Sure, definitely.
Thank you all again for inviting us down today. It's greatly appreciated.
I'm here today representing our 2,700 locations in Canada, and by their calculations, all the store owners figure that with 2,700 locations, at seven minutes each, we should be here for about 13 and a half days, so I sure hope everybody's prepared for that on this side. So we'll be going from there.
One of the things I wanted to talk about today is that we've been involved with this for a fairly long time now and have been dealing with a lot of the issues that have cropped up. We have about 178 store owners in Canada who are currently looking at this program. We have over 600 candidates already in Canada. We are looking at another 400 arriving here by the end of the next quarter. So the number is going to continually increase.
We're seeing this across the board in Canada. This is just not an Alberta-B.C. issue. We hear people all the time saying, “Well, the only reason is the oil and gas, it's the Olympics in Vancouver”. This is everywhere. We're seeing this in Saskatchewan. We're seeing this in Manitoba. We're seeing this in Toronto, where we're getting a lot of people coming and saying, “You know what? I want a job, but I am a radiologist. I don't want to work at a Tim Hortons; I want to work as a radiologist.” We'll certainly work with them, but we know that obviously their hearts are in another place where they want to be.
We're seeing this in Quebec and we're seeing this in the Maritimes, so this is something that's coming fairly quickly across all of Canada. So I think it's just something for most of us to be prepared for.
One thing gives us a little bit more of an opportunity to see versus a lot of the other businesses in Canada that are looking at this. Because this is happening Canada-wide, we're seeing a lot of process and standardization issues across the board. What you end up seeing is a duplication of efforts all the way through, whether it's at Service Canada, the various embassies, CIC—the processing of the same candidate multiple times for multiple reasons.
You will see a person who gets a stamp from the embassy to come into Canada for a two-year work permit, and Border Services turns around and puts six months onto their stamp when they come in. All of a sudden, then they've got to go back to Vegreville, Alberta, get another year and a half put on there, for an additional $150 charge, if they're lucky, and they have to start the whole process all over again.
Why are we doing this same thing multiple times, again and again and again? It causes an issue for the candidates, it's an issue for the store owners, and I think it's an issue for the government. When you talk to the various levels of bureaucrats, they're saying all the time that their paperwork is getting harder and harder and there's more and more of it. The idea is how to cut this down. Standardization of processes would help a lot with it from there.
Regarding definition and publication of program regulations, how much effort is spent on incorrect applications? Not every company in Canada is like ours, where they have somebody in place like me who can help the store owners through this process. We've got a lot of small mom-and-pop operations out there, and they're trying to do this application, and we're hearing stories of applications going to the government six or seven times before finally getting approved. Again, if it were standardized in terms of what was required in the application, and as Daniel mentioned earlier, if this same information were being provided for each one of the workers, it would make it a lot easier to process the people through and get it done on a quicker, more timely basis.
On the contracts and prevailing wage calculations, the idea of a prevailing wage isn't so bad. It lets us at least know where we're starting from. The problem seems to be in the calculation of it. How exactly did they determine the numbers? What you see is that even though it's a federal program, each province defines it differently as to how they figure out the information and where they're getting the information from, and they don't necessarily follow normal industry standards.
For our industry on the quick service side, we get people all the time saying, okay, it should be a $9- or $10-an-hour job, and then you find out that people who work in prisons as food counter attendants make $24 an hour, so we'll include that into the wage as well. When you throw that into the mix, of course it throws off the numbers all across the board.
On contract enforcement, one bit of clarification from what we heard in the previous presentations is that once workers come to Canada, contracts are provided under labour standards by each one of the provinces. Individuals are free to move if they want, as long as they can get another contract, all legal, through various CIC offices. As long as they can do that, they can move from employer to employer.
The issue that comes up with this is for the lower-skilled positions such as ours. We have to pay for recruitment of the individuals. We have to pay for airfare of the individuals to get to Canada. The problem is that if a second employer comes and takes that individual, we're still responsible for the recruitment and the airfare for them on that side. This is unfair from that standpoint. There has to be something in there for the workers or for the secondary employers or the third employers, such that they have to take on the responsibility of those costs.
Concerning lack of acceptance of secondary costs, Service Canada, as Daniel mentioned, does not seem to define that things such as tips, housing, housing accommodation items, training, and time put into this effort be recognized, as apportioned by what store owners have to do to get this done. They think it's a very easy process, and evidently it's not.
Concerning recruitment standards, one of the things we're seeing here a lot--and I know you heard a lot about this in Vancouver as well as in Edmonton yesterday--is that realistically this program is punishing people who want to do it legally and ethically in Canada.
Basically, right now when somebody comes into Canada and they have used an illegal recruiter—they've had the candidates pay fees—and then the candidates end up disappearing or go MIA on them, nothing is done to them. In the case of the ones who do it right—spend the money up front, do everything properly, and then the people leave—there is the thought, “Oh well, so what? You lost three candidates. You lost the people; we can't do anything about it.” Again we are rewarding people for doing it illegally. Something has to be done about this.
As to various offices and officers not understanding the impact of a “no experience required, no English level required”, this is something that comes up fairly often. What you see is different industries writing into their LMOs that “we don't need someone who speaks English, we don't need someone who has any experience”. Then when we try to bring the people over, various embassies are saying no, we won't let you do that. So what do they do? They start looking at quick service industries, manufacturing industries, trying to draw the people out of there, because they know they can get them at a lower rate, and they're already in Canada, where their processing times are going to be reduced.
It is an unregulated industry. As a result, many issues are happening overseas and in Canada causing additional issues for government offices, business owners, and the candidates themselves. More regulation of this industry has to take place when you're bringing people over. Whether it be further intervention through CSIC members or through immigration lawyers, something has to be done to make these people accountable for their actions.
Finally, one of the things we have heard today—Colleen, you mentioned it earlier—is that the temporary foreign worker program is supposed to be a temporary program, and in the long term the idea should be immigration. What we need to do is have clearly defined pathways for temporary foreign workers to become citizens or permanent residents. Right now it's a bit of a crapshoot. One officer tells you maybe they could do it like this; another one says possibly it is like this. There should be a clearly defined pathway showing us exactly how to do it. If the people are not going to be eligible for it, we have to tell them up front. If there is that opportunity in Australia for them, let them go. It's Canada's loss at that particular point in time.
Finally, I'll talk about industry-targeted immigration streams. We need people in our industries who want to work in our industries. We gladly accept individuals from all over Canada. It is, however, very unfair to expect a professional such as an engineer, a doctor, an accountant, a radiologist to work in our industry, because there are barriers in their industry to getting in. We have to give people who are coming to Canada the impression of coming here to work at their profession, and that is what we want to make sure we are available to do.
If we are opening these doors up for engineers, for radiologists, and for accountants, what we are expecting is that obviously the same thing comes up for our service-level industry as well--that we can bring the people in and help them out from there.
Thank you very much.