Globe editorial: Fraud in the temporary worker program isn’t the problem. The rules that rig the labour market are

2024/08/12 Leave a comment

Indeed. Not seeing much impact yet in numbers in government rolling back some of the earlier ill-advised facilitation under former immigration minister Fraser and his DMs:

…As is the case with much of the immigration file, the Liberals have moved only slowly to undo what have become clearly damaging changes. Last October, the government decreased the validity period for labour market impact assessments to 12 months, when the national unemployment rate had hit 5.7 per cent, up from 5.1 per cent in the spring of 2022.

In March, the validity period was reduced to six months, a belated recognition of the realities of the labour market. At the same time, the government said only two sectors would still be allowed to use foreign workers for up to 30 per cent of their workforce. But it kept in place the 20-per-cent rule for all other sectors, despite rising unemployment.

On Tuesday, Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault hinted that further tightening may be on the way, as he announced several anti-fraud measures. Of course, companies who abuse the rules and their workers should be punished.

But the real problem with the low-wage temporary foreign worker program is not abuse of the rules – it’s the rules themselves. The press release from Mr. Boisonnault’s office boldly stated that the temporary foreign worker program “is designed as an extraordinary measure to be used when a qualified Canadian is not able to fill a job vacancy.”

That may have been the case once. But now that is demonstrably untrue – and a slap in the face to unemployed workers struggling to find a job while the Liberal government allows businesses to continue to import cheap labour.

Source: Fraud in the temporary worker program isn’t the problem. The rules that rig the labour market are

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‘A new kind of slavery’: Skyrocketing use of temporary foreign workers in restaurants and fast food chains has advocates concerned

2024/08/12 Leave a comment

Alternate header: Restaurants rely on cheap foreign labour undermining wages:

Source: ‘A new kind of slavery’: Skyrocketing use of temporary foreign workers in restaurants and fast food chains has advocates concerned

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Keller: How can the Trudeau government fix its immigration mess? Press ‘Rewind’

2024/08/10 Leave a comment

More from Keller on selectivity (Permanent Residents are selective unlike the demand-driven worker programs and international students):

…Over the last few years, work visas have been issued in unlimited numbers, with effectively no questions asked. That’s not how things used to be.

It should be quick and easy for a Canadian business to get a temporary work visa to fill a specialized, high-wage position. If an aeronautical engineering firm needs to recruit a senior production manager at $250,000 a year, they should get that visa yesterday.

But visas for $15-an-hour sandwich artists? Particularly when Statistics Canada says the summer jobless rate among students is at its highest level in decades? Forget it.

The temporary foreign worker streams must become smaller and more selective. Jobs paying, say, at least 150 per cent of the average Canadian full-time wage – that’s roughly $110,000 a year – should be possible to fill from overseas. Lower-wage applications should be auto-stamped “Denied.”

Yes, exception will have to be made for the long-standing program of seasonal agricultural workers. But other industries have to be weaned from their addiction to low-wage, low-rights labour. Going cold turkey will leave businesses with no choice but to raise wages and invest in productivity.

Selectivity should also be the rule when it comes to student visas. Immigration Minister Marc Miller is finally putting a cap on numbers, which were long unlimited. Infinite supply spawned an ecosystem of what Mr. Miller correctly dubbed “puppy mill” colleges, selling entry to Canada in exchange for minimal tuition. It’s a racket that Mr. Miller says he’s scaling back, but which he has hardly ended.

Canada should give student visa priority to programs with the best labour market outcomes, and the highest tuition. Some provinces, led by Ontario, appear to be doing the opposite. Foreign students at Ontario’s public universities pay tuitions that are generally several times those at public colleges, yet the lion’s share of Ontario’s student visas are allocated to colleges, not universities.

It’s not anti-immigration or anti-immigrant for Canada to be selective. It’s how we used to do things. It’s also how, from the 1980s until recently, through governments Progressive Conservative, Conservative and Liberal, Canada had higher levels of immigration than the rest of the developed world – and higher public support for immigration.

