Proposed fixes to temporary foreign workers program fail to address power imbalance, critic says

A law professor who runs an Ontario legal clinic for migrant farm workers says a new Senate report that lays out ways to update Canada's temporary foreign worker program doesn't do enough to address the power imbalance between migrant workers and their employers that rests at the heart of the system.

"There's a false equivalency in the whole report between employers and workers," said Vesanthi Venkatesh, an associate professor of law at the University of Windsor. "Economic interests are made equivalent to a workers' rights to be free from exploitation and oppression."

Canada is looking overhaul the nation's temporary foreign worker program, which began with a few hundred Jamaican farm workers in 1966 and has since grown into a bureaucracy that controls the working conditions of 700,000 foreigners working in industries ranging from agriculture, to seafood processing to personal caregiving.

In the last two decades, the program has been steeped in controversy, with allegations of abuse and poor treatment, including injured farm workers being sent home without treatment, and caregivers promised permanent residency, only to have their Canadian employers refuse to fill out the necessary paperwork. 

Venkatesh's comments came in response to a Senate report published Tuesday with six recommendations for reform, including a new commissioner of Migrant Workers who would monitor the program, empower migrant workers and be a single point of contact for allegations of abuse and mistreatment, all while regularly reporting to Parliament. 

Report fails to address worker vulnerability: lawyer

The report fails to seize on the temporary status of the workers themselves, which goes to the heart of their vulnerability, said Venkatesh, who also administers the Migrant Farm Workers Legal Clinic.

Unlike Canadians, migrant workers do not earn overtime or holiday pay and are not guaranteed a minimum income should their contract be abruptly terminated, she said. Because of their precarious status, workers have few incentives to report abuse because, even if the authorities step in to discipline the employer, the worker is often blacklisted. 

"We deal with these workers all the time," she said. "Once the worker is blacklisted for asserting their rights, for example, it's very difficult for them to get a job within that sector because employers work in collusion."

Venkatesh said migrant workers are exempt from many of the workplace rights Canadians take for granted, including overtime, holiday pay and a minimum guaranteed minimum income as part of a work contract. 

"There are no remedies that gave workers income security, permanent status and more systemic power," she said.

The report also lays out five other recommendations:

• A three-year phase out of employer-specific work permits that would make workers less vulnerable to exploitation by giving them a chance to change employers. 
• Including temporary foreign workers in the federal government's immigration level plans and offering more transparency around the transition to permanent residency. 
• An overhaul of the system's enforcement apparatus, including unannounced inspections of workers' accommodations. 
• More education for migrant workers when it comes to their rights, specifically around access to Canada's healthcare system.
• Better information sharing between government departments.

Ontario farm group looking for more efficiency

A news released published Wednesday by the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association, an industry group that employs 17,000 migrant workers annually, said it "appreciate [sic] the balanced recommendations into solutions for temporary and migrant labour in Canada." 

There are no remedies that gave workers income security, permanent status and more systemic power.- Vesanthi Venkatesh, associate professor of law at the University of Windsor who studies labour migration and discrimination

The group said it had been asking the federal government for years to streamline the system, from a complex web of programs that spans different departments into what it called a "one-stop shop."

Bill George, the labour section chair of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, who also runs a farm near Beamsville, Ont., said he was pleased with the recommendations, but would not go into much detail. 

"The document is, to me, right now, is quite high level," he said. "There's not a lot of meat on the bones yet, so we'll be looking forward to putting meat on the bones if the government decides to act on any of these recommendations."

George said among the recommendations that is most needed is the creation of a migrant worker commission, something believes would cut down on duplication between government departments. 

"I think what what we like is we want to see more efficiency in the administration of the program," he said. 

The Senate report gave no timeline for, if, or when, a plan would be implemented, only the hope that "the experiences and solutions shared in this report will help inform this plan and improve the program to the benefit of employers and migrant workers alike."