MPs call for House study after UN report slams Canada’s efforts to combat contemporary slavery, forced labour

2023/09/23 Leave a comment

Of note:

A recent report from the United Nations’ special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery has raised alarm over Canada’s handling of the issue at home, including particular criticism for the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. With Parliament now back from its summer recess, NDP, Liberal, and Conservative MPs say they want to see a House committee undertake a study in response. 

Following a two-week visit, UN Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata released a 12-page statement of preliminary findings on Sept. 6, within which he highlighted Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) as a top source of concern, saying the program’s low-wage and agricultural streams in particular “constitute a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery,” and that he is “perturbed by reports” that the number of workers entering Canada through this program is “sharply on the rise.”

“The Special Rapporteur is disturbed by the fact that certain categories of migrant workers are made vulnerable to contemporary forms of slavery in Canada, by the policies that regulate their immigration status, employment, and housing in Canada, and he is particularly concerned that this workforce is disproportionately racialized, attesting to deep-rooted racism and xenophobia entrenched in Canada’s immigration system,” reads the statement.

Obokata was in Canada between Aug. 23 and Sept. 6 to assess Canada’s efforts to prevent and address contemporary forms of slavery, including forced and child labour. He’s set to present a full report, which will expand on his initial findings and cover additional issues, to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2024. 

NDP MP Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, Alta.) said the rapporteur’s initial findings need to be raised in the House of Commons.

McPherson is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights, which studied the human rights situation of the Uyghurs, and the role of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise in 2021. In light of the rapporteur’s findings, she said she’d like the “subcommittee to be looking at this again.” 

“We’ll be bringing that forward at that point [when the House returns], that they examine this and that we do get testimony on this report,” and look at the issue “from a larger frame,” beyond the ombudsperson, to also include examination of due diligence and human rights legislation, McPherson told The Hill Times on Sept. 15. 

She pointed to the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations and the House Foreign Affairs Committee itself—she is a member of both groups—as other potential arenas to pursue a study, noting, for example, the issue of Uyghur forced labour in Canada’s supply chains. 

“We have an awful lot to study within those committees, and so it’ll be a situation of trying to find the right place for it to land, and whether there’s bandwidth to do that,” said McPherson, adding she thinks the House International Trade Committee should also pick up the issue.

Conservative MP Arnold Viersen (Peace River–Westlock, Alta.), a member of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights and of the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, said he’s in favour of “studying the issue of human trafficking and how Canada can better fight it at any and every turn, so I would welcome a study in that respect.” 

Liberal MP John McKay (Scarborough–Guildwood, Ont.), another member of the all-party group, agreed the rapporteur’s findings bear “an examination by a House of Commons committee.” 

“We are bringing in a lot of people under particular policies, and it’s always worthwhile to examine the efficacy of those policies. Canada has a labour shortage … but we simply cannot be a nation that exploits other human beings in labour conditions that are such as the rapporteur has described. He used very strong language,” said McKay.

As noted by Obokata, use of the TFWP is on the rise in Canada. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of TFW permit holders increased by 31.5 per cent to reach 135,625 individuals. It’s on track to surpass that total in 2023, with 130,155 such permits already having come into effect in the first three quarters of the year, according to federal data. 

“It is a fact that temporary foreign workers make vital contributions to Canada’s national economy and possess valuable skills for which there is consistent demand, and yet paths for long-term or permanent residency is extremely limited or non-existent for most workers working in agriculture and other low-skills sectors,” reads the rapporteur’s report.

Obokata said while in Canada, he “received first-hand information from a large number of stakeholders, notably migrant workers themselves, pointing to the appalling working and living conditions in reality,” including excessive work hours, “extra-contractual tasks, physically dangerous tasks, low wages, no overtime pay,” access being denied to health care, limited access to social services, overcrowded and unsanitary employer-provided housing, “as well as sexual harassment, intimidation, and violence at the hands of their employers and their family.”

Such issues could be prevented through “effective labour and health and safety inspections,” but Obokata said from what he heard, those being done by federal, provincial, and territorial inspectors “are grossly ineffective,” don’t happen regularly, can be done remotely, and allow for advance notice to employers when done in person, enabling them to “make necessary preparations on the day of inspection.” Moreover, he said “most migrant workers are unaware” of the existence of existing federal, provincial, and territorial complaint mechanisms, or are afraid to report labour law violations “due to the fear of unemployment or deportation.”

While acknowledging “important developments” in the effort to protect the human rights of workers, and eradicate forced and child labour in the country’s supply chains—like the 2022 release of the Responsible Business Conduct Strategy and the 2021 update to the Code of Conduct for Procurement—Obokata said he still has “some concerns over Canada’s current approach to human rights due diligence for Canadian companies.”

He noted, for example, that Bill S-211’s reliance on self-reporting, lack of monitoring mechanism, and lack of requirements to implement “human rights due diligence” or measures to “prevent, address, and remedy abuses once identified,” risks it “becoming a box ticking exercise where companies simply submit the same statement every year, as has been reported in other jurisdictions.” The Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, which comes into force in January 2024, requires companies that check two of three boxes—having at least $20-million in assets, $40-million in revenue, or 250 employees—to report on measures taken to “prevent and reduce the risk” of forced or child labour in their operations and supply chains.

Obokata said in raising concerns with the federal government, he was told draft legislation on due diligence to complement Bill S-211 is “currently” being considered. He urged the government to do so “expeditiously,” and for clear guidance on reporting requirements under S-211, and monitoring and oversight mechanisms to be established in the interim. 

McKay, Viersen, and Independent Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne (Inkerman, Que.) were among those who met with Obokata virtually on Aug. 15 just before his visit in their capacity as members of the all-party parliamentary group, with talk focused on S-211, which was sponsored by McKay and Miville-Dechêne in the House and Senate, respectively. 

McKay and Miville-Dechêne told The Hill Times they disagree with Obokata’s assessment of S-211 as a mere “box-ticking exercise,” with McKay saying he takes “strong exception to anyone who says this legislation will not be effective.” 

