SOCI – Opening Remarks – September 28, 2023

Opening Remarks - Christiane Fox, Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

SOCI Committee Canada’s Temporary and Migrant Labour Force

September 28, 2023

517 words (4 minutes)
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Introduction

Thank you, Mdm. Chair.^{Footnote 1}

I want to start by acknowledging that we’re meeting today on the traditional and unseeded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin People.^{Footnote 2}

Thank you for the opportunity to appear.

Immigration is playing an important role in our economic and social policies. Canada’s recent labour force growth has been almost entirely driven by immigration, a trend expected to continue in the future.

To support employers and the economy, the Government of Canada offer a number of temporary foreign worker programs, with thousands transitioning to permanent residence each year.

Many of our programs are employer driven, with a demonstrated lack of available workers in Canada.

Protections

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, and provinces and territories, all of which play a role in worker safety, legislation and regulations.

The federal government has a robust compliance system to ensure safe work environments, to inspect working conditions and to support essential workers’ rights.

Last year, we further bolstered the regulations to require that

• employers inform workers about their rights
• an employment agreement be in place that includes wages and work conditions
• no costs or fees are passed on to the workers by employers
• there be protection against employer reprisals when workers file complaints
• employers provide health care services for illness or injuries at work

Through enforcement measures, Employers face fines and temporary or permanent bans from foreign worker programs for violations. The majority of employers follow requirements and respect workers, while inspections detect those that do not.

Pathways to Permanent Residency

We have several different pathways to permanent residence for temporary workers seeking to remain in Canada, and through them 177,000 temporary workers transitioned to permanent residence in 2022.

This includes targeted programs in the past like the temporary resident to permanent resident temporary public policy 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 GTA, IRCC worked with local labour leaders on a pathway to permanent residence for out-of-status construction workers. Candidates who entered Canada legally, had their status lapse, and were continuing to contribute to the construction industry were given 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 modernization efforts are speeding up reviews and reducing inventories.

We are mindful of the impacts of immigration, particularly in parts of the country where housing is challenging. Housing is a complex issue—immigration is not the cause of the current crisis and is only one of many factors contributing to it.

Foreign workers are helping build more homes to reduce this problem. We continue to work with federal partners, provinces and territories to address these challenges.

Thank you and I’m happy to take your questions.