Source: How can the Trudeau government fix its immigration mess? Press ‘Rewind’

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‘Our current government hasn’t been heeding national security advice’: Former immigration minister Chris Alexander on how Canada vets immigrants—and how ISIS operatives may have slipped through the cracks 

2024/08/10 Leave a comment

Worth reading, both as an explainer as well as the political commentary:

Significant questions are being asked of Canada’s security and immigrant vetting processes following the arrests last month of Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and Mostafa Eldidi, 26, a father and son facing charges that include conspiracy to commit murder for the benefit or at the direction of a terrorist group—in this case, ISIS.

Reports have emerged that the pair were able to immigrate to Canada despite the elder Eldidi having participated in violence, including torture and dismemberment, against an ISIS prisoner. The assault was recorded on video and released by ISIS prior to the pair’s immigration to Canada.

Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi is a Canadian citizen while his son, Mostafa, is not.

Police claimed the father and son were “in the advanced stages of planning a serious, violent attack in Toronto,” before their arrest.

To better understand Canada’s immigration vetting process, Sean Speer, The Hub’s editor-at-large, exchanged with Chris Alexander, Canada’s minister of Citizenship and Immigration from 2013 to 2015, who offered his expert insight on how the pair may have slipped through the cracks without raising alarm.

SEAN SPEER: How does the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship draw on intelligence and national security analysis when judging the admissibility of an immigration applicant? Does the department have its own capacity or does it draw on the capacity concentrated in CSIS and other national security agencies? If the latter, what’s the mechanism or process for such analysis to be pulled into the department’s decision-making?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship uses national security-related information to make decisions, but this information invariably originates with CSIS, the RCMP, or our trusted allies and partners that share such information with us. When an applicant has never before been flagged for national security-related concerns, then IRCC is relying on CSIS, relevant police services, and their international partners to ensure nothing new has come to light. Timelines are often short; resources are invariably stretched; and matching applicants to data generated by national security review across languages, alphabets, and administrative systems can pose challenges.

SEAN SPEER: What type of national security review is typically used for immigration applicants compared to more extraordinary cases? What’s the triage process for determining the level of national security review?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: Applicants for permanent residence receive a more thorough review than say, international students or temporary workers. Anyone with a background in police, the military, or security services will receive additional vetting, especially if they come from a country with a less-than-stellar human rights record. The country of origin and any other places where the applicant lived, studied, or worked are also taken into account: if any of these countries are theatres where significant terrorist or extremist groups operate, where wars, civil wars or other armed conflicts are underway, or where hostile intelligence services may be recruiting assets, then there will be additional vetting as well. The parameters for Canada’s national security vetting are always shifting as the threat environment evolves, and our assessments catch up (or fail to catch up) to fast-changing realities on the ground around the world.

SEAN SPEER: Based on what we know about this particular case, what might have happened such that this individual’s participation in an ISIS-related execution was not factored into his admissibility?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: The information on the file might have been incomplete. For sound operational reasons, those monitoring ISIS comms and participants in ISIS war crimes may not have made their information fully available to national security databases. Stove-piping still happens; delays happen. Names also get garbled: “credible” sources may have claimed this was not the same person. Mistakes are human nature. In addition, our national security machinery has shifted gears in recent years away from terrorist threats to focus more on China, Russia, and homegrown extremism—the flames of which are often fanned online by state actors that engage in large-scale disinformation and active measures, such as Russia.i

SEAN SPEER: Is this a widespread problem in your view? To what extent does it suggest that there are others—perhaps many others—in the country with broadly similar backgrounds or past actions?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: Our system is not prone to widespread, systemic failures—it’s quite solid. But over the decades we have failed on several fronts. One example is the number of Iranian and Syrian regime officials—some with allegations of having committed terrible crimes in those countries—who somehow slipped through our vetting system. But the main challenge today is that the number of threats—from terrorist and criminal groups, as well as hostile foreign states—has grown significantly while our national security capabilities have failed to keep pace.