There’s an “immense amount of work that entities are going to have to do in order to be able to comply with the legislation,” argued McKay, with potential “enormous” consequences, including the fact that “the regulatory filing signed by a senior officer and approved by the board of the entity” will be “looked at by other regulators,” and “by those who do financing,” consumers, and NGOs. McKay said in discussions with lawyers and others “who work in this area” in Toronto last week alongside Miville-Dechêne, the pair heard serious concerns “about the work that’s going to be required in order to make sure that they comply.” 

“Our model is a stronger model than the U.K. model,” said Miville-Dechêne of S-211, noting the bill includes fines for non-compliance, and transmitting information that’s knowingly false. “I would say it’s a step, but a very important step and the first step, too, for a country that has … talked, politically, a lot about our respect for human rights, and by implementing this law, it is a step in the right direction.” 

McKay, Miville-Dechêne, and Viersen all said they expect clear guidance on reporting requirements under S-211 to come through its enacting regulations, which are still being awaited from the minister responsible, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour, N.B.). Asked when those regulations would be tabled, LeBlanc’s office did not respond by filing deadline. 

McKay and Miville-Dechêne urged the government to table its draft regulations as soon as possible, with the Senator noting there are only three-and-a-half months left before S-211 comes into force, “which is not, in political terms, that long to give clear guidance to companies.”

Viersen called the wait on regulations “quite frustrating.” 

As for a parliamentary study, Miville-Dechêne said while the rapporteur’s preliminary findings must be listened to—and that she, too, is “very worried” about the potential for exploitation through Canada’s TFW program—she noted “he’s going to have more to say” when the full report is released next year. She highlighted that the Senate Social Affairs Committee is already in the midst of a study on Canada’s temporary and migrant labour force. 

“I find on this particular issue [the TFWP], Mr. Obokata is right on,” she said. 

Among other things, the rapporteur’s report also raised concern over the effectiveness of the federal Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprisesestablished in 2019, which Obokata noted didn’t release its first initial assessment reports on complaints until this year—nearly four years after its creation. He highlighted that its mandate covers “only a limited number of sectors,” and excludes a number “where labour exploitation is rife, like agriculture, fishery, manufacturing, and construction,” which the rapporteur said should be “core” to the office’s mandate. He called for the ombudsperson to be given statutory powers to compel witnesses and documents, “with clear consequences” for companies that don’t comply, and for its independence to be ensured.  

McPherson said the rapporteur’s report has “echoed all of the concerns that the NDP has raised for some time,” including its criticisms of Bill S-211, which her party voted against in the House, and the effectiveness of the ombudsperson.

“We’ve got a government right now who is saying that they care about human rights, they’re talking about the need to ensure that Canadian companies working abroad are acting effectively, but every chance they have to bring forward good, strong legislation, they fail,” she said.

On the TFWP, McPherson said the NDP, “from the very get-go,” has said “the program needs to be revamped” and “that any individual who comes to Canada to be a worker needs to have a path to become a Canadian citizen.” 

“This program has been flawed” from the very beginning, she said, starting under the previous Conservative government, and continuing under the Liberals, despite its pledge to fix it.

The Hill Times reached out to Trade Minister Mary Ng (Markham–Thornhill, Ont.) and Immigration Minister Marc Miller (Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Soeurs, Que.) for comment and reaction to the rapporteur’s report. 

An emailed response from Global Affairs Canada confirmed Ng’s office has “reviewed the rapporteur’s statement.”

“We are taking into consideration the findings in the statement and how we can reflect on them moving forward as we work to eradicate forced labour from Canadian supply chains and ensure that Canadian businesses operating abroad do not contribute to human rights abuses,” reads GAC’s response. 

In its emailed response, Miller’s office highlighted “several permanent immigration pathways available for workers,” including through an Agri-Food pilot launched in May 2020 and recently extended until May 2025; the Provincial Nominee Program; the Atlantic Immigration Program; and express entry eligibility for agricultural supervisors and managers, among other things. 

“In Canada, the rights of all workers—including temporary foreign workers—are protected by law. Temporary foreign workers have the same rights and workplace protections as Canadians and permanent residents,” reads the response from Miller’s office, noting that new regulations aimed at increasing protections for foreign workers were implemented federally in September 2022.

“We will continue engaging all levels of government, provinces, and territories—to ensure all workers are safe and protected wherever they are in the country.”

Source: MPs call for House study after UN report slams Canada’s efforts to combat contemporary slavery, forced labour

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Ottawa faces class action alleging rules around migrant workers are discriminatory

2023/09/19 Leave a comment

We shall see (all immigration policy is inherently discriminatory, the question revolves around whether it is for legitimate reasons or not).

It seems like a bit of a stretch to argue that:

“There were now increasing numbers of persons of colour. These schemes were justified on the basis that the immigrants of certain races, colours, or ethnic or national origins were considered unable to assimilate to Canada’s climate and society and to be better-suited for ‘unfree’ and low-skilled work.”

Whe Canada was also abolishing race-based restrictions on permanent residents.

As a child, he would get postcards from his aunt in Canada and dream to see the country and live here one day.

In 2014, as a 22-year-old, he reached out to a compatriot from Guatemala and scraped together $3,000 to pay for a job offer in poultry catching from the man’s employer in Quebec.

He would end up spending most of his next nine years in Canada as a migrant worker — on six separate closed work permits, which only allowed him to work for his sponsoring employers despite what he described as abusive and exploitative conditions and treatment.

Identified in court documents only as A.B., the young man is leading a class-action lawsuit initiated against the Canadian government for violating migrant domestic workers’ and farm workers’ Charter Rights under the closed work permit regime.

“What we’re trying to do is challenge all the provisions of the immigration regulations that allow the federal government to bind these workers and to restrict their rights to change employers,” said Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier, executive director of the Association for the Rights of Household and Farm Workers, which filed the court case on behalf of closed work permit holders.

“It’s time to put an end to nonfree work, a system that treats the worker as the quasi-property of her employer.”

The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the provisions of the immigration law that allow such practice unconstitutional, and to award damages to migrant workers who have been subjected to “employer-tying measures” on or after April 17, 1982, when the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms took effect.

None of the claims have been proven in court.

