Canada’s foreign worker program ‘breeding ground’ for modern slavery: report

2024/08/15 Leave a comment

Not that surprising that little change from the interim report. Still find the language overly dramatic and over stated in describing the abuse:

A recently released international report says Canada’s temporary foreign worker program is a “breeding ground” for contemporary slavery.

The final report by a United Nations special rapporteur who visited Canada last year says a power imbalance prevents workers from exercising their rights.

A worker’s status is dependent on a closed work permit that is specific to their employer. If an individual is fired, they may be deported from Canada.

Workers are subject to a wide range of abuses and aren’t always aware of their rights, the report says.

It notes the government puts much of the responsibility for informing workers about their rights on the employer, “despite the obvious conflict of interest.”

Special rapporteur Tomoya Obokata cites reports of issues including wage theft, long working hours with limited breaks and insufficient personal protective equipment.

The report also notes allegations of sexual harassment and exploitation, along with physical, emotional and verbal abuse.

Obokata also found that workers have difficulty accessing health care.

In some cases, employers prevented people from seeking treatment, the report says, with some workers denied the necessary time off, encouraged to “take painkillers or home remedies instead” or even fired.

The report notes that rules implemented in 2022 require employers to make a reasonable effort to provide workers with access to health care if they are ill or injured.

It also points out that many employers end up providing housing for their workers. That can result in overcrowding, such as 20 to 30 people sharing a single washroom, it says.

The report calls for Canada to “end labour migration arrangements that foster exploitation by creating dependency situations that tie workers to their employers” and in which employers control the worker’s housing, health care and status.

The number of permits under the program increased 88 per cent from 2019 to 2023, though Ottawa recently indicated it plans to reduce the number of such workers in Canada.

Mathis Denis, a spokesperson for Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault, said the government has increased fines for employer non-compliance under the program. He said the government levied $2.1 million in fines for violating program rules last fiscal year, up from $1.54 million issued the previous year.

He said the minister is considering increasing fees to pay for “additional integrity and processing activities,” and is looking to put in place new regulations covering employer eligibility.

Source: Canada’s foreign worker program ‘breeding ground’ for modern slavery: report

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

ICYMI: Trudeau’s plan to reduce temporary immigration risks economic harm: business groups

2024/08/14 Leave a comment

Could hardly expect her to welcome any restrictions, even if all the evidence points to the need:

Canada’s independent business advocate says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to reduce temporary immigration risks dire economic consequences, underscoring the pressures the government is facing as it tries to slow population growth.

Nancy Healey, who holds a government post knows as commissioner for employers, penned a letter to three of Trudeau’s cabinet ministers warning that a plan to cut temporary residents by 20% over three years is likely to make it harder for firms to grow.

“In the context of the current and future labor shortages that Canada will experience, it is crucial not to reduce the labor pool,” she said in the Aug. 1 letter, which was signed by business groups including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Canadian Federation of Independent Business. “Such a reduction would have catastrophic economic consequences for companies and limit their growth potential.”

A surge in temporary residents — including international students, foreign workers and asylum seekers — pushed Canada’s population growth rate to 3.2%, one of the world’s fastest. The influx of new arrivals exacerbated a housing shortage and helped sink Trudeau’s popularity.

The government is already implementing a cap on student visas, and businesses fear the government will next shrink the program that allows them to bring in temporary employees, said Healey.

Indeed, Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault told business groups on Tuesday he intends to limit their use of temp workers — a program that has drawn mounting criticism for allowing fraud and abuse.

The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada has continued to grow even as the unemployment rate rises — it reached 6.4% in June, 13.5% for the youngest workers. Temporary foreign workers have increasingly been recruited for low-wage, unskilled jobs, including in retail stores and restaurants.

Healey defended the program in the letter, calling it “much maligned despite the rigor that has characterized it for many years,” driven by “unsubstantiated anecdotes.” The system requires employers to advertise jobs to Canadians before seeking a foreign worker, to pay market wages and to take part in a compliance regime that protects against abuse, she said.

She urged the government to maintain the number of workers admitted under the program, speed up approval times and avoid increasing the C$1,000 ($727.5) fee for permit applications, already costly for small businesses.

Business groups have long raised alarm about Canada’s aging population and low birth rates, a phenomenon experienced by many advanced economies. Healey pointed to a Royal Bank of Canada report that said 46% of projected structural labor shortages are in occupations that don’t need a university or college education, but instead require “occupation-specific” or on-the-job training.

“We need better paths for newcomers to come and stay in Canada,” Healey said in the letter. “It is clear that immigration streams that attach a job offer to the application result in improved outcomes.”

