee system in Canada is in crisis. The just released 2009 annual Report on Citizenship and Immigration 2010 target levels of protected persons in Canada and dependants abroad range from a low of 9,000 to a high of 12,000 compared to a 2006 level of 22,500 to 28,000. Close to 17,000 refugees and their children will not find a permanent home in Canada. Many of the refugees are turned away and their children will face beatings, torture and even death. The government is working to ensure that Canada is no longer a land of hope and compassion.

    The Conservative government is deliberately creating a crisis in the refugee system. The crisis is being used as an excuse to bring in draconian measures to close the door to the most needy and vulnerable.

    How does the Conservative government create a crisis in the refugee field? It is a six point plan.

     The crisis is created first by refusing to appoint refugee board members for two years, thus creating a backlog of cases.

    Second, it is cutting $4 million from the department and diminishing its resources.

    Third, it is allowing for refugee board appointments not based on merit. An audit performed by the Public Service Commission of Canada on appointment practices at the Immigration and Refugee Board found out of 54 senior appointments, 33 were either not based on merit or the guideline principles of fairness, transparency, access and representatives were not met.

    Fourth, it is bringing in 200,000 temporary foreign workers and telling them that most have no hope in staying in Canada. Then it watches some of them get abused and exploited and claims that it is all a provincial responsibility. We should not be surprised that some of these temporary foreign workers get conned by unscrupulous immigration consultants and end up declaring refugee status in Canada in hopes that they can stay here permanently.

    Then to top it off, the crisis became complete when the minister announced a few Fridays ago, at 5 p.m., a plan to drop the targets of refugees allowed to be claimed in Canada by more than half.

    The human cost of having a refugee system in crisis and without a real appeal system is exemplified by what happened to a young Mexican woman name Griset.

    Griset was deported back to Mexico, where she was murdered execution style. Her body was found with a bullet in her forehead. She was carrying a child before she was murdered. When they found the body of young Griset, it showed signs of trauma and she had a caesarean. Where is her baby now? We do not know.

    Griset and her family attempted not once but twice to seek asylum in Canada. Had there been a refugee appeals division, they would have had an opportunity to appeal their case. Perhaps young Griset would be alive and maybe the baby would be with her today. Her baby would be safe and sound, not missing somewhere in the world. Imagine the sadness this family must feel right now.
    The minister indicated in the media that he planned to introduce a two-tiered refugee determination system like the one in U.K.

     This is how the refugees system in the U.K. works. Border officials decide who is likely to be a refugee and who is not likely, depending on which country they come from. If people come from, say Mexico, a country deemed to be safe, the claim will be put in a bogus pile.

    In the U.K. the two-tiered system would automatically reject refugee claimants from certain countries, and this system has been proven to be a failure. Forty-five per cent of cases determined by border guards to be bogus have been proven to be legitimate claims after they were appealed.

    If the minister has his way, Canadian border officers would be allowed to put families, such as the family of the young Mexican woman, in the bogus pile just because they came from an allegedly safe country.

    A two-tiered system that would use a safe third country list is unacceptable. Canada must remain impartial in its refugee determination process. The implementation of a safe third country list would expose our country to undue influence.
   (1815) 

    To really fix the refugee system, we need an effective, fair, consistent and rapid refugee determination process. We need to: first, implement the refugee appeal division with the power to open, re-open and review cases; second, remove the unscrupulous consultants; third, hire more permanent refugee protection officers and give them power to grant approval status to obvious cases via the chair of the Refugee Board guidelines and directives; fourth, remove political patronage from the appointments on the Refugee Board; and fifth, restore the funding cuts and add some resources to the refugee appeal division and the entire refugee determination process.

    Most of these recommendations come from the Davis Waldman Quality of Mercy report quite a few years ago, not implemented to this date, and from Raoul Boulakia, a lawyer who deals with a lot of refugee cases.

    If the refugee appeal division is not being implemented, the mean-spirited anti-refugee ideology of the old Reform Party will be showing its face. Because of that, this coming year, 17,000 refugees will suffer because they will be turned down in a way that is most tragic, and some of them will face torture, beating and even death.

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