Document Details

2009-10-16

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star

The crackdowns keep coming.

Last spring, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney tightened up Ottawa's temporary foreign worker program by requiring employers to advertise job openings in Canada before recruiting abroad.

Last week, he unveiled a set of proposals aimed at employers who abuse live-in caregivers and other foreign workers. Under the revised rules, any employer who mistreats a foreign worker would be banned from using the temporary foreign worker program for two years and blacklisted on a government website.

Next, the minister will introduce a package of reforms to deal with unscrupulous immigrant consultants who lure foreign workers to Canada with false job offers, promises of high pay, good working conditions, comfortable housing and employer-paid trips home.

These are all welcome steps. The minister deserves credit for responding to the reports of exploitation in the temporary worker program, including a Star series exposing the mistreatment of Filipino caregivers.

It is also reassuring to hear that Ottawa intends to enforce the regulations rigorously. Too often, bad bosses take advantage of vulnerable foreign employees with impunity.

But Kenney's crackdowns raise a bigger issue: Should Canada be bringing in 200,000 temporary foreign workers every year?

They now account for half of the immigrants coming into the country. Although much of focus has been on caregivers – who make up just 3 per cent of the total – the temporary foreign workforce includes dishwashers, fast food servers, drivers, couriers, clerks and cleaners.

Even at a time when 1.5 million Canadians are unemployed, Ottawa continues to bring in tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers every month.

Most of them are ineligible for citizenship (caregivers are an exception), don't have the same basic rights as other workers (freedom of movement, for example), and depend on their employer's goodwill to stay in Canada.

The low-skill temporary worker program was envisaged as a way to allow employers facing acute labour shortages to recruit short-term help abroad. Initially, it produced a trickle of migrant workers. Now they're coming in torrents.

These short-term workers squeeze out highly trained foreigners who have waited in line for years to come to Canada as permanent residents, aspiring to become contributing citizens.

They fill entry-level jobs that young people, laid-off workers and social assistance recipients need to get a foothold in the workforce.

They often slip underground when their work visas expire, rather than returning home, creating a growing pool of illegal immigrants.

Stricter rules and better enforcement will help. But Kenney and the government need to take a long, hard look at the temporary worker program. It is convenient for employers. But it is choking off opportunities for Canadians, creating a backdoor immigration system, and producing a here today, gone tomorrow workforce.

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  Questions remain on foreign workers (http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/710992--questions-remain-on-foreign-workers)
  

Agriculture and horticulture workers, Occupations in services - Domestic work, Sales and service occupations - general, Trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations - general, Natural resources, agriculture and related production occupations - general, Labourers in food, beverage and associated products processing, Dancers, and Other

Policy analysis

Public awareness

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English