Keller: Yes, Canada should (mostly) end our temporary foreign worker programs 

Nice reminder of previous comments (Trudeau did the same in 2014):

…Prime Minister Mark Carney used to get this. Back in 2013, when he was governor of the Bank of Canada, he told a parliamentary committee that “one doesn’t want an overreliance on temporary foreign workers for lower-skill jobs, which prevent the wage adjustment mechanism from making sure that Canadians are paid higher wages but also that firms improve their productivity.”

He added that temporary foreign workers should be for “those higher-skilled gaps that do exist.” 

In plain English, he said that bringing in highly skilled people to fill high-wage jobs was good for Canada, but allowing business easy access to lots of temporary foreign workers for entry-level jobs was a recipe for suppressing the wages of low-wage Canadians, and discouraging companies from raising productivity through labour-saving technologies. 

That was the right answer. It was also a good foundation for future immigration policy.

But last week, Mr. Carney said the opposite. Pushing back against Conservative criticism, he said that “when I talk to businesses around the country … their number one issue is tariffs, and their number two issue is access to temporary foreign workers.”

Mr. Carney, please rediscover your 2013 answer. Aside from being economically sound, it is immeasurably more politically saleable. Just ask British Columbia Premier David Eby.…

Source: Yes, Canada should (mostly) end our temporary foreign worker programs