As opposed to an “open” work permit, foreign workers on a “closed” or “employer-specific” work permit can only work here according to the specific conditions on the work permit, such as working for the named employer. Migrant workers in low-wage, low-skill jobs are generally issued a closed work permit.

The lawsuit alleged that “employer-tying measures” were rooted in direct discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin and colour.

“The development of these schemes coincided with a shift in the demographics of the immigrants entering Canada to work in these occupations. They had previously included predominantly ‘white’ immigrants,” said the 55-page court application filed on Thursday.

“There were now increasing numbers of persons of colour. These schemes were justified on the basis that the immigrants of certain races, colours, or ethnic or national origins were considered unable to assimilate to Canada’s climate and society and to be better-suited for ‘unfree’ and low-skilled work.”

When migrants on closed work permits are terminated, they lose legal status in Canada and must secure another employer with authorization by Employment and Social Development Canada to hire foreign workers.

That process can be “lengthy, difficult, costly, and most importantly highly unpredictable” as the person may risk being denied a new work permit, the lawsuit claims. It can result in the worker being prohibited from working and making a living for an indeterminate period of time.

The plaintiffs said the harmful impacts of those measures are widely known and well-documented, including:

Restricting workers’ capacity to resign and make choices concerning their work and livelihood in Canada;

Limiting their freedom of movement;

Impeding their ability to assert their rights and access help.

“The employer-tied workers’ inability to change employers creates a striking power imbalance in favour of the employer, making migrant workers uniquely vulnerable,” the lawsuit argues.

“These harmful impacts are compounded when temporary foreign workers work in remote locations, reside in employer-provided accommodation or live in their employer’s own home.”

In the lead case, the Guatemalan man obtained his first “closed” work permit valid from 2014 to 2016. The lawsuit claims he had to work between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., Monday to Friday, with only three 10-minute breaks per night, and was required to catch up to 40,000 chickens per shift, at a rate of five in each hand for every catch.

A.B. would get $3.75 per thousand chickens and $12 for the same number of turkeys. His Canadian co-workers, however, would be paid double these rates, the lawsuit alleges.

A.B. would go to bed with rips and tears on the skin of his hands and with sore muscles. When he woke up, he was often unable to extend his hands, which would remain contracted and curled in a “catching” position.

“As a result of his ‘closed’ work permit, A.B. had no choice but to endure this treatment,” he said in his claim. “He feared that complaining could lead to being fired, threatening his status in Canada, his ability to obtain a renewal of his permit.”

After a work injury in 2015, A.B. required leave from work. His contract was not renewed and he returned to Guatemala, where he underwent an MRI and found out he suffered a herniated disc.

He found another job at a family dairy farm in Quebec in 2017 and worked there until 2019, on three yearly closed work permits.

There, he claimed he was paid late, sometimes by weeks, and subjected to the employer’s “aggressive behaviour, homophobic and racial slurs, rants against the incompetence of migrant workers, and humiliating and degrading comments.” An accident in 2019 aggravated his previous work injury, and he was dismissed.

From 2020 to 2022, A.B. worked for another dairy farm — on two more “closed” permits, where he claimed he suffered similar abuse.

“The Government of Canada has not ceased to resort to employer-tying measures. It has instead continued to subject a growing number of temporary foreign workers to those measures — and it still continues to do so today,” the lawsuit said.

“The Government of Canada’s failure to put an end to those measures evidences its continued clear disregard for the employer-tied migrant workers’ Charter rights and human dignity.”

Source: Ottawa faces class action alleging rules around migrant workers are discriminatory

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Star Editorial: Ottawa is changing its temporary foreign worker program. It’s not clear this will help workers

2023/08/21 Leave a comment

Related editorial on the Recognized Employer Pilot along with advocating for open work permits to reduce abuse:

In early 2020, many Canadians noticed the once lush produce sections of their grocery stores were increasingly barren.

What many Canadians didn’t notice is the reason for the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables: COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant farm workers across Canada, including in southern Ontario.

The outbreaks, and their effect on food supply, reveal the value and vulnerability of the migrant workers, many of whom are hired through Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

The program, which is set to be altered this September, permits employers to hire foreign workers when no qualified Canadians are available. The initiative has proven wildly popular, and successful applications have increased exponentially in recent years. But so too have accusations of abuse, of workers enduring unsafe workplace and living conditions.

Temporary labourers frequently work long hours for low pay and limited benefits, and they often live in employer-supplied, cramped quarters replete with shared sleeping and washroom facilities — the very conditions that increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks and other health threats.

Consequently, for the welfare of the workers Ottawa needs to ensure that changing the program doesn’t increase the abuse that has long plagued the regime.

For its part, the federal government insists the alteration, known as the Recognized Employer Pilot, will do the opposite. According to Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault, the pilot will reduce the administrative burden on employers who “demonstrate the highest level of protection for workers,” and allow them to receive permits lasting three years, rather than the current 18 months. The change will come first to employers in agriculture, then to all others starting in January.

Rewarding responsible employers could help to protect both workers and ease the paperwork, and Ottawa has also promised to conduct more rigorous assessments before permits are issued. But three years is a long time, long enough for workplace and living conditions to deteriorate dramatically.

Government inspectors do monitor employers’ compliance with regulations, but that oversight has itself been substandard. In response to the COVID outbreaks among farm workers, federal Auditor General Karen Hogan issued a scathing report accusing inspectors of failing to ensure employers followed regulations.

If the pilot program is to be successful, then, it must be accompanied by improved, vigilant monitoring of employers’ compliance with safety standards throughout the three-year period.

That won’t, however, eliminate the problem that makes abuse possible: The power imbalance between employers and workers. That is the product of two factors — employer-specific work permits, and the tenuous immigration status of workers.

Employer-specific permits require workers to remain with the employer who hired them, which means some must make the impossible choice of suffering abuse or unemployment.

Aware of this, Ottawa introduced the Vulnerable Worker Open Work Permit program, which can grant abused workers a permit that allows them to move to a different employer. But the worker must first complain, something many are loath to do for fear of deportation or reprisals for employers.

In any case, by limiting open permits to those who have faced abuse, the program essentially treats abuse as a kind of hazing, an initiation rite workers must endure if they’re to gain entry to the exclusive club of open permit holders.

