Exploitation
of Temporary Foreign Workers, Migrants,
International
Students and Refugees
Resolutely Oppose State-Organized Racist Attacks on Migrants and Undocumented Workers
State-organized racist attacks against migrant and
undocumented workers are being stepped up by the Canadian
state.
In
April this year in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Prime Minister
Justin
Trudeau said, "Whether it's temporary foreign workers or
whether
it's
international students in particular, ... have grown at a
rate
far
beyond what Canada has been able to absorb ... To give an
example, in
2017, two per cent of Canada's population was made up of
temporary
immigrants. Now we're at 7.5 per cent of our population
comprised of
temporary immigrants." It was the Trudeau Liberals who
enticed
these
workers and international students to come to Canada in
the
first place
and has taken no responsibility for ensuring the supports
needed
for
them to live safely and make a contribution. Now he is
using the
same
racist logic as his father Pierre Trudeau, whose Liberal
government
issued the infamous Green Paper on Immigration in 1975
which
purported
that Canada had "limited absorptive capacity" for
immigrants
with
"novel and distinctive features" in particular those
from
South Asia and the West Indies.
Today, governments at all levels across the country are waging the anti-social offensive and violating everyone's rights to housing, health care and education. They are colluding with universities and colleges which exploit international students as a cash cow by making them pay exorbitant tuition while limiting their ability to work. Migrant workers are brought for private companies to maximize profits and put pressure on all workers to accept worsening working conditions. As the effects of the anti-social offensive become more and more acute and unsustainable, these governments are making immigrants, migrant workers and international students the scapegoats. This must not pass. Working people must not permit their ranks to be split and everyone together must uphold the dignity of labour.
On August 26, the Trudeau government introduced changes
to
reduce the number of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in
Canada,
citing
abuse and fraud by employers who use the TFW program. It
claims
it
wants to reduce "reliance of Canadian employers on the
program,"
which
has been used to "circumvent hiring talented workers in
Canada."
These
changes went into effect on September 26:
"- The Government of Canada will refuse to process Labour
Market
Impact
Assessments (LMIAs) in the Low-Wage stream, applicable in
census
metropolitan areas with an unemployment rate of six per
cent or
higher.
Exceptions will be granted for seasonal and non-seasonal
jobs in
food
security sectors (primary agriculture, food processing
and fish
processing), as well as construction and healthcare;
"- Employers will be allowed to hire no more than 10 per
cent of
their
total workforce through the TFW Program. This maximum
employment
percentage will be applied to the Low-Wage stream and is
a
further
reduction from the March 2024 reduction. Exceptions will
be
granted for
seasonal and non-seasonal jobs in food security sectors
(primary
agriculture, food processing and fish processing), as
well as
healthcare and construction; and
"The maximum duration of employment for workers hired
through
the
Low-Wage stream will be reduced to one year (from two
years)."
These changes will make life even more difficult and
precarious
for
visa workers. Companies are not required to provide wages
and
working
conditions that would permit everyone to live in Canada
at a
respectable standard of living. The program is designed
to
absorb the
people already in the country by using their precarious
status
to
provide cheap labour. The government points out that
there are
many
vulnerable categories of workers who can be exploited to
provide
the
cheap labour employers require without having to go
abroad,
regardless
of the needs of the workers themselves: "Employers in
Canada
have a
responsibility to invest in the full range of workers
available
in this
country, such as young people, newcomers, and persons
with
disabilities, who are too often an untapped economic
resource in
Canada. They must also invest in retraining or upskilling
to
ensure
that those they currently employ can adapt to the economy
of the
future."
Other current changes to work permits of recently
graduated international students also affect their
ability to
support
themselves and fulfill their aim of establishing
permanent
residency
and citizenship. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Minister
Marc
Miller announced in September that Canada would be
reducing the
number
of international study permits issued by 10 per cent in
2025, on
top of
already promising to reduce the amount by 35 per cent
this year.
He
said the government would implement stricter rules for
students
who
want to stay in Canada under a post-graduate work permit.
In
April, the
government gave two weeks warning that "International
students
who
begin a college program delivered through a
public-private
curriculum
licensing arrangement on or after May 15, 2024, will not
be
eligible
for a post-graduation work permit when they graduate."
First
these
students are fleeced and their families are heavily
indebted and
now
they are summarily denied the ability to earn a living to
fulfill their
qualifications for permanent residency and
citizenship.
Immigrant rights groups point out that Trudeau promised a regularization program in December 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when migrant workers and undocumented workers were taking on essential jobs to keep Canada going. Now that the pandemic is mostly behind us, these same workers are being blamed for burdening the health care system, social services and are even blamed for causing the housing crisis. Not to be outdone, Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre said earlier this year, "The only way to eliminate the housing shortage is to add homes faster than we have people, and I will be removing bureaucracy to build the homes and setting immigration levels so that our housing stock outgrows our population."
It is a fact that since the start of the anti-social offensive in Canada in the mid-1980s, there have been cuts to housing and all social programs at the federal and provincial levels. Housing as a human right in Canada has been increasingly denied as private interests have taken over the building of housing stock. To blame immigrants and international students for the housing crisis is spurious and racist. The monopoly media such as the Globe and Mail and polling companies have joined this anti-immigrant chorus blaming them for the housing crisis, for stressing social services and programs that have been steadily privatized under the anti-social offensive against the people of Canada.
These crude and racist justifications are diversions aimed at splitting and dividing the political unity of the Canadian people, the vast majority of whom want immigrants and refugees to be treated fairly and not be abused. It is the Canadian state, its governments and monopoly media that are engaged in the anti-immigrant hysteria. Recently, Immigration Minister Marc Miller proclaimed that there is no consensus on regularizing migrants and undocumented people in Canada. Who did he ask to come to that conclusion? Not the workers, that is for sure.
In August, the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of Slavery noted that Canada's "Temporary Foreign Worker Program serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights." Canada brought in 84,000 workers in 2018, nearly 136,000 in 2022, and approximately 240,000 in 2023. Now these workers and others are being blamed for the problems caused by the anti-social offensive of the rich and their governments over the last four decades. It will not pass!
Immigrants, temporary workers and undocumented workers are standing up and speaking out against these attacks and are putting forward their demands as human beings and not as things that Canada can exploit, abuse and discard at the whims of the rich and their government. It is part of the organized political fight to uphold the rights of all people living in Canada, building a modern Canada which outlaws the racist attacks and the abuse of newcomers.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 9 - September 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540096.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca