Also, keeping at the front of my mind: Indigenous Territories. Indigenous Sovereignty. What right does the Canadian state have to make any of these rules? The argument, and justification for reforms, is that the TFWP has distorted local labour markets by keeping wages down and creating a vulnerable workforce with little to no labour market mobility. These arguments focus on the perceived threat to Canadian workers. What about the conditions faced by migrant workers themselves? As the Government’s own data has shown, migrant workers are more likely than Canadian workers and recent immigrants to be underemployed (in 2006, 85% of non-permanent resident housekeepers and 55% of cleaners had completed postsecondary training) and to have lower weekly earnings. The proposed changes to the TFWP restrict the length of permits in the low wage stream to 1 year. They do not address the persistent problems of exploitation that result from the precarious legal status of TFWs. These include being tied to the sponsoring employer (making it difficult to leave abusive or exploitative situations), poor quality and/or expensive tied accommodation, and a lack of access to collective representation. Most importantly, the changes to the TFWP do not answer the question: if someone’s skills are needed in Canada, why can’t he or she immigrate with full rights to permanent settlement?
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 20:25:08 +0000
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