CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The federal government has moved to crack down on exploitation of low-skill temporary foreign workers .
As a major user of the program, agriculture is one of the target industries.
“There have been some egregious examples of abuse of foreign workers in this country,” Paul Snow, manager of operations for Citizenship and Immigration Canada in Prince Edward Island., told a forum on farm labour July 6.
“The lower skilled workers are the most vulnerable.”
New regulations in the Temporary Foreign Workers Program took effect April 1:
- more stringent requirements that employers trying to import workers prove the job offer is genuine
- tougher rules requiring employers to provide the same wage, working conditions and job as they promised
- new rules that limit temporary foreign workers to four years cumulative time in Canada before they are barred for four years.
“If they (employers) violate the rules, they are blacklisted by the government,” Snow told the annual forum on employment and skills development organized by the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council.
He said the potential for abuse will grow as the number of temporary foreign workers increases. He also predicted that all growth in the Canadian labour force will come almost entirely from foreign workers within five years.
The Canadian agriculture and food industry brings close to 24,000 foreign workers into the country annually under the TFWP.
In an interview, Snow said it makes agriculture one of the target industries to watch, but far from the only one.
“It’s hard to pin down to a specific sector,” he said.
“I think all sectors where we employ low-skill workers with low language skills and who live in isolated conditions can be vulnerable. I don’t think it is particularly limited to agriculture or domestic workers.”
He said the April 1 changes were important but just a first step.
The citizenship department does not have an investigative ability to check sites where vulnerable workers are employed to make sure they are not being exploited. However, it will now be able to work with other departments and jurisdictions to build a better capacity to police the law.
“Until the first of April this year, while we expected and knew that some of these things were going on, not only did we not investigate,” he said. “We couldn’t do anything even if we discovered something. Now we have the ability to do things.”
Snow said the exploiter is not always the employer. It can also be the recruitment agent who makes workers available for the program.
He also said the government does not have hard numbers on how much exploitation or abuse happens.
“”I’m not qualified to talk on the numbers, but our impression is that there is a relatively low percentage, but it is a significant issue nonetheless,” he said.
“We haven’t really identified all the cases where it may happen, but the lower skilled workers are relatively vulnerable for exploitation. They frequently have language issues, are in areas not commonly regulated as much, there are no trade unions, they tend to be isolated in smaller rural communities.”
Several farmers insisted during the forum that trade unions have no place on Canadian farms.
Snow said unions are not directly involved in the temporary foreign worker program, but the government does consult union representatives on working condition issues.