In contrast, if Ottawa granted open permits to all temporary workers, it would help to empower them as they could choose their employers — and abusive employers would have trouble retaining talent unless they cleaned up their act.

As for immigration status, the Star reported that workers pay income tax and employment insurance and contribute to the Canada Pension Plan, yet most remain “guests” in the country.

Most workers therefore live under constant fear of deportation, some for decades, which eliminates what little leverage they have with employers. Opening up new pathways for permanent residence would, on the other hand, help to equalize the relationship between employers and workers.

And when workers’ welfare and Canada’s food system are on the line, an equal relationship is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Source: Ottawa is changing its temporary foreign worker program. It’s not clear this will help workers

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ICYMI: Canada plans new temporary foreign workers program to give ‘trusted’ employers quicker access

2023/08/21 Leave a comment

Of note, including the cautions by Rupa Banerjee and Syed Hussan:

The federal government is rolling out a “trusted employer program” that is meant to reduce red tape and make it easier for Canadian employers to bring in temporary foreign workers.

Officials say the Recognized Employer Pilot program will be open for applications as soon as September, first to employers in agriculture, then to all others starting in January.

It will provide employers that have “a history of complying with program requirements” with a permit to usher in foreign workers that’s good for three years, without the need to reapply within that period.

But experts and advocates are expressing some concerns over the level of scrutiny that will be in place to ensure workers are being treated well, as well as the economic conditions into which Canada will be bringing more temporary workers: a crisis of affordable housing, rising interest rates and high inflation.

The new measures come amid skyrocketing numbers of temporary foreign workers in Canada.

“There’s an overreliance on temporary workers at the detriment of Canadian workers, and in particular, newcomers,” said Toronto Metropolitan University professor Rupa Banerjee, Canada Research Chair of economic inclusion, employment and entrepreneurship.

“It also really shows how much the temporary foreign worker program is really about responding to employer demand. The employer lobby really is that strong.”

Currently, employers must undergo what’s known as labour market impact assessment (LMIA), every time they hire workers under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to ensure there’s a need to fill the job. They must receive a positive assessment from Employment and Social Development Canada in order to hire the foreign workers.

The number of temporary foreign worker positions approved through an LMIA annually have skyrocketed from 89,416 in 2015 to 221,933 last year, according to federal data.

Those numbers don’t include the hundreds of thousands of international students and graduates who have open-work permits, and those who arrive from more than two dozen countries that have shared mobility agreements with Canada.

“The Recognized Employer Pilot will cut red tape for eligible employers, who demonstrate the highest level of protection for workers, and make it easier for them to access the labour they need to fill jobs that are essential to Canada’s economy and food security,” Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said in a statement Tuesday.

Applications to the pilot program, which has a budget of $29.3 million over three years, will close next September.

To qualify, employers must have received a minimum of three positive LMIAs for the same occupation over the past five years from a list of occupations that have been designated as in-shortage.

Officials said employers will be subject to a more rigorous upfront assessment process than they currently undergo, based on their history and track record with the program, ensuring that it “targets employers with the best recruitment practices.”

Canada, like other countries, has been increasingly relying on foreign workers to address labour and skills shortages despite criticisms that the workers’ precarious immigration status has exposed them to abuse and exploitation by employers.

Foreign workers, especially those in low-skill, low-wage jobs, have reported owed wages and unpaid overtime, and complained about unsafe work conditions and a lack of employment standard enforcement.

“Things like that easily get swept under the radar. And an employer could easily remain on the trusted employer list while still engaging in, sort of, very mundane and regular forms of exploitation to workers,” Banerjee said.

“Without a lot of really careful oversight and auditing, it’s very easy to allow the kinds of abuses and exploitations that exist very routinely to go under the radar and get worse because it’ll be just easier to get more and more people in.”

Further facilitating the entry of migrant workers will create a more “flexible” labour force for employers but may further strain the tight housing market, access to health care and even the school system.

“Not only is it a concern of the workers themselves, but the level of scrutiny that needs to be put into place to ensure that this is a win-win, not just a win or lose,” said Banerjee.

“There’s a bigger story of, kind of, what does this mean for Canadian society and the ability to actually absorb these extra temporary foreign workers.”

Federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lawrence MacAulay said the new pilot will help secure Canada’s food supply chain.

“From Canada’s farm fields to our grocery stores, workers throughout the food supply chain provide an essential service,” he said. “It is vital that Canadian employers, including farmers and food processors, are able to hire workers who are critical to food production and food security in Canada.”

Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said what will matter is how employers are scrutinized.

“It’s not possible to identify good employers based on complaints or inspections. Workers don’t complain because, when workers complain, they face deportation, eviction, homelessness, lack of work and other reprisals from employers,” said Hussan.

“Employers want quicker access to temporary foreign workers because temporary foreign workers have the least rights.”

Boissonnault said the government over the past few years has strengthened protection of migrant workers by preventing employers from charging recruitment fees, providing workers with information about their rights and launching a tip line for complaints.

“These are steps in the right direction in demonstrating that we take our responsibility seriously,” Boissonnault told reporters.

Source: Canada plans new temporary foreign workers program to give ‘trusted’ employers quicker access

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Keller: The Liberals have broken Canada’s immigration system

2023/08/19 Leave a comment

The Globe continues its transition from an immigration booster, hosting Century Initiative events, to one of the more trenchant critics of current policies, with weekly if not more frequent negative and well argued commentary:

Canada’s immigration system used to be the envy of the world.

Note my use of the past tense.

To appreciate what was good about Canada’s previous immigration strategy – the one followed until recently through governments Progressive Conservative, Conservative and Liberal – contrast it with the dysfunction of our friends down south.

Since the 1980s, the United States has had relatively low legal immigration compared with Canada. The U.S. also wasn’t particularly focused on admitting the highly educated and highly skilled. And there was an unofficial immigration stream – called illegal immigration or undocumented immigration, depending on one’s politics – that involved millions of people, most in low-skill, low-wage jobs.

In 2015, when the Trudeau Liberals came into office, Canada was already a high-immigration country, with a rate two-and-a-half times higher than the U.S. More importantly, Canada was a smart immigration country, with immigration selection built around the points system, which sent educated, skilled, young immigrants to the front of the line.

