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It is not clear that data resolve the question of whether shortages exist in a particular local labour market. The government uses reports on layoffs as a guide to whether there are shortages, but the auditor general found that Canadians in some seasonal industries deliberately take jobs expecting to be laid off. Early in the fishing season, for example, there are plenty of Atlantic Canadian workers available and no labour shortages; but by the end of the season, many of them are receiving EI benefits and are not interested in work, leaving employers short.

As is all too often the case, some of the findings of the auditor general’s report validate why many Canadians don’t feel anyone cares about their tax dollars. It found that about 2,000 temporary foreign workers were receiving EI benefits, totaling $5 million a year. Even in, say, the case of a fire at a fish plant leading to layoffs, it is baffling how a program grants EI benefits to foreign workers whose very presence in Canada can no longer be justified (these workers should be exempted from both contributing to and receiving EI benefits).

Other findings simply show the sloppiness, lethargy and even downright deception characterizing too many programs. ESDC was granted expanded enforcement powers in the 2014 reforms, but did not use them. It did not feel obliged to investigate obvious instances where the program was used for family unification (hiring a family member as caregiver to infirm parents is a favourite tactic) because current guidelines don’t explicitly forbid that. The department outright lied to the auditor general’s office about how often it inspected worksites to check on the presence and treatment of foreign workers.

The overall picture is not pretty: uninformed policy based on willfully incomplete data, agencies working in silos ignoring readily available information, sloppy administration and a department lying about its own shortcomings. The new secretariat the Liberal government has charged with improving the delivery of federal government services faces a monumental task.

Philip Cross is a Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.