Add to this tension the unprecedented numbers of immigrants, temporary workers, international students, asylum claimants, and other visitors flowing into Canada over the past two years—roughly double the usual levels, with asylum backlogs rising rapidly—and you have a recipe for more frequent failures. For instance, over the period when Mexicans were coming to Canada visa-free, how many drug cartel operatives eager to open new routes into the U.S. came to Canada? We may never know. The same may be true for ISIS, representatives of China’s United Front Work Department, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) or Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and even Hamas or Hezbollah, which have historically had quite robust networks in Canada.

As we have all observed to our dismay, our current government has not been heeding national security advice and, to put it very mildly, has not been vigilant on these issues over the past nine years. Our allies (particularly in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing community) have noticed, and our reputation has been tarnished as a result.

SEAN SPEER: What, if any reforms, do you think should be undertaken to strengthen the process for assessing immigration applicants through an intelligence and national security lens?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: The key to successful national security review is rapid, continuous, skillful integration of available information. The right insights are out there, but they only shape immigration outcomes in the right ways when the data is well-organized, easily accessible, and properly brought to bear on decision-making. My guess is that those responsible for these issues have been run ragged in recent years: they need backup, a full review of our procedures, and (where necessary) modernization and integration of the relevant secure communication systems and databases.

We need to put sound national security practices back at the centre of our immigration policy—as well as our policy across government. In a world where all categories of threat actors are looking for the line of least resistance worldwide to launder money, move operatives, recruit new supporters, and disrupt democracy, Canada has become an easy mark in recent years. We need to restore our reputation for a best-in-class immigration and refugee programmes rooted in sound, reliable national security vetting. We also need to harden our defences, increase our military spending, and upgrade and broaden our national security capabilities to protect Canadians in general as well as the integrity of our immigration and refugee determination system at a time when hostile state and non-state actors have become more hostile almost across the board.

Source: ‘Our current government hasn’t been heeding national security advice’: Former immigration minister Chris Alexander on how Canada vets immigrants—and how ISIS operatives may have slipped through the cracks 


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Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre would be OK with permanent resident status for foreign workers, with conditions

2024/08/10 Leave a comment

Not exactly a bankable commitment. The devil will be in the details:

…Poilievre said he will consider permanent status for migrant workers under some specific conditions.

“I am open to it for people who have come legally, who have worked the entire time that they have been here (and) who have, or are learning one of the two official languages,” he said.

“In principle I have no problem with the idea of temporary foreign workers who have proven themselves to be strong, net contributors to our country staying permanently and becoming members of the Canadian family,” he added.

Source: Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre would be OK with permanent resident status for foreign workers, with conditions

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International Students Numbers Starting to Decline

2024/08/10 Leave a comment

Given some of the simplistic analysis of the number of study permits issued in a number of publications, I thought the following table would be instructive. There is always a time lag in policy implementation and the caps on international students were introduced in January of this year as shown in the table below.

So while there was a slight increase for the first half of this year, the quarterly number highlights the shift: Q1 showed a year-to-year increase of 34.3 percent whereas Q2 showed a decrease of 21.4 percent.

So a plea to journalists writing about international students and other immigration numbers, look at both the totals and trends for a more accurate picture. Always happy to respond to any questions.

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Ottawa signals tougher rules for Temporary Foreign Worker Program

2024/08/09 Leave a comment

Waiting for the details of this needed corrective action:

…The federal government said these moves were aimed at easing labour shortages, although many economists criticized the policies over the potential for wage suppression and exploitation of foreign workers, who have weaker labour rights than permanent residents and Canadians.

Employers have subsequently ramped up their recruitment of foreign labour, particularly in the low-wage stream. Cooks, food counter attendants and construction workers are among the low-wage employees in high demand.

At the end of 2023, nearly 190,000 people held valid work permits through the TFW program, an increase of 157 per cent from 2019. The program accounts for a small portion of temporary foreign labour in the country; for example, international students and people with postgraduate work permits are a large and growing cohort of workers in the Canadian economy.