Both countries’ immigration had long been a mix of family reunification, refugees and economic immigrants, but Canada put the accent on the latter. Within the economic stream, our points system put the emphasis on people who were more educated or skilled than the average Canadian, and whose contribution could boost not just gross domestic product, but GDP per capita.

A skilled immigrant doesn’t just grow the size of the economic pie. They’re likely to grow it at a rate greater than the rising number of forks in the pie.

As for the U.S., it stood out for having a large pool of permanently temporary immigrants, most filling low-wage jobs. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated that there were 12 million people classified as illegal aliens in the country.

Canada’s own count was unclear, but clearly far lower.

And that was at least partly because of another bipartisan Canadian policy choice. This country had long devoted considerable efforts to making it hard to enter or remain in Canada without permission. People from countries whose citizens had a record of overstaying tourist visas found it extremely difficult to get a tourist visa.

A 2017 World Economic Forum survey ranked Canada as having among the world’s most stringent travel visa rules, placing us at 120th out of 136 countries. But that this was a feature of the Canadian system, not a bug.

We had a wider door than the U.S., yet taller walls. The welcome mat and the walls were complimentary, not contradictory. Canada was a high immigration country with unusually high public support for immigration. Why? Because the manner, scale, makeup and regularity of immigration clearly benefitted Canada, and Canadians.

Our immigration approach was successful, stable and boring.

In 2013, the U.S. Senate passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act. The bill died in the House of Representatives because the Republican leadership refused to take it up – they wanted to campaign against illegal immigration, not fix it – but in the Senate it was supported by the entire Democratic caucus, plus a third of Republicans.

The legislation proposed a points system to focus admissions on skilled immigrants; more opportunities for visa students who earned advanced degrees in science, technology and engineering to remain in the U.S.; and strong measures to discourage illegal immigration.

Had it become law, it would have given the U.S. a more Canadian-style immigration system.

A lot has changed over the past decade. But not so much in the U.S.

Since 2015, the Trudeau government – with the co-operation of the provinces, educational institutions and business – has remade our immigration system. Without anyone noticing, and without public debate, it has become more American.

What gets most talked about most – and what isn’t American – is how Canadian immigration levels that had been stable for a generation are being steadily increased. By 2025, this country will be welcoming half a million new Canadians a year, and rising, double the number of a decade earlier.

But the Liberals have brought about a much bigger and little-noticed revolution in the shadow immigration system’s various temporary foreign worker streams – whose accent is on admitting people for low-skill, low-wage, low productivity jobs. Just like the shadow immigration system in the U.S.

Canada’s streams of temporary admissions are now larger than traditional immigration, and growing fast.

I’ve recently written about how hard it is for doctors – even Canadian graduates of overseas medical school – to get permission to work in Canada. The supply of these highly-educated professionals is greatly restricted.

At the same time, however, the Liberal government has gone to extraordinary lengths to give employers a nearly unlimited supply of low-wage workers, with many of those now arriving via the education visa stream. Those visas used to be entirely about education, but many schools now appear to be partly or even mostly peddling something else, namely the opportunity to reside and work in Canada, usually in a low-wage job.

More on this, and how to fix it, next week.

Source: Opinion: The Liberals have broken Canada’s immigration system

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ICYMI: Don Wright: Why did Justin Trudeau switch sides in the ‘class struggle?’

2023/08/18 Leave a comment

More on the recent expansion of temporary foreign workers and relaxation of conditions, along with contrast when the PM was in opposition:

In 2014, Justin Trudeau wrote an op-ed arguing that the Stephen Harper government should dramatically scale back the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program.

His reasoning was sound – both in moral terms and in economic terms. He wrote: “I believe it is wrong for Canada to follow the path of countries who exploit large numbers of guest workers.” He also pointed out that large numbers of TFWs “drives down wages.”

We might have expected, therefore, that things would change under his leadership. And indeed, they have. Between 2015 and 2022 the number of TFWs in Canada doubled!

But TFWs are actually only a small fraction of total Non-Permanent Residents (NPR) with work permits in Canada. There is another category known as the “International Mobility Program” (IMP) which provides work permits for international students, graduates of post-secondary programs and other categories. The number of IMP work permit holders almost tripled between 2015 and 2022. In total, NPRs with work permits now exceed 1.1 million people – and have grown from 2.1 per cent to 5.5 per cent of the Canadian labour force.

This hasn’t happened by accident. The current government has made a series of changes that have opened the door to higher numbers of NPRs. Last year, for example, the federal immigration minister made it significantly easier for employers to get permits for TFWs.

Perhaps more significantly, he eliminated the restriction on the number of hours that international students could work while they are supposedly studying. Previously, the limit was 20 hours a week. There are no limits on the number of international students that can be granted a student permit. All they need is acceptance from a “Designated Learning Institution.” In addition to the publicly funded universities, colleges and institutions, there are a large number of private, for-profit colleges that are in this business as well.

One doesn’t have to be too cynical to imagine that some private college operators would market themselves as a way to get a work permit in Canada, with a possible path to permanent resident status down the road, with the quality of the education being offered of secondary importance. Indeed, a casual search of the web will uncover many such stories.

One needs to be only a little more cynical to conclude that this was the federal government’s intention in lifting the restriction on working while studying. What an easy way to appease the demands from many in the employer community to deal with the “worker shortage.”

The jobs that NPRs fill are disproportionately low wage positions – jobs like food counter attendants, kitchen helpers, cooks, cashiers, retail salespersons, shore shelf stockers, clerks,delivery service drivers, and the like. Statistics Canada reports that, even with high educational attainment, NPRs were in occupations requiring no formal education proportionately more than the rest of the Canadian population.

You know, this kind of sounds like something that “those countries who exploit large numbers of guest workers” would do.

And let’s not lose sight of the other point that Mr. Trudeau made back in 2014. This all serves to depress the wages of Canadian workers. In particular, it disproportionately impacts low-wage earners – if employers couldn’t rely on the large number of NPR workers, they would have to raise the wages that they offer.

