For all the detail in a Senate report on Canada’s temporary foreign worker program about its problems, it is very short on solutions, says P.E.I.’s Cooper Institute, which advocates for temporary foreign workers.
“It’s pretty frustrating,” said Ryan MacRae, a program co-ordinator for the Charlottetown-based institute’s Migrant Worker Program.
“They did not address the root causes that workers face from their tied work permits and closed work permits … They’re putting more Band-Aids on balloons.”
The report by the Senate’s standing committee on social affairs, science and technology was released last week.
Committee chair Sen. Ratna Omidvar told Island Morning’s Laura Chapin that the program is clearly in need of major revisions.
“The system is 50 years old. It has been added to piecemeal by piecemeal,” said Omidvar. “There is no strategy to it anymore.”
Expanding work permits
One of the key findings of the committee is that the current program is not working well for anyone, said Omidvar.
Established in 1973, the program was meant to be a last resort for employers who could not find workers in Canada. Now it is anything but that. Many businesses — and some whole industrial sectors — rely on temporary foreign workers to function.
For example, an estimated 40 per cent of P.E.I.’s agricultural workforce is made up of temporary foreign workers.
