The federal government’s planned overhaul of the temporary foreign worker program has done little to calm debate in British Columbia, where revelations about foreign workers in a range of industries — from fast food to mining — helped push Ottawa toward reform.
Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said no amount of reform can change the fact the program will still allow companies to hire foreign workers instead of Canadians
He said the proposed changes will do nothing to help the foreign workers themselves.
"Our position is that they should be given citizenship," Sinclair said. "If they’re good enough to work here, they’re good enough to live here, bring their families and spend their paycheques in Canada."
The Conservative government announced a series of changes last Friday designed to make it more difficult and more expensive for companies to use temporary foreign workers, particularly for low-skilled jobs such as those in the fast-food industry.
Use of the temporary foreign worker program, which is designed to allow companies to meet temporary labour shortages, has increased significantly, from about 100,000 workers across the country in 2002 to more than 300,000 today.
Earlier this year, news reports alleged three McDonald’s franchises in Victoria were misusing temporary foreign workers, prompting the federal government to announce a moratorium on the food service industry’s use of the program and making the sector a target for Ottawa’s recent changes.
The federal government’s proposed changes will prevent employers in areas of high unemployment from applying for temporary foreign workers in the lowest wage and skill groups. It also caps the number of foreign workers employers can use and dramatically increases fees.
Sinclair argued that it doesn’t make sense to tie the program to unemployment rates, particularly in heavily populated regions such as the Lower Mainland where companies are essentially drawing from the same workforce. For example, Vancouver’s relatively low unemployment rate would allow foreign workers to be used there, but companies in nearby Abbotsford, which has an unemployment rate of 7.6%, would not.
Critics have claimed the program drives down wages, because companies that pay at or near minimum wage can bring in foreign workers rather than offer better pay to attract Canadians.