Why is the federal government aiding and abetting this? Apparently because they are responding to the consistent mantra from the employer community that there is a “worker shortage.” More precisely, there is a shortage of workers willing to work at the wages that certain employers prefer to pay. But whose side should the federal government be on?

Over the past 20 years “the bosses” have done much better than the workers. For example, Statistics Canada data shows that in 2003 the category of workers defined as “senior managers” on average earned 3.9 times more than the category of workers defined as “sales and service support.” In 2023 the multiple had widened significantly to 5.1 times. Sales and service support occupations include cashiers, service station attendants, store shelf stackers, food, accommodation and tourism workers, and cleaners – typical of the positions filled by many NPR workers.

Given this trend one needs to ask: who needs more help in the struggle for fair wages – the workers or the bosses? Why did the federal government apparently change sides in this struggle?

Don Wright was the former deputy minister to the B.C. Premier, Cabinet Secretary and former head of the B.C. Public Service until late 2020. He now is senior counsel at Global Public Affairs.

Source: Don Wright: Why did Justin Trudeau switch sides in the ‘class struggle?’

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New temporary foreign worker pilot program to speed up approvals for some employers

2023/08/10 Leave a comment

Good critical comments by Banerjee and Skuterud regarding possible abuse and the ongoing favouring of reduced labour costs to employers. That being said, for repeat users, simplification has merit but as in so many areas of immigration policy, these change fail to address the immigration-related challenges of housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

The federal government is making it easier for businesses to bring temporary foreign workers into Canada, announcing a new “recognized employer” program aimed at speeding up the approval process for companies with a track record of using foreign labour.

The three-year pilot program is designed to reduce the amount of paperwork companies need to submit to justify bringing in outside workers.

It’s the latest expansion of the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program, whose use has exploded over the past year as the federal government has eased restrictions on short-term foreign labour. And it comes alongside a record surge in immigration, which is increasing the country’s labour supply but also adding demand to Canada’s overheated housing market and public services.

Randy Boissonnault, the new Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, said the change to the TFW program would “cut red tape” and help companies manage widespread labour shortages.

The move was applauded by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which has long lobbied for a trusted employer carveout in the TFW program.

Some labour economists, however, warned that further expansion of the program could undercut wages in Canada and make it more difficult to identify companies that are exploiting vulnerable workers.

“It could be a good thing for addressing kinds of critical labour shortages,” said Rupa Banerjee, the Canada Research Chair in economic inclusion, employment and entrepreneurship of Canada’s immigrants at Toronto Metropolitan University.

“But if this kind of a system is not really closely monitored, scrutinized, audited, it’s easy for sort of mundane and everyday examples of abuse and exploitation to kind of become even more rampant in the system,” she said.

As it stands, companies need to submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) before applying to hire temporary foreign workers. The purpose of the LMIA is to show that there are no Canadians or permanent residents who are able to fill the job.

Under the new system, employers who can demonstrate “a history of complying with program requirements” will be given a three-year approval to bring in temporary foreign workers, and won’t have to submit an LMIA before each application. Eligible employers will need to have had three successful LMIAs in the past five years for workers who are deemed to be “in-shortage,” and will be subject to a “more rigorous upfront assessment,” the government said in a news release.

The pilot program will be open to agriculture businesses in September and employers from all other industries starting in January.

This is the second notable change to the TFW program in just over a year. Last spring, the federal government said companies could hire up to 20 per cent of their staff through the program’s low-wage stream, up from the previous 10-per-cent cap. And in seven industries with acute labour shortages – such as restaurants, construction and hospitals – the cap was moved to 30 per cent for a year, then extended to this fall.

The TFW program is largely used as a recruitment tool for farm workers. During the first quarter of this year, employers were approved to hire more than 25,000 workers through agriculture streams, according to figures published by Employment and Social Development Canada, which decides on LMIA applications. General farm workers are easily the most sought-after role in the TFW program, with more than 22,000 approved positions in the first quarter.

But as Ottawa has eased access to foreign labour, employers have ramped up their recruitment of low-wage employees from abroad. Companies were approved to fill about 22,000 roles through the program’s low-wage stream in the first quarter, an increase of about 275 per cent from four years earlier. Cooks are the No. 2 occupation of highest demand, with nearly 3,000 positions approved from January through March. Truck drivers, food counter attendants and seafood plant workers are also in high demand.

Diana Palmerin-Velasco, senior director of the future of work at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the announcement and said it could improve access to the TFW program for smaller employers.

“There are whole sectors of the economy that are dependent on temporary foreign workers,” Ms. Palmerin-Velasco said. “What we have heard from our members is that it’s not that easy for employers. There is a lot of administrative burden, it can be a very complex application process. And when we think about small businesses, it’s not really accessible.”

Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo, questioned the government’s rationale for expanding the program. The Canadian labour market has been exceptionally tight over the past year-and-a-half, as demand for workers has outstripped supply. However, in recent months, job vacancies have been trending down and the unemployment rate has risen.

“We’ve had a 25-per-cent reduction in job vacancies since May, 2022, and if you measure labour market tightness, that’s also been dropping,” Prof. Skuterud said.

He added that recent research into temporary foreign workers suggests that they tend to suppress wage growth within companies that use them. “And so we’re going through a period where real wages for low skilled workers in this country are not increasing. The most recent data looks like they’re decreasing. And so it’s all about where this government’s priorities are,” he said.

Source: New temporary foreign worker pilot program to speed up approvals for some employers

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Keller: It’s time for Canada to take its foot off the immigration gas pedal

2023/07/29 Leave a comment

Indeed as I and others have been arguing for some time with respect to Temporary Foreign Workers and productivity, along with a more serious discussion regarding immigration policy and programs:

The guy who cut my hair last week taught me something about the Temporary Foreign Worker program: It’s even looser than I thought.

Fixing that, and a number of other things that aren’t quite right about the immigration system, comes down to the Trudeau government. So, don’t hold your breath.

After Sean Fraser was shuffled from Immigration Minister to Housing Minister on Wednesday, he said Canada can’t “close the door on newcomers.” As if that’s what the government’s critics are calling for. Is it possible for Canadians to discuss a serious economic issue, seriously? Or is polarizing name-calling all that our politics has left?

