Advocates for migrant workers are calling for Canada to overhaul its migrant worker program and expand permanent residency admissions.
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, workers and advocates said thousands of newcomers to Canada are currently being left at a power imbalance with their employers.
“Without permanent resident status, migrants are left vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and in some cases, even death,” Karen Cocq, with the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said.
The call comes weeks before the federal government is scheduled to announce its planned permanent resident admissions for the next two years. Researchers expect the government to reduce how many people it admits each year — down from about 485,000 in 2024.
But advocates say bringing in temporary workers without a chance to attain permanent status puts them in a precarious position.
“No conversation about changes to immigration policy or levels should take place without ensuring that migrants have equal rights and the power to exercise those rights,” Byron Cruz, with Vancouver-based Sanctuary Health, said in a news release.
“That is only possible through permanent resident status.”
Data from Statistics Canada shows as of this summer, Canada had about 1.34 million temporary workers.
So far this year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says about 8,500 temporary foreign workers (TFWs) were granted permanent residency. That does not include TFWs who attained permanent residence status through other programs.
Rémi Larivière, a spokesperson for the department, said the federal government has been taking strong action to protect workers, including a confidential tip line for TFWs and policies to help abused migrant workers switch employers.
“The Government of Canada takes the safety and dignity of temporary foreign workers very seriously,” Larivière said in an email.
A two-tired migration system
But Stacey Plummer, a migrant worker and single mother in New Brunswick, told reporters that without a pathway to permanent residency, her future is uncertain.
Plummer said she came to Canada in 2013 to work in a fish processing plant. She had an employer-specific work permit, which let her work for one specific business, conditional on employment.
Plummer said her boss there provided cramped housing, placing her in a home with 11 other people.
After five years, Plummer found a different job, but said she endured poor working conditions there too. She said supervisors would pressure her to work faster under the threat of being sent back to her home country.
“We were afraid of losing our job,” she said. “It’s hard to be in this situation knowing that you have your rights, but employers are not respecting them.”
Now, she has an open work permit for vulnerable workers, which temporarily allows her to work for most employers in Canada.
According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the program — introduced in 2019 — aims to allow migrant workers to escape abusive workplaces and stay in the country long enough to find a better employer.
Plummer said her open work permit meant she could find better working conditions without fear of having to leave Canada. But her permit expires in February, and she said she doesn’t know what’s ahead.
“I do not want to go back to the same abusive system.”
‘They purposefully don’t have these pathways’
Sandra Schinnerl, a migration studies researcher at the University of British Columbia, said temporary foreign worker programs weren’t designed to accept all workers as permanent residents.
“Those programs really are set up as temporary,” she said. “They’re set up to find temporary labour and then have them go back, so they purposefully don’t have these pathways.”
Syed Hassan of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change says the federal government is inaccurately linking unemployment and high housing costs to migrant workers as it seeks to restrict the temporary foreign worker program.
Advocates’ call for change comes as Canada scales back its number of temporary foreign workers. In August, the federal government proposed reducing the portion of temporary residents in Canada from 6.5 per cent of the country’s population to five per cent.
It said employers would no longer be able to hire more than 10 per cent of their total workforce through the temporary foreign worker program, and low-wage TFW permits would expire after one year, down from two.
The federal government is scheduled to release the full details of its two-year plan for immigration levels at the start of November.
Schinnerl said she would not be surprised if future announcements include plans to reduce the number of new permanent residency applications approved in Canada.
She said the policy change marks a recent shift in public opinion about immigration.
“Politicians are listening to the public opinion and the discourse and the frustration people are having, and that is what’s motivating the policy change.”