CIMM Committee Report

One oft-repeated phrase during the Committee’s hearings was that “if a person is good enough to work here, he or she is good to enough to stay here”. The Committee shares this sentiment and is committed to recommending the long-term changes to the immigration system that would return permanent immigration to its rightful place of priority.

In the interim, businesses and communities are relying on the temporary foreign worker program to bring in needed labour. This report recommends changes to this program to make it work better for these stakeholders and for the workers themselves. Most importantly, however, we envision a pathway to permanent residency for all temporary foreign workers, a vision consistent with Canadian history and values.

The Committee’s overall goal is to amend Canada’s legal avenues of economic immigration to better match those we select to come to Canada with actual labour requirements. We acknowledge the role that non-status people currently play in meeting labour demands. Our hope for the future is that fewer people will resort to the uncertainty and vulnerability of working without status in Canada because the legal avenues will be open, fair, and efficiently administered. Our work in the coming months is to turn this hope into reality.