A new UN report has slammed Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFW) as being a “breeding ground” for contemporary slavery.
The report was composed by Tomoya Obokata, the UN’s special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery.
He visited Canada last year, travelling to several cities across the country, including Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver. The purpose of Obokata’s visit was to assess the federal government’s efforts to “prevent and address” forms of modern slavery.
Obokata’s observations on Canada’s TFW program were eye-opening. He noted that it “institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights.”
He added that the program has created “a significant power imbalance” because workers’ migration status depends on an employer-specific, closed work permit.
If a worker is fired, they could be deported back to their country of origin, and employers may also have “limited incentive” to ensure proper working conditions.
The report added that the federal government has failed to inform workers of their rights, making them more vulnerable to being taken advantage of by employers.
The special rapporteur also received reports about workers being underpaid, having their wages stolen, being physically, sexually, mentally, and emotionally abused, receiving limited breaks, not having proper safety equipment on the job, and having their hours unexplainably cut.
Feds to make changes to temporary foreign worker program
Last week, the federal government announced new measures to address current issues with the temporary foreign worker program.
The changes include consistently enforcing the 20% cap policy for workers, which also applies to those who are looking to apply for permanent residency through the “dual intent sub-stream.”
The feds may also introduce regulatory changes for employer eligibility in the future. Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault informed Canadian business associations that he could consider taking further action targeted to prevent some employers in different sectors from using the TFW Program by applying a “refusal to process” to the low-wage stream.
“I’ve been clear over the last year; abuse and misuse of the TFW Program must end. The health and safety of temporary foreign workers in Canada is a responsibility I take very seriously,” said the minister in a previous statement.
In March, Immigration Minister Marc Miller highlighted that Canada’s temporary resident volume has “increased significantly,” reaching up to 2.5 million or 6.2% of the population in 2023.
Miller said the federal government plans to decrease the temporary resident population by 5% over the next three years.
New immigrants having hard time finding work
Not only are foreign workers facing difficult work conditions, they’re also having a hard time finding jobs.
According to Statistics Canada’s July Labour Force Survey, recent immigrants to Canada are experiencing steep unemployment rates.
The data shows that, based on three-month averages, unemployment for recent immigrants who arrived in Canada in the past five years climbed 3.1 percentage points to 12.6% from July 2023 to July 2024.
Statistics Canada added that the unemployment increase had an especially strong impact on immigrant youth.
In July, the unemployment rate for this group rose to 22.8% — a staggering 8.6% increase from the same time last year.
In the same period, unemployment increased by 2% to 10.4% for immigrants in the core working age group (25-54).