LILLEY: Why are Liberals expanding temporary foreign worker program? |
LILLEY: Why are Liberals expanding temporary foreign worker program?
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LILLEY: Why are Liberals expanding temporary foreign worker program?
High unemployment, a jobs crisis for young Canadians and yet the Liberals are pushing ahead to broaden it
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On the same day that Statistics Canada revealed a higher unemployment rate of 6.7% and a youth unemployment rate of 14.1%, the Carney government made it easier for some employers to hire temporary foreign workers. On March 13, the latest Labour Force Survey showed that Canada had lost 108,000 full-time jobs and that over the past year had added more than 30,000 people to the unemployment line.
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Still, labour minister Patty Hajdu announced that employers would be allowed to “increase the allowable share of low-wage temporary foreign workers from 10% to 15% of their workforce in eligible rural regions.”
LILLEY: Why are Liberals expanding temporary foreign worker program? Back to video
Which regions will be eligible isn’t known and provinces will need to opt in for employers to be able to take advantage of the program.
“Strong rural economies depend on local employers being able to find the workers they need to keep businesses operating and communities thriving. Canadians must always be first in line for available jobs, but in some rural regions employers are facing persistent labour shortages,” Hajdu said in a statement announcing the change.
Program a lightning rod
The low-wage temporary foreign worker program, different than the agricultural program that supports so many farms, has become a lightning rod as youth unemployment has stayed consistently high. Employers, especially fast-food restaurants like Tim Hortons, have faced criticism that they would rather hire foreign workers.
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Yet those employers have been claiming that they need the foreign workers to fill job gaps with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business saying their members are short tens of thousands of workers.
Funny, because people aged 15-24 say they are short hundreds of thousands of jobs. StatsCan reports that 437,500 people in that age category are listed as unemployed, the same report lists 227,100 people over the age of 55 as unemployed.
Why we are importing any foreign workers when among all age ranges there are more than 1.5 million Canadians unemployed is a mystery.
Still, as Blacklock’s Reporter has revealed, both Tim Horton’s and A&W have lobbied the federal government extensively to expand access to the program. Also reported by Blacklock’s a briefing note prepared for Secretary of State, Children and Youth before her committee appearance found that youth unemployment was worsening.
“Labour market outcomes have been worsening for youth since early 2023. Their employment rate has been trending down, while their unemployment rate has been on a strong upward trend,” the note stated.
That worsening unemployment rate for young people — currently 16.3% unemployment for 15-24 year-olds in Ontario and 14.6% in Alberta — can be traced back to bad policy decisions by the Liberals in 2022.
As announced in April 2022, the Liberal government raised the cap on how many foreign workers could be employed in a business from 10% to 20%. However for manufacturing, food and accommodations, hospitals and nursing homes they raised it to 30%. They also got rid of a stipulation that if unemployment was above 6% then TFW approval would not be granted.
Later that same year, in November of 2022, the Liberals suspended regulations that stated foreign students could only work 20 hours per week.
The overall unemployment rate in 2022 was just over 5% and youth unemployment was just over 10%. Since these changes, unemployment overall is up, but youth unemployment is up tremendously.
Still, the Liberals don’t see an issue with this program despite all the evidence.
The Conservatives have said this program is being abused by employers who don’t want to pay fair wages. They’ve been calling for at least the last year for the program to be abolished.
There is no way that the Liberals will abolish this program. The problem is they won’t even look to do the real reforms needed to stop the obvious abuse.
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