UN slams treatment of temporary foreign workers
The UN report on Canada’s treatment of temporary foreign workers suggests the practice verges on slavery, with wage theft, excessive work hours, limited breaks and physical abuse all part of the picture. But Canada is scurrying to defend itself, immigration minister Marc Miller objecting to the phrase “contemporary slavery” and the Conseil du patronat equally ruffled and annoyed and also upset that the federal government is considering reducing the permitted numbers of these cheap workers.
If this doesn’t seem like a Montreal story, the photo on the CBC shows workers from Guatemala working on an Île Perrot farm, and the one accompanying the Guardian’s report shows Mexicans on a farm in Mirabel. That’s close enough.
H. John 15:40 on 2024-08-15 Permalink
Economics prof. Mike Moffat has a column in the Toronto Star (subscribers only)
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/justin-trudeaus-government-radically-transformed-canadas-temporary-foreign-worker-program-young-people-and-low-wage/article_71b1bdd4-5991-11ef-a96b-4bafaae6773c.html
(Interpolating to add accessible archive link – K)
In it he explains that while in opposition the Trudeau Liberals strongly opposed deregulation of the programs by the Harper government, with Scott Brisson pointing out that economists were linking “the growth in the number of low-skilled temporary foreign workers under the Conservatives with higher youth unemployment in Canada and wage suppression for Canadian youth?”
Other Moffat quotes from the article:
“On April 4, 2022, a mere 13 days after the Liberals and NDP signed their Supply and Confidence Agreement, the federal government announced arguably the largest deregulation of the Temporary Foreign Worker program in Canadian history.”
“The program’s low-wage stream, which allows employers not in the agricultural industry (they have a separate stream) to bring in workers and pay them wages under the provincial median… was radically transformed.”
“The number of approvals for the low-wage program more than doubled in 2022 alone rising from an estimated 30,000 to more than 80,000. The total number of temporary foreign worker positions approved in all streams rose by 52 per cent in 2022 alone to 227,000.”
“The economists that the Liberals cited in 2014 were right then, and they are right today — deregulation of the low-wage temporary foreign worker stream suppresses wages and increases youth unemployment.”
“The federal government must phase out the non-agricultural low-wage stream of the temporary foreign worker program. The harms it causes to workers far outweigh the benefits to corporations.”
Kate 20:19 on 2024-08-15 Permalink
Profit is the drug. Even those who might have ethics about abusing people will put those ethics on ice when profit is the drug. Even when it makes no sense – when it means undercutting Canadian workers – that concern is handwaved when investor profit is on the line.
Not that Canadian workers are more important than people from elsewhere, but they’re here, and they’re voters, so shitting on them makes no sense politically.
dhomas 21:06 on 2024-08-15 Permalink
Regulation is needed. Even the most ethical employer will not be able to compete with unethical employers selling the same goods/services with a fraction of the labour costs.
Kevin 08:25 on 2024-08-16 Permalink
There is no worker shortage. There is a shortage of people willing to work for wages that don’t allow them to live.
walkerp 08:26 on 2024-08-16 Permalink
The Liberals are just so maddening. They always choose lobbyists and greed when they could actually be improving the country. Thanks for sharing that H. John, it’s a real eye-opener.
jeather 10:11 on 2024-08-16 Permalink
There was a piece in the Globe & Mail (of all papers) that said “Not wanting to pay the going rate for labour is emphatically not the same thing as a shortage of labour.” (The gist and details of the entire piece were much the same as this one.)
I’m not sure why I care at all about benefits to corporations. The savings aren’t going to lowering costs, they’re going to dividends and stock buybacks and CEO pay. Even if those benefits outweighed costs to Canadian workers, so what?
To be clear, I absolutely think the Conservatives would do the same thing. They might undo it, temporarily, if it seems politically positive, but it won’t last long.
H. John 10:19 on 2024-08-16 Permalink
On this morning’s episode of CBC’s Front Burner Armine Yalnizyan, an economist & columnist for the Toronto Star, explained that the increase was made by the federal Liberals based on a request from Quebec (which was having a problem after the covid shut down in the areas of tourism & health care).
The whole episode, titled “Cracks in Canada’s temporary worker program” is worth listening to:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner