The worrying expansion of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program

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Based on Statistics Canada, there have been 111,000 momentary international staff (TFWs) in Canada within the 12 months 2000. By 2021, this quantity had ballooned to 777,000.

 In 2019, TFWs made up 4 per cent of all staff with T4 earnings – practically 1 in 20.

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The road from the federal authorities is that international staff are wanted to fill vital labour shortages in important industries. A rise of this scale can’t be justified on these grounds. 

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From 2010 to 2019, TFWs grew to become more and more concentrated in three low-paying sectors: lodging and meals providers, retail, and “administrative and help, waste administration and remediation providers”. Whereas these are advantageous jobs, they’re low-paying positions unrelated to important infrastructure like electrical energy grids, transporation, or well being care. The truth is, the share of TFWs working in agriculture, well being care and social help, instructional providers, and development declined from 2010 to 2019.

An rising proportion of TFWs are working at quick meals counters and in resort lobbies.

Maybe essentially the most well-known occasion of that is our nationwide espresso icon Tim Hortons, which has been on the centre of quite a few controversies surrounding its in depth use of the TWF program. Most lately, D.P. Murphy Inc, which operates Tim Hortons eating places throughout Prince Edward Island, discovered itself in sizzling water when it purchased an house constructing within the small seaside city of Souris – and promptly evicted the tenants to make method for TFWs.

 Tim Hortons has additionally been the topic of complaints about working circumstances for TFWs, corresponding to the case in 2012 when Mexican staff at a northern B.C. Tim Hortons had been required to pay lease twice a month, for bunk beds within the crowded rooms of homes owned by the franchisee. 

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An insightful Maclean’s piece from 2014 argues that Tim Hortons depends on importing TFWs to prop up a typical restaurant chain technique: padding poor gross sales figures by regularly opening increasingly more shops. In a single quarter in 2014, Tim Hortons same-store gross sales grew by simply 1.6 per cent, however the firm posted an total gross sales progress of 5 per cent – as a result of it opened 160-odd new shops over the earlier 12 months!

Corporations pursuing this countless enlargement technique, or just searching for low-cost labour, are aided by an underreported TFW stream: the Worldwide Mobility Program (IMP). The federal government web site Canada.ca advertises the IMP succinctly: “Rent a employee with no Labour Market Influence Evaluation (LMIA)”. Whereas for the Short-term Overseas Staff Program (TFWP), employers have to at the least undergo the motions of attempting to rent a Canadian, the IMP momentary employee stream bypasses this requirement fully. 

IMP work permits have doubled from 2017 to greater than 470,000 final 12 months, which doesn’t embrace the 200,000 worldwide college students who maintain IMP permits. This program is a giant contributor to the astronomic progress in momentary international employee numbers, and the shift within the proportion of international staff in direction of jobs in meals, lodging, retail, and administrative help.

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Immigration Minister Marc Miller has acknowledged he’s keen to “rein in” the variety of momentary international staff in 2024. Miller’s reforms ought to be guided by two goals: lowering TFW numbers, and shifting the proportion away from the service sector.

Permitting the variety of TFWs to rise to an astounding 777,000 has contributed to Canada’s rising housing disaster – that’s merely the legislation of provide and demand. Imposing a cap of fifty,000 or much less would significantly scale back the pressure on housing.

 Permitting Tim Hortons or Days Inn to workers their workforces with international nationals is enabling the unhealthy company technique of countless franchise enlargement, and is contributing to wage stagnation within the service sector.

The best approach to reverse this pattern can be to abolish the Worldwide Mobility Program (IMP), and strengthen the Labour Market Influence Evaluation (LMIA) throughout the board.

If kicking Canada’s habit to low-cost abroad labour means a tad fewer Timmies, is that such a worth to pay?

Riley Donovan is a B.C. journalist and founding father of the publication dominionreview.ca, the place you could find extra of his work.

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