Report recommends a timeline of three years to phase out closed work permits, which have been criticized for exposing migrant workers to abuse
Gabriel Allahdua, pictured in June 2020, is a former farmworker. He says the recommendations from the Senate committee give him little comfort because he had hoped for speedier action.The federal government should phase out work permits that restrict migrant workers to one employer, a committee of senators concluded in a new report, following an in-depth review of Canada’s decades-old Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
As a replacement, the report recommended the government look into sector-specific and regional work permits. The Immigration Minister and the Employment Minister have 100 days to respond.
Migrant workers in the TFWP often find themselves facing wage theft, unsafe working conditions, harassment, bullying and other abuses, Ms. Osler told a news conference. She said that workers facing abuse are often too afraid to report mistreatment because they risk deportation. The report noted the TFWP, first created in 1973, was originally intended to be a “last and limited resort” to filling labour shortages. Now, the program has become “a central component of the labour market in Canada.”“Employers have powerful lobby groups – they are in Ottawa a great deal – and workers do not.”
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