OTTAWA — A youth exchange program is drawing the attention of opposition parties and student groups who question whether it is being used as a back door for temporary foreign workers at a time when youth unemployment remains stubbornly high.
Liberal labour critic Rodger Cuzner told The Huffington Post Canada he is very concerned about the explosive growth of the International Experience Canada (IEC) program – and the lack of reciprocal job opportunities for Canadian youth.
In 2004, 23,869 young foreigners came to Canada to work under the program while 20,836 young Canadians left to work abroad. Eight years later, however, the program had mushroomed, with 58,094 foreign youth coming to Canada in 2012 but only 17,731 young Canadians had gone abroad.
In the House of Commons on Tuesday, Cuzner suggested that current Jobs Minister Jason Kenney had switched the focus of the program to satisfy perceived labour market needs. “When he was in Ireland, on one of the television shows, he was saying that one of our biggest economic problems in Canada is a skills shortage and that we encourage young people from Ireland to come to our country,” Cuzner said.
“Meanwhile, young Canadians have lost about 200,000 jobs in this country since then.”
International Experience Canada was originally designed as a cultural exchange with the goal of having a “neutral effect” on the Canadian labour market. Under the Conservatives, however, it has shifted focus to become a temporary foreign worker program for those 18 to 35 years of age, Liberals say.
The IEC recently expanded to allow young workers to stay in Canada for two years rather than one year. Young foreign workers may also reapply after their holiday visas have expired. And the federal government is promoting the IEC program to employers as a way to hire young people from abroad without having to prove that no Canadians can be found to do the job.
A 2010 Foreign Affairs Evaluation Report noted the early tensions between the diplomatic objectives and the new labour supply objectives of the program.
“IEC was said to be useful for Canadian employers looking for temporary workers,” the report stated, after evaluators made site visits and interviewed “key informants.”
In 2009, IEC accounted for 62,000 of the planned 150,000 temporary residents, according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).
Diplomats were concerned not only by the program’s rapid growth but also by the fact that young Canadians were not participating in equal numbers. They questioned why those older than 30 would use the program, and they flagged concerns that shifting focus towards a non-diplomatic purpose might “jeopardize relationships with some governments.”
Public servants were also quite concerned about potential abuses. Three cases involving sex workers and refugee claims were brought to their attention in 2009 – until then, there had been no reports of problems since 1986.
“Interviewees at CIC indicated that isolated cases of abuses have already been reported, such as Canadian companies or schools promoting IEC as a means to bring workers to Canada, small companies using IEC to avoid HRSDC paperwork and a lengthy process, and IEC being used to bring sex workers into Canada,” the report said.
NDP employment critic Jinny Sims told HuffPost that her primary concern is that the program is being expanded while youth unemployment remains in the double digits. (The youth unemployment rate – for those aged 15 to 24 – was more than double the national average, 13.6 per cent, in March).
CIC refused to provide HuffPost with current data about the number of Canadians and foreigners using the program.
But in 2012, when the federal government allowed 58,094 foreign young people, 4,600 more than its 53,455 quota intended, the youth unemployment rate was at 14.3 per cent.
Internal documents show the Conservatives intended to double the 2007 program quota by 2011. But the rapid growth has not stopped. The number of Irish working holiday visas, for example, just went up by another 1,200 to 7,700.
“Just look at how much this program has grown,” Sims said. “It is obviously out of control.”
Sims said she has no problem with the way the program was intended: short term, very limited, students coming during their break. But if employers really want workers with international experience, Sims said: “surely, that happens after our young people here have had access to the job.”
Sims said she believes that the government is courting accredited trades people from Europe, such as welders, carpenters, electricians, while trades apprentices here cannot get jobs and they cannot even find people to take them on as apprentices.
“I think that the minister has opened up the floodgates in this area,” she added.
Cuzner said the program should strike a balance between work opportunities in Canada for those in other countries and opportunities for young Canadians in other countries. “And that balance certainly isn’t there; we are at a deficit right now.”
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Largest Canadian Employers Using Temporary Foreign Workers (2013)
Documentation he obtained through a parliamentary request shows that young Canadians rarely met the quotas negotiated between Canada and other countries between 2010 and 2012. Twenty-nine Canadians, for example, went to Taiwan in 2012 while 999 Taiwanese came to Canada. The quota each way for Taiwan and Canada was 1,000. As for Croatia, for which the quota was 300, sent 300 workers to Canada, but only two Canadians went there.
In the Commons, Kenney defended the program and cast doubt on whether the few young foreigners who come on an open work permit really displace Canadian workers.
“I have not heard any Canadians say they are terrified of 20-year-old Aussies working serving beer part-time in Whistler who are, in the words of the member, taking away Canadian jobs,” he said.
Kenney said those who chose to come holiday in Canada and work are paid at a Canadian wage rate.
“We are talking about a tiny fraction of a percentage of the Canadian workforce, in reciprocity for which young Canadians can do the same abroad.”
And while he acknowledged that fewer Canadians were going to work abroad and more foreigners were coming to Canada, he said that was a reflection of the “vitality of our economy” versus other countries’.
The Huffington Post Canada asked Citizenship and Immigration Canada specific questions about the number of young people who use the program, their potential effect on the labour market and why its use had been expanded. The minister’s office and the department refused to answer.
CIC spokesperson Sonia Lesage told HuffPost on Monday that because IEC provides young foreigners with open work permits, it is difficult to track where they go.
Jonathan Champagne, the executive director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations said that is his principal concern.
“For us, it’s important that Canadians and youth and new grads have first crack at any job and that they are not being supplanted by foreign workers that would come in,” he said. “It’s not clear, right now if this specific program is truly displacing youth from jobs.”
The Canadian Federation of Students’ Jessica McCormick echoed those sentiments. McCormick also suggested that young Canadians might not seek opportunities to travel abroad as much as their European counterparts because they have had higher tuition costs and are looking to pay off their debts at home before working abroad.
Assistant parliamentary budget officer Mostafa Askari told HuffPost that the government does not have any good data that would allow the PBO or others to verify whether temporary foreign worker program, including the IEC, is having an effect – good or bad – on the labour market. It remains unclear whether the program is depressing wages, contributing to regional underemployment or actually fulfilling a labour market need.
“In order to say whether the program has affected the employment rate in a negative or positive way, one needs to know where the shortages are,” Askari said. “We don’t have very reliable data.”
"They [the federal government] are the ones who need to fund better data collection, if they are not willing to do that, then you won't get better data,” he added.
Tuesday, the auditor general’s report noted that the collection of jobs data, especially in small markets, is lacking.
Treasury Board President Tony Clement said it is up to Statistics Canada to use its resources effectively and innovatively to produce information. “We’re not opposed to that. It’s just a question of finding the right statistical evaluation method,” he said, adding that the agency does not need any more money to do its job.
The federal government has ignored warnings for years that it needs better data to understand the needs of the labour market. An advisory panel led by economist Don Drummond suggested in 2009 that more and better data on labour mobility were required and would be well worth the expense. The Conservatives routinely cite anecdotal evidence to back up their assertions.
The parliamentary budget officer is expected to begin a study soon on the Temporary Foreign Worker program. CIC is also reviewing the entire program, including International Experience Canada.
On Wednesday, members of Parliament will vote on whether the entire program should be reviewed by the auditor general. The Conservatives plan to vote against the Liberal motion.