Unfortunately, Olsen didn’t check the data (Temporary Residents: Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) and International Mobility Program (IMP) Work Permit Holders – Monthly IRCC Updates – Canada – International Mobility Program work permit holders by province/territory, intended occupation (4-digit NOC 2011) and year in which permit(s) became effective). Had some time to look at the construction sector, highlighting that there has been an increase at the supervisory level (B):
Union leader Mark Olsen is frustrated Canadians know almost nothing about Ottawa’s international mobility program. And he’s afraid company bosses want it that way.
The program is the vast federal guest worker program that now brings by far the most newcomers into Canada — with more than one million in the country now.
It’s also the program that Olsen believes makes it most easy for employers to exploit guest workers, which in turn harms Canadian workers.
As the western manager of the Laborers International Union of North America, Olsen said that the international mobility program is drawing more than four times as many guest workers as the more discussed temporary foreign workers program.
Two weeks ago Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to modestly trim the temporary foreign workers program by up to 80,000 workers after protests that it was responsible for a high number of low-wage workers at a time of high unemployment among Canadian young people.
An Angus Reid Institute poll released Tuesday shows that 56 per cent of Canadians believe the Liberals are bringing in too many temporary workers, which they think is making it harder to access housing and obtain decent wages.
Olsen believes Trudeau’s gesture with the temporary foreign workers program is window-dressing. If the past is a guide, he said, the federal government and corporations will just use the decline of that program to funnel more foreign workers into the expanding international mobility program.
The government’s strategy, Olsen said, will continue to “institutionalize foreign worker exploitation, discrimination and abuse, distort the labour market, suppress Canadians’ wages and lead to a loss of training opportunities and jobs for Canadian workers, including Indigenous people and women.”
There is a need, Olsen said, for qualified people to come from other countries to work in Canada. That’s especially the case in Canada’s gigantic construction industry, which employs most members of the Laborers International Union of North America. But guest workers, Olsen said, must be invited to the country in a way that’s fair both to them and to Canadian workers.
The major defect in the international mobility program, Olsen said, is that, unlike the temporary foreign workers program, it doesn’t require Canadian employers to provide evidence to the government that they’re unable to find a Canadian to do the job.
“This has made the IMP (international mobility program) ripe for abuse of both the system and the temporary worker, and has fuelled explosive growth under the program,” said Olsen.
A second problem with the international mobility program is that employers are allowed to pay the foreign workers significantly less than they pay Canadians in the same job, whether they’re in the field of high tech, health care, retail or construction. That’s because bosses only have to commit to paying foreign workers a wage that is higher, even only slightly higher, than the median Canadian salary, which Olsen said is in the $23-an-hour range.
That leads to international mobility program workers often doing the same tasks as Canadian workers at far lower wages.
Obviously, Olsen said, the big wage disparity hands bosses an incentive to hire cheap labour through that program, rather than seek Canadian applicants.
“It results in employers paying substandard wages and often no benefits to foreign workers,” Olsen said in a joint memo with Eric Olsen, his brother, who is the political director for the western arm of Laborers International Union, which has about 400,000 members in the U.S. and 150,000 in Canada. “It also allows employers to pay Canadian workers less than the market would ordinarily require, distorting the market.”
The B.C. Building Trades this year put together a report on migration, with case studies showing how B.C. employers paid foreign workers much less than Canadians during construction of the Golden Ears Bridge, the Murray River mine project and the Canada Line.
Since 2015, the Liberal government has dramatically increased the number of temporary residents in Canada, to about 2.8 million. Immigration Minister Marc Miller said this year that nine per cent are in the temporary foreign workers program stream, 44 per cent are employed in Canada through the international mobility program category and another 43 per cent are foreign students, most of whom are allowed to work.
However, Mark Olsen is on to something when he worries ordinary Canadians have no idea about the country’s many guest worker programs — and the often crucial differences between them.
Canada’s migration system is complex and confusing. Even politicians, pundits and pollsters often make comments that suggest they mistakenly think the temporary foreign workers program is the only Canadian stream for “temporary” workers. It doesn’t help that the term, international mobility program, is itself fuzzy.
In the face of the public’s ignorance, which Mark Olsen believes companies capitalize on, the leaders of the Laborers International Union want to reform Canada’s guest-worker programs.
One top recommendation is that bosses using the international mobility program must prove there is a need for each guest worker. Such declarations exist with the temporary foreign workers program, when employers fill out a document called a labour market impact assessment.
And since news reports frequently arise about abuse and deception in regard to the rules of the guest worker system, the union says “there must be proper enforcement and significant penalties.”
In addition, union wants all foreign workers in Canada to “have the same rights as Canadian workers” and “be paid the same as Canadian workers in wages and benefits.”
It also recommends providing foreign workers “a pathway to Canadian citizenship.” As the union’s policy paper says: “If these workers are good enough to be invited here to build our country, they are good enough to stay and build their families and communities.”
In regard to these last two reforms, Mark Olsen acknowledged that there is sometimes resistance from members of his union.
Given changing public sentiment in Canada, that’s not surprising. One key finding in this week’s Angus Reid poll is that only 24 per cent of Canadians believe guest workers should be offered a route to citizenship.
Nevertheless, Mark Olsen said after he talks to members about the union recommendations on guest workers, they invariably end up embracing the union’s viewpoint, which he describes as “respect for all.”
Multicultural Meanderings 