The Liberals have a habit of crafting marketing strategies before policies, and then having policies become hostage to the talking points. Immigration is such a case. We’re about to find out whether the Liberals can make a course correction, or whether they’ll double down on the polarizing talking points, attacking suggestions for reform as so much xenophobia.

The Liberals have raised Canada’s immigration targets, year after year, while also making it ever easier for businesses to recruit low-wage, not-so-temporary temporary foreign workers, and schools to enroll hundreds of thousands of overseas students – many of whom sought student visas in part for the chance to become low-wage, not-so-temporary temporary foreign workers.

One of the negative consequences is that the national housing squeeze has been made worse, with a big jump in postpandemic arrivals pushing high prices higher and low vacancy rates lower. It’s not political. It’s just arithmetic.

The Liberals could fix things – not by stopping immigration but by scaling it back, and making it more targeted to highly skilled economic immigrants. The latter is supposed to be the core mission of our immigration system. Returning to that common-sense approach would benefit Canadians and the economy.

And now, back to my neighbourhood barbershop. The place was empty when I walked in on a Friday afternoon, so I dropped into a chair and started chatting with the barber. He spoke excellent English with a Spanish accent, and I asked where he was from.

“Mexico,” he said.

How long had he been in Canada?

“One year and seven months.”

Why did he come to Canada?

“I looked online for jobs, found one I wanted and applied.”

Temporary Foreign Worker program?

“Yes.”

He gave me a good haircut (as good as can be when the subject has little more than half a head of hair) and a better insight into one part of the immigration system.

It’s perfectly reasonable for Canada to have a system for filling temporary gaps for highly skilled labour. That’s what the TFW program is supposed to do.

But that’s mostly not what it’s doing. Instead, it’s offering low-pay, low-skill and low-productivity employers a way to recruit overseas, at low cost, rather than having to search harder at home, or offer higher wages, or invest in technology and training to increase efficiency.

The government of Canada’s TFW Job Bank has around 10,000 postings from employers searching for a temporary foreign worker. Most jobs offer a salary of less than $40,000. Nearly all pay less than $60,000, which is below the Canadian average.

There are, for example, 17 employers looking for barbers, from Edmonton to Hamilton to Montreal, with pay starting at $15 an hour.

There are also some high-wage jobs. A Vancouver health care provider is looking for five family physicians, at a salary of $300,000 to $350,000. A veterinary clinic is offering up to $190,000 for an emergency vet. eBay Canada in Toronto is seeking a software engineer, at a salary of $160,000 to $180,000.

But the TFW database is mostly low-wage work.

Home Hardware in Woodstock, Ont., is seeking two cashiers at $16.55 an hour. A Mac’s Convenience in Edmonton is looking for one cashier at $15 an hour. City Avenue Market in Port Coquitlam, B.C., needs a cashier, at $17 an hour.

A Tim Hortons in Sherbrooke, Que., wants seven “assistant waiter/waitress,” at $15.25 an hour. Western Pizza in Regina has four vacancies for servers, at $14 an hour.

All of those low-wage jobs, along with most others I looked at, were listed as full-time and permanent. These aren’t temporary positions, even though that’s what the TFW program is notionally about.

And I haven’t touched on the larger but more opaque group of foreign workers: those who come on a student visa, work at low-wage service jobs, and then use Canadian educational credentials plus Canadian work experience in hopes of landing permanent residency in the country.

If everyone on that path was a graduate in engineering, computer science or other highly paid fields, the system would make sense. But a large share of the visa students are not.

As I wrote earlier this week, our plans to use the various immigration streams to raise GDP per capita are being undermined by too heavy a focus on filling low-wage, low-skill jobs.

We can make our immigration system better. But first, we need an honest conversation about what our immigration system aims to do. And what’s not working.

Source: Opinion: It’s time for Canada to take its foot off the immigration gas …

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Globe editorial: Justin Trudeau should listen to Justin Trudeau on temporary foreign workers

2023/07/20 Leave a comment

Of course, always easier while in opposition but 2014 should be a cautionary tale about Temporary Foreign Workers as well as an example of a government pivot when the Conservatives and Jason Kenney had to reverse course:

Justin Trudeau has some advice for Justin Trudeau.

Mr. Trudeau, in 2023, leads a federal government that has overseen a surge in the country’s reliance on low-wage temporary foreign workers. The federal Liberals stoked this increase: they loosened the rules early last year. According to the latest data, reported by The Globe last week, Ottawa has approved the hiring of almost 80,000 low-wage foreign workers in the year after the rules were eased. That’s triple the level of the 12 months before the change.

…

Source: Justin Trudeau should listen to Justin Trudeau on temporary foreign workers

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Demand for low-wage foreign labour is surging, change to program for Hong Kong and new program for Ukraine effects

2023/07/17 Leave a comment

Starting with the overall picture and good commentary on the negative impact on productivity by Rupa Banergee:

Canadian companies are ramping up their recruitment of foreign workers to fill a variety of low-wage roles in the service sector, including cooks, cleaners and retail clerks.

In the first quarter, employers were approved to fill about 22,000 positions through the low-wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program, an increase of roughly 275 per cent from four years earlier, according to figures recently published by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).

From January through March, employers were approved to hire more than 2,800 cooks, making it the most sought-after role in the low-wage stream. Companies were seeking thousands of other workers for the food-service sector, such as cashiers. Construction labourers and nurse aides were also in high demand.

To hire a TFW, companies must submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment to the government, showing they can’t find local workers to fill vacant positions. If those roles are approved, foreign workers must obtain the appropriate permits to begin their employment. The ESDC numbers reflect the first part of this hiring process.

The figures are even higher than presented: ESDC excludes some employers – such as business names that include personal names – from its data set of approvals by company.

Regardless, the figures show a dramatic rise in demand for TFWs.

Not only have employers faced historically tight labour markets in recent years, but the federal government has made it easier to hire through the program. Ottawa overhauled the TFW program last year, with some moves allowing employers to hire a greater proportion of their staff through the low-wage stream.

While these changes were cheered by business lobby groups, they were also criticized by migration experts.