The country’s soaring population growth – largely fuelled by temporary immigration – is colliding with a weakening labour market. The unemployment rate has risen to 6.4 per cent, and it’s taking longer for recent immigrants and young people to find jobs.

Tuesday’s news release said the government is applying “a stricter and more rigorous oversight” of employer applications to use the TFW program and when conducting inspections of companies using such labour.

Source: Ottawa signals tougher rules for Temporary Foreign Worker Program

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Meggs: Despite moving to limit temporary immigrants, Canada’s policy lacks vision

2024/08/08 Leave a comment

Good critique of the lack of an overall vision and direction. In addition, any such vision and plan needs to include the impacts of immigration, permanent and temporary, on housing, healthcare, infrastructure etc., along with related plans to address these impacts:

…The government’s move is part of its plan to reverse many decisions that have led to the serious negative consequences of the mismanagement of the immigration system over the last 10 years. The main stated objective is to reduce the proportion of non-permanent residents (those with work or study permits and asylum seekers) to 5 per cent of the Canadian population by 2027, a target experts consider unattainable.

However, is the growth of a population with a certain immigration status the only problem the government needs to resolve? Or is it the increasing size of the population in general? Or the number and pace of arrivals, whatever their status? Or the skills and skill-levels of the people who are arriving? Or the age pyramid?

There was no vision in the immigration policy that got us into this conundrum, and there is no obvious vision for bringing immigration policy back under control. For public policy to be effective and reinforce confidence in government, the public must understand and relate to the problems that the policy is attempting to address and feel intuitively that the government has the issue under control. Canadians these days sense that this is no longer the case for immigration policy and this is dangerous for social cohesion….

Source: Despite moving to limit temporary immigrants, Canada’s policy lacks vision

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Moffatt: Ontario experienced a decade’s worth of population growth in just three years. We can’t support that growth without building way more homes

2024/08/08 Leave a comment

More on housing pressures and noting the importance of curbing demand in terms of numbers of immigrants, permanent and temporary and current government changes (further reductions needed IMO):

…On the population growth side, the federal government has committed to lowering the number of non-permanent residents (NPRs), including international students and temporary foreign workers, living in Canada. They have committed to reducing the proportion of non-permanent residents to under 5 per cent of Canada’s population over the next three years, a reduction of nearly one million people. If achieved, it would ease pressure on rents and ensure that the students we are inviting to the country have the best possible experience while here. However, the Bank of Canada recently called into question the federal government’s commitment to their non-permanent resident growth targets, stating  “it will take longer for planned policies to reduce NPR inflows to achieve the 5% target”. The federal government must release a credible plan, or risk having Ontario’s population grow faster than the housing supply.

Ontario’s housing crisis can be fixed. We have the solutions on both the supply and demand sides, many of which governments have already committed to implementing. They simply need to do so.

Source: Ontario experienced a decade’s worth of population growth in just three years. We can’t support that growth without building way more homes

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Will Canada apply its immigration policy fairly in the face of the Gaza conflict?

2024/08/07 Leave a comment

I find these arguments somewhat tiresome, not because they are not valid but rather because they need to also acknowledge the war crimes, genocidal aims, etc by Hamas. Equally tiresome are arguments by hardline supporters of the Israeli government not acknowledging their war crimes and tolerance of extremist settler groups:

One of the most sacrosanct foundations of democracies is that they are based on the rule of law, which mandates one set of laws enforceable on all individuals—including the government itself. The notion that the law simply does not apply to an individual, or groups of individuals, is more commonly associated with corrupt dictatorships than democracies. 

Yet, in 2024 in Canada, whether the rule of law is supreme is an open question. Canada has specific laws governing who is considered admissible to the country, proscribing Canadians from joining foreign militaries, and preventing illegal support for armed forces of another country by Canadian charities. Each one of those laws has been applied in regard to some groups, and consistently violated and disregarded with others. 