While business groups have a right to lobby the government, what’s good for businesses isn’t necessarily good for the economy, said Mikal Skuterud, a labor economist at the University of Waterloo.

Labor shortages are challenging for firms, but they can spur competitive wages and investments in equipment and technology — which is particularly important as Canada grapples with poor productivity, he said.

“I’m not saying it’s not difficult for businesses sometimes — for sure it is,” he said. “But the idea that this is some kind of an economic crisis the government has to respond to is really economic nonsense.”

Source: Trudeau’s plan to reduce temporary immigration risks economic harm: business groups

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

‘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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Keller: Canada is about to lose more than 100,000 farming jobs. That’s great economic news

2024/08/03 Leave a comment

More on innovation, productivity and immigration:

….Back in 1891, it would have called for a large (and mostly poorly paid) work force. Progress since then has been remarkable, spurred by massive investments in labour-saving farming equipment and technology. The Conference Board study predicts more of the same.

All of which should be a reminder that labour shortages and rising wages have economic benefits. Yes, benefits. They are the mother of business innovation and investment, because they force businesses to chase ever greater labour productivity. Particularly when it comes to low-wage jobs, a tight labour market and upward pressure on pay should be the goal of government policy.

However, Canadian businesses in recent years persuaded Ottawa that, no matter the state of the economy or the level of unemployment, they can’t fill hundreds of thousands of low-wage jobs. But these alleged labour shortages are mostly just businesses facing the pressure to compete for workers by raising wages.

Those pressures have been alleviated by allowing businesses to recruit an effectively unlimited number of temporary foreign workers, at the lowest legal wage, or less. Absent that low-wage release valve, businesses would have to innovate and invest more in new technologies to use less labour, and get more out of each hour of (increasingly expensive) labour.

That’s how we raise productivity. That’s how we grow the economy….

Source: Canada is about to lose more than 100,000 farming jobs. That’s great economic news

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Why the health-care sector is hiring temporary foreign workers like never before

2024/06/26 Leave a comment

Of note. More justifiable than fast food service workers and managers:

Persistent staffing shortages in the health-care sector across Canada in the wake of the pandemic have led some organizations, including some provincial government agencies, to increasingly call upon temporary foreign workers to fill positions in clinics, hospitals and senior care facilities across the country.

While health-care still represents a small fraction of the overall temporary foreign worker program, federal data analyzed by CBC News shows the government greenlighted the hiring of 4,336 health-care workers last year — up from 447 such positions in 2018. Health-care occupations represented roughly two per cent of the total temporary foreign worker positions that were approved in 2023.

A large share of that growth was driven by an uptick in approvals of nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates. There were 2,514 such approvals last year, up from just 16 in 2018.

But employers have also turned to the program to fill other positions, such as nurses (612 positions approved, up from 65 in 2018) and family doctors (216 positions approved, up from 72 in 2018).

“I think this is another example of the overall health-care workforce crisis,” said Ivy Bourgeault, who leads the Canadian Health Workforce Network, a network of researchers who study issues facing health workers. She said staffing shortages driven by burnout and attrition have employers turning to increasingly novel means to bring in new workers.

The uptick in health-care hiring is reflected in the number of positions approved through labour market impact assessments (LMIAs), which employers need to prove there’s no one in Canada available to take a job before they can hire a temporary foreign worker. …

Source: Why the health-care sector is hiring temporary foreign workers like never before

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Douglas Todd: Canada should warn guest worker, student applicants they’re taking a big gamble

2024/06/26 Leave a comment

Good comments by Kurland, Skuterud and Lee:

….Their plight is the direct fault of Ottawa, say migration specialists.

“Over the past four years the number of people with temporary status in Canada has skyrocketed” because of an executive decision from the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, says Richard Kurland, a Vancouver immigration lawyer.

“So there is now a chicken in the python problem,” he said.

“People with study permits, and then post-graduate work permits, who can’t qualify for permanent resident status face taking an airplane ride home in shame and poverty. Or they’ll find a way to stay.”

Kurland expects to see “increasing trends of marriages of convenience, refugee claims and applications for humanitarian and compassionate relief.”

A sign of what’s to come might have already arisen at Seneca College in Toronto, where asylum claims from international students increased from 300 in 2022 to almost 700 in 2023. At Kitchener’s Conestoga College, claims jumped from 106 to 450 during that same period.

University of Waterloo economics professor Mikal Skuterud, a specialist in labour, said “lots of non-permanent residents in Canada are seeing their permits expire and the government is worried that large numbers have no intention of leaving the country.”