The TFW program “disincentivizes employers from making the effort to reach out to underutilized segments of the labour market, and also to improve wages and working conditions,” said Rupa Banerjee, a Canada Research Chair in immigration and economics at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Instead, the TFW program provides employers with a “cheap, flexible and frankly vulnerable source of labour to fill gaps in the labour market,” she said.

Source: Demand for low-wage foreign labour is surging

Recent program announcements highlight the difficulties for the government in having coherent immigration policies. The recent removal of education requirements for Hong Kongers undermines skill levels and productivity, along with demographics given that the change will result in a shift towards older immigrants.

This is not to discount the very real humanitarian objectives behind these two programs, or the political pressure behind most, but to note the overall incoherence:

Vancouver resident Calvin Wong says he can finally start picturing a future in Canada after the federal government announced it was dropping educational requirements for Hong Kongers seeking permanent residency in the wake of the Chinese city’s crackdown on dissent.

Wong, 28, had graduated from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with a computer science degree in 2017 before moving to Canada on a work permit in 2021, looking for a life where he could enjoy “political freedom.”

But immigration pathways for Hong Kong residents that have allowed thousands to settle permanently in Canada excluded Wong because it has been more than five years since he graduated.

That will change from August 15, after Ottawa announced on Tuesday it would remove all educational requirements for people with at least a year of work experience in Canada.

Immigration consultants say the move effectively opens pathways for Hong Kongers of all ages, instead of the current focus on students and recent graduates. They said they had been flooded with inquiries since the announcement.

“It’s a very great move by the Canadian government and I can eventually get permanent residence here, contribute and live in Canada safely,” said Wong, his voice breaking with emotion.

The store clerk said the chance to secure permanent residency came as a “huge relief,” and his decision to move to Canada was something he would “never regret.”

In 2021, the federal government created two immigration pathways for Hong Kong residents who had either worked or studied in Canada.

The pathways were in response to a crackdown on political dissent after protests drew millions onto Hong Kong’s streets in 2019, followed by the introduction of a harsh new national security law in 2020.

Stream A applies to former Hong Kong residents who graduated from a post-secondary institution in Canada within three years. People with at least one year of work experience in Canada who graduated from a foreign or Canadian institution within five years could apply for Stream B.

The changes open up Stream B to anyone with a year of work experience in Canada, regardless of education.

Sean Fraser, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, said the change was a “win-win situation.”

“(It) means that we can welcome more Hong Kongers to Canada who need our support, while simultaneously helping Canadian businesses fill labour gaps with workers who already have work experience here,” he said in a statement.

The announcement by Fraser’s ministry said Canada “continues to stand by Hong Kong residents, and supports their freedom and democracy.”

Canada has welcomed 3,122 permanent residents under the two pathways as of April 30, 2023.

Wong said that being excluded under the current rules had left him depressed.

“I felt it was really difficult to plan my future at that time. I was thinking: where should I go? Should I try my best to stay in Canada or go to the United Kingdom?” said Wong.

Wong said he can now make plans for the future and would submit his immigration application as soon as he completes his one year of work experience in Canada.

Vancouver-based Immigration consultant Peter Pang said the move is a “huge change,” opening up more opportunities to Hong Kongers to contribute to Canada.

Richmond, B.C., immigration consultant Ken Tin Lok Wong said that while the current rules do not ban older people, the time limits since graduation had effectively set a bar.

To have graduated in the past five years generally meant applicants to Stream B were not particularly old, and were “of working age,” he said.

Wong said he had some clients who were ready to pack their bags and leave Canada. But they now felt like they had “hit the jackpot.”“The announcement feels like Canada is helping to retain Hong Kongers regardless of their education,” he said.

“So, if you happen to be a legal worker in Canada, if you happen to obtain one year of work experience, then you are through.”

Source: Canadian government drops education requirement for Hong Kong immigrants

Similarly, hard to see how the new pathway for Ukrainians will contribute to productivity or demographics:

The federal government has launched a new immigration program for Ukrainians fleeing their embattled country, allowing those in Canada with family to receive permanent resident status.

“We continue to extend unwavering support and a lifeline to families separated by this conflict, including through this family reunification pathway that will help Ukrainian families stay together as they rebuild their lives in their new communities in Canada,” said Immigration Minister Sean Fraser in a statement released Saturday.

Eligibility will be extended to Ukrainians living in Canada with temporary status and with one or more family members in Canada.

The government said more details will be released closer to when the program launches on Oct. 23, 2023. The program will have no cost attached to it and will be in place for one year.

The announcement Saturday comes on the day the government’s initial emergency immigration program was set to expire.

Under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET), launched in March 2022, Ukrainians were able to come to Canada and live and work for up to three years. They benefited from a variety of measures meant to speed up the visa process, including prioritized processing and waived fees.

Roughly 166,000 Ukrainians have come to Canada through the special visa program. That’s about 21 per cent of the 800,000 emergency visas granted, from around 1.1 million applications, according to the government.

‘We’re just asking for lots of flexibility’

In an interview Saturday, the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said the details to come would be key to their response to the program. But in general, he said his organization is pushing for more options for Ukrainians coming to Canada.

“We’re just asking for lots of flexibility on the pathways for people as they make their way through what is a very uncertain situation,” said Ihor Michalchyshyn, the UCC’s CEO.

“The war has not ended, we have to keep options open for people.”

One key unknown was what set of questions the government would be using to determine eligibility and approvals throughout the process, he noted.

Ukrainians approved under the CUAET will still be able to travel to Canada up until March 31 of next year. Afterward, they will be subject to the standard immigration measures available to others around the world.

“Once in Canada, temporary residents will be eligible to apply for an extended stay of up to three years through study permits and open work permits, all of which will be prioritized. They will also have access to settlement services, such as language training and employment services. These measures will help them thrive in communities across the country,” the government release said.

Canada has the largest diaspora of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine and Russia, with over 1.4 million people of Ukrainian descent living here, according to government statistics.

Michalchyshyn said while immigration programs and settlement services are important for people coming to this country, the priority push from his organization is still aid to Ukraine itself.

“The sooner that Ukraine wins the war, the sooner peace and normality can resume and this massive refugee crisis will come to an end.”

Source: Canada to launch new permanent residency program for Ukrainians fleeing war

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