The American State Department recently issued an unexpected decision regarding Elor Azaria, a former sergeant in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) convicted of extrajudicially killing a Palestinian in the West Bank. The decision bars Azaria, as well as his immediate family members, from entering the United States. The statement declared, “We are designating Elor Azaria … pursuant to Section 7031(c) for his involvement in a gross violation of human rights … .” 

This decision marks a significant turning point for those implicated in war crimes in Gaza under U.S. jurisdiction, and it also raises a crucial question about the repercussions of the Gaza conflict on the enforcement of Canada’s laws. 

How will the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) handle the Income Tax Act implications for charities that fund the IDF? The CRA recently revoked the Jewish National Fund’s charitable status for directing donations towards IDF infrastructure. This raises questions about other charities that have publicly raised funds for the IDF and illegal settlements. Similarly, how will the Royal Canadian Mounted Police address provisions of the Criminal Code and Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act regarding Canadians who have joined the IDF?

Additionally, Section 34(1) of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) bars entry to individuals involved in violence, terrorism, or membership in related organizations. Sections 35(1) and 35.1(1) further prohibit entry to anyone implicated in human or international rights violations, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, senior officials in governments guilty of gross human rights violations, and those under international sanctions. These provisions—mirroring the American laws that barred Azaria—were broadly designed by Parliament to safeguard national security. They granted discretionary power to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers and immigration officials, but also acknowledged the potential to inadvertently affect innocent and non-threatening individuals who are meant to be treated as exceptions. 

If applied universally, these principles could restrict figures in the vein of Nelson Mandela, or even historical members of the U.S. Democratic Party due to their support of slavery. However, in practice, the CBSA has often used these provisions selectively, particularly to unjustly target and deport refugees from Muslim countries, with decisions frequently influenced by the personal biases of individual officers. This same bias has also led to the oversight of individuals who should rightfully be captured by the law.

Despite well-documented instances of systemic violence against Muslims and other minorities by members of India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Canada has not taken a similar stance against them. The RSS, a right-wing Hindu nationalist group, and the BJP, India’s ruling party, have been linked to numerous violent acts, including riots and targeted attacks on religious minorities. From 2013 to 2023, Indian immigration to Canada increased by 326 per cent, with 18.6 per cent of recent immigrants coming from India. Yet, Canada has not pursued cases of inadmissibility against individuals from these groups, raising questions about the consistency and fairness of its immigration policies.

The ongoing Gaza conflict has led to investigations by the International Criminal Court into alleged war crimes by Israel, including the targeted killing of civilians, willful suffering, and the use of starvation as a warfare tactic—all human rights violations. Additionally, the International Court of Justice has declared that Israel’s occupation and settlement expansions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are illegal, and that there is an imminent risk of genocide. Under Canada’s Immigration Act, involvement with groups linked to these illegal settlements or with the IDF, amidst allegations of war crimes or possible genocide, could make individuals inadmissible to Canada—a measure affecting a significant portion of Israel’s population.

Our laws must be consistently applied, holding individuals accountable for human rights violations, war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, irrespective of their nationality, the geopolitical context of their actions, or the political stance of the government of the day. To ensure the proper application of the law and to enable the CBSA to effectively perform its duties, a suspension of visa exemptions for travellers from Israel is necessary.

As the U.S. has taken a step towards a consistent application of its immigration laws concerning human rights violations against Palestinians, it is crucial for Canada to critically examine its own legal enforcement, and ensure that it upholds fairness and impartiality in every instance. Our nation faces a difficult test with the Gaza crisis, challenging us to confront the systemic biases embedded within our governmental institutions. Our standing as a democratic nation founded on the rule of law demands nothing less.

Washim Ahmed is a refugee and human rights lawyer, and a co-founder of OWS Law. Taha Ghayyur is the executive director of Justice for All Canada, a non-profit human rights and advocacy organization dedicated to preventing genocide.

Source: Will Canada apply its immigration policy fairly in the face of the Gaza conflict?

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