Canadian employers’ demand for temporary foreign workers has risen across Canada, with employers given the chance to hire more than twice the number of people in 2023 than five years ago.
According to a CBC analysis of federal data regarding the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), the popularity of the program has jumped across the country and across a multitude of sectors.
For example, TFWP brought in 287 administrative assistants in 2018 – a number that has since jumped to 3,337.
As for construction labourers, the increase was even more dramatic, from 132 in 2018 to 5,353 in 2023.
The program – which is designed as a means to ease labour tensions on employers in the short-term – brought in 239,646 TFWs in 2023, which is an increase of 130,658 compared to 2018, according to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) figures.
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However, despite its short-term gains, the program has faced criticism for putting workers in a vulnerable position and undermining “healthy competition in a market economy,” according to the CBC story by Paula Duhatschek.
Over the years, business groups, labour unions and the common citizens have voiced their dissatisfaction with the program.
“All we hear about are labour shortages, [but] we have to begin to recognize that this really is a self-serving narrative mostly coming from corporate Canada,” said University of Waterloo labour economics professor, Mikal Skuterud.
One reason for the dramatic increase in TFW demand has been the government loosening the rules around the program after the economy re-opened after the pandemic.
According to Kelly Higginson, President and CEO of Restaurants Canada, “There were operators who were tapping into this in order to be able to revive and re-open their businesses and to be able to service the communities.”
Of the many criticisms directed at the TFWP, one of the leading ones has been that it exploits the workers it brings.
According to Alberta Views, TFWs face abuse and “multiple levels of mistreatment.”
This includes their prospective jobs disappearing on their arrival, lower payment than what they were promised, and having to pay exorbitant rent for substandard housing provisions.
Sectors Dependent On TFWP
Philip Cross, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former Statistics Canada economist, writes that some domestic sectors – such as farming – are completely dependent on the TFWP.
For example, when unemployment rose in 2020, Canada’s farmers found that despite domestic labour’s availability, its productivity is far less than that of temporary foreign labour.
John Foster says that “the structure of the TFWP breeds a concerning disregard for the well-being of these workers because it encourages Canadians to view them as nothing more than disposable labour.”
“If their permit is valid, they are legally entitled to remain in Canada and should be permitted access to programs they pay into, just like every other worker. The suggestion that the moment we no longer need their labour they should be packed up and sent home is degrading and dehumanizing.”
