"Richard Boraks BA, LLB

Barrister & Solicitor

55 Brown’s Line, Etobicoke Ontario   M8W 3S2

Tel: 416-588-8707 Fax: 416-588-8785

Email: boraks@workercanada.com

December 22, 2014

Cristina Martins

Parliamentary Secretary

Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade 6th Floor 400 University Avenue Toronto, Ontario M7A 2R9

Dear Cristina:

I am addressing you in your capacity as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Citizenship Immigration and Trade.

As you know, I act for a number of Ontario trades employers and their successfully economically established foreign workers.

Many of my clients are your constituents. Your riding contains the highest number of illegal workers, and their employers, in the country. You understand the issues.

The purpose of this letter is to assist your office by reflecting the unreserved hostility which Ontario’s trades employers are expressing towards your government’s unconscionable mishandling of the trades worker file.

The hostility is understandable.

There is no justification for your office abandoning both its constitutional obligations and your responsibility not to engage in systemic misrepresentation.

Specifically, you and your government are aware that:

1. Our province refuses to use its extensive Constitutional powers pursuant to Section 95.

Unlike every province in Canada, Ontario stands alone in sacrificing the foreign worker needs of its small and mid sized trades employers.

Rather than protect this province’s trades economy, your government has, quite improperly, become a passive agent of the federal government’s immigration policies.

Your constituents deserve better than to be told that Queen’s Park can merely reflect Ottawa’s agenda.

The Constitution and your constituents should not be told that Queen’s Park has to back stop any immigration related nonsense that comes out of Ottawa.

You well know that you lack the authority to support Ottawa’s pie in the sky policies with regard to skilled trades language skills and fairy tale labour market information.

Ontario successfully manages trades site safety in 10 languages.

Meanwhile, you allow successful, tax paying concrete finishers and butchers to be deported from our community because Ottawa feigns concern that workers, already here on work permits and provincial safety certificates, will become safety risks upon becoming immigrants.

Ontario acknowledges a severe shortage of commercial roofers and ethnic pastry chefs.

Meanwhile, you allow successful, tax paying pastry chefs and commercial roofers to be deported from our community because Ottawa has cooked the books on labour shortage statistics.

Were you not concerned when Ottawa said that it may have good labour data in mid 2015 but that it would deport workers today on the basis of its non existent data?

Were you not concerned when Ottawa refused to hand over its Stats Canada EI applicant numbers on a specific skills set basis?

Don’t you get concerned when Ottawa denies Ontario employers the services of foreign workers based on the lie that George Brown College trains master butchers and Portuguese pastry chefs?

Please don’t tell me that you are now working with Ottawa in order to come up with better data. This type of consultation should have taken place before you drove the worker’s underground and turned employers into co-conspirators.

Ontario employers know the facts. Please treat them with respect.

The Constitution was not written for your convenience. Please treat it with respect. 

 

2. Your government’s proposed Immigration Act is a blatant denial of your  responsibilities and as such, constitutes a shameful document  

The proposed Immigration Act would force Ontario to adjust its economic priorities to Ottawa’s agenda.

Again, you have no authority to hand over Ontario’s jurisdiction.  

It appears that your panic in passing bad legislation is a direct reaction to the recent Auditor General’s report into the PNP program.

The Auditor General is concerned with your lack of policy direction, your poor administration and the influence peddling.

The AG did not tell you to justify your ongoing behavior by denying your responsibility to come up with good policy, good administration and no influence peddling.

Rather than simply admit past mistakes and start afresh, you seek to wash your hands of your responsibility.

You are taking cover by passing the buck to Ottawa.

This hardly constitutes good policy, good administration and hopefully, no more influence peddling.

More to the point… passing the buck on the Constitution is both serious and illegal.

I don’t recall the AG suggesting denial and breach of obligation as a remedial course of action.

3. Your response to Ottawa’s Express Entry program is a betrayal

You are well aware that, as of January 1, 2015, a PNP certificate has no more significance in the Express Entry program than an LMIA issued to a donut shop.

Under your watch, a PNP certificate has become useless document for 99% of Ontario’s trades employers and their existing staff.  

You have failed to advise your constituents that as of January 1, 2015, a PNP certificate will be a useless document for over 99% of skilled construction workers, ethnic food service staff and mechanics presently in Canada as temporary workers but aspiring to become immigrants.

In return for nothing from Ottawa, you have bartered away Ontario’s ability to serve the immediate skilled worker needs of Ontario employers.

Instead, you have turned legal, tax paying members of the community into even more illegal, exploited folks fearing arrest at the Dufferin Mall.  

It took years for Ontarians to understand and trust the PNP program.

For no explicable reason, you have given it all away. 

4. Your recent policy change granting PNP certificates to undergrads may have crossed the line into behavior constituting fraudulent activity

Rather than deal with immigration policy in a serious manner, your office is engaging in bazaar style PNP fire sales.

The Auditor General told you to stay away from this sort of thing. What are you thinking?

You are bartering away marginally useful /useless PNP certificates on behalf of schools as they peddle their need to make student visa’s more attractive. Schools need the money. Consultants need the fees. 

You are encouraging gullible students to pay schools and consultants big fees all of which will be lost when Ottawa clamps down on this phony cash cow.   

You came up with a third world scheme that would grant PNP certificates to 20 year old students whose only claim to fame is that they have spent daddy’s money for two years.

You do not require the students to have a college diploma. You do not require any work experience. You do not require any history of paying taxes .You do not require an LMIA.You do not require any proof that they are able to establish themselves in Canada.

Not even cash strapped African jurisdictions sell out permanent residency at such bargain basement prices.

Do you actually think that Ottawa will go along with this nonsense?

Given Ottawa’s decimation of hundreds of thousands of FSW applicants and over 50,000 investor applicants, do you actually believe that Ottawa will bat an eye as it refuses the applications of the students that  have been misled by your government into believing that a PNP certificate is a ticket to becoming a landed immigrant?

I fear that your PNP response to the education industry is indicative of your reacting to hit and run pressure, not focused policy or even respect for the AG.

Again, what are you thinking?

Conclusion

Given that Express Entry is days away, there is no likelihood that you will step away from the abyss.

Instead, we will all suffer directly and significantly as the province joins Ottawa in forcing trades workers and employers to pay the heavy price of the Express Entry 2015 election train.

Despite all the above, please be assured that there are people prepared to work with you in establishing the post Express Entry world.

If it is your government’s choice to continue denying its responsibilities while trades workers and their employers suffer the consequences, then so be it.

Yours truly,

Richard Boraks

cc: Rocco Galati "

December, 22 2014