The Liberal government created the predicament a few years ago, said Skuterud, when it signalled to the world, particularly those with low skills, the easiest way to become a citizen of Canada is to show up as a temporary resident.

“For migrants, Canada’s immigrant selection system now looks like a lottery, in which a work or study permit is the ticket. That’s a big problem. And it wasn’t like this before 2021.”

The Liberal government made the mistake of dismantling the country’s skills-based immigration system because of a “post-pandemic obsession with labour shortages, which is economic nonsense fuelled by corporate Canada,” Skuterud said.

George Lee, an immigration lawyer in Burnaby, said the “federal government created this problem: They’ve brought in too many people. The government wanted to address labour shortages. But now they say,  ‘It’s too much!’ In effect the government is blaming itself.”

Last week, StatCan reported 2.8 million temporary residents in Canada, comprising a record 6.8 per cent of the population. That’s up from 3.5 per cent two years ago.

More than one million are foreign students, most with work permits. Others are classified as “temporary foreign workers” or “international mobility” workers. Another 360,000 are asylum claimants.

In light of Immigration Minister Marc Miller promising this spring to reduce the number of study visas, partly in response to the pressure on housing prices and social services, Kurland said Canada should warn would-be migrants they’re taking a big gamble.

“They now face a loss of their significant investment in time and money. The problem is that the majority of people are unaware that every (newcomer) takes the risk that Canada’s immigration regulations may be changed at any time,” said Kurland, who publishes the newsletter, Lexbase, which previously reported on how Canada’s border services are better tracking when people actually exit the country.

Canada’s problem with an influx of temporary residents is different from what’s facing the U.S. and Europe. Those regions have experienced waves of millions of undocumented migrants. But, for the most part, Canada has explicitly welcomed the record flow of newcomers, most of whom are unskilled.

Skuterud questions the immigration minister’s May announcement that he would like to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada simply by turning them into permanent residents, particularly through the provinces’ so-called nominee programs.

“The irony of all this is that the government is providing more ad hoc openings to permanent residency to relieve the bulging non-permanent population.” It’s thereby “inadvertently” encouraging more people to start in Canada on a temporary basis with the dream of staying forever, he said.

The surge of temporary residents has not only exacerbated Canada’s housing crisis, Skuterud said rapid population growth, almost entirely from international migration, correlates with Canadian wages staying stagnant.

Lee, who came to Canada on a study visa from China in 1992, supports Canada’s efforts to bring high numbers of international students to the country, saying they’re primed to become engaged citizens since they have learned the culture, to speak English or French, and have developed Canadian-based job skills.

The problem, Lee said, is that when Ottawa tried to address a perceived labour shortage, it went too far and embraced too many newcomers at once. “We need a more balanced approach.”

Kurland suggests Ottawa adopt a “consumer protection” model to more honestly process people who want to move to Canada.

Canada’s immigration department, he said, should ask people who apply online for temporary residency: “If you are planning to possibly immigrate to Canada, do you acknowledge that your plan may fail if Canada immigration law and regulations were to change?”

Skuterud offers a different way forward. He says Ottawa has recently been over-promoting a “two-step immigration” scheme that pushes aspiring immigrants to first enter the country on a temporary basis.

He would like the government to return to emphasizing the more traditional economic-class pathway to permanent resident status, which relied on a transparent, above-board ranking system to select candidates.

Source: Douglas Todd: Canada should warn guest worker, student applicants they’re taking a big gamble

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , ,

Ottawa split on plan to let undocumented migrants apply to stay in Canada, Immigration Minister Miller says

2024/06/25 Leave a comment

Of note:

…Mr. Miller said there hasn’t yet been agreement within government on the program and it could take months to introduce.

He said what is causing him to pause are “views that I respect, people that care about these issues that are radically opposed and diametrically opposed, and not necessarily from people that [you] would necessarily think would have that thought process.”

Under the plan, migrants without documents, including people with Canadian children who have lived here for several years, would be able to apply for permanent residence.

The Prime Minister issued a mandate to former immigration minister Sean Fraser in 2021 that asked him to “further explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities.” A decision by cabinet was expected this spring.

But Mr. Miller said the program “is not something that is going to get rolled out soon” adding that polling is showing that Canadians are divided on the issue.

“If there is a clear conclusion, I will be quite clear to Canadians about it, but there isn’t one right now,” he said. “What I do know is that given the ongoing discussions, and they are ongoing – they have not come to an end – it isn’t something that I have any confidence will be rolled out in the short term.”…

Source: Ottawa split on plan to let undocumented migrants apply to stay in Canada, Immigration Minister Miller says

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →