Briefing for TFW Review

The Fort McMurray fires have caused devastation and vulnerability to an entire community in Northern Alberta. This community includes people of Canadian and without Canadian status. One group without status are temporary foreign workers. These workers have been displaced along with everyone else, however their security and future livelihoods differ.

The status of these individuals is based on their working visas tied to their employer and location of work. In their current state, they are not legally allowed to work for any other employer or location than the one listed on their visa, which would be in Fort McMurray. As well, the isolation of these individuals from their families is not only further exacerbated in this emotional time, but is also reinforced through the lack of social capital these individuals have to find support outside of evacuation centres.

These workers now are in a situation where they cannot work and cannot be with their families in a time of uncertainty, isolation and stress.

What do we mean by migrant workers

Although the previous government further sub-divided the programs into the International Mobility Program (IMP) and the Temporary Program (TFWP), we refer to ‘migrant workers’ in these submissions as those workers falling under the TFWP.

These migrant workers include those working in the Caregiver Program (formerly Live-in Caregiver Program), the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), the Agricultural Stream, and the Stream for Low-wage Positions.

This government and the current Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities (HUMA) has an opportunity to shift the trend of the past seven years. As it is structured, the current review cannot ensure that migrant workers participate in it fully

This review should conduct, or lead to, a meaningful, multi-Ministerial, intergovernmental review that provides safe spaces to seek out the voices and lived experiences of migrant workers and their families. All future legislative, regulatory or policy changes about migrant workers, must centre the voices of migrant workers.

MAJOR ISSUES

Closed work permits and Temporary Status: Indentured work

Closed work permits that are tied to a single employer are a modern form of indentured labour where migrant workers are not free to circulate in the labour market like other workers. Closed work permits, coupled with inadequate monitoring and enforcement of labour standards, create the conditions that allow unscrupulous employers and recruiters to abuse caregivers with impunity. Closed work permits facilitate employer control and exploitation of workers including working excessive hours without payment for overtime, unpaid hours of work and often less than minimum wage pay.

There are a number of concerns with closed permits, including some of those discussed below.

Lengthy processing times and prohibitive costs

For a migrant worker to change employers, they must receive a new job offer from a prospective employer, an , and an LMIA in order to apply for a new work permit. Employers apply for LMIAs, which take between three and five months if approved, and then the temporary foreign worker must apply for a new work permit, which might additionally take three to five months. During this time period, temporary foreign workers are not able to work and are not eligible to apply for social assistance. Migrant workers face unique barriers to accessing Employment Insurance. As a result, migrant workers may spend six to ten months unemployed with no source of income.

One consequence of these delays is that migrant workers feel forced to continue working under abusive conditions. For workers whose employment has ended through no fault of their own or who have chosen to leave abusive employers, many are compelled to engage in unauthorized and less protected work, such as beginning to work for a new employer while their work permits are still processing

Conditions of abuse

The lengthy processing times and high financial costs associated with changing employers make changing jobs the least desirable option for workers. This delay is a fact that employers are well aware of. As a result, bad employers increase their demands on temporary foreign workers by asking for increased hours of work, refusing to pay for overtime, holiday or vacation pay, and not allowing for sick days.

Many migrant workers live in employer provided or employer controlled house. This arrangement gives employers substantial control over migrant workers’ food, space, sleep and social networks. This leaves many open to intimidation and reinforces the inequality of power between the employer and migrant worker. There is often no clear boundary between being ‘on-duty’ and ‘off-duty’.

Family separation

Most migrant workers come to Canada without their families (excluding high- waged temporary foreign workers whose spouses may come with them on open work permits). These lengthy periods of separation have severe impacts on migrant workers and their families, both for those who are kept temporary as much as for those who are able to remain and eventually reunite with their loved ones in Canada

Impacts on businesses

Migrant workers help grow businesses. It hurts employers to have to retrain new workers every few years. Providing migrant worker with would ensure a stable workforce and build a better economy for us all.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses has stated that employers in high demand regions and sectors used the TFWP to fill permanent positions in lower skilled occupational categories as they are almost entirely cut out from any access to the permanent system1.

Lack of services

Permanent residency ensures services: Many labour rights, and basic services in Canada like healthcare and post secondary education are tied to permanent immigration status. Even if migrant workers wish to return home eventually, permanent resident status is the only way to ensure access to these services now. On top of that, migrant workers pay for all these services already – they deserve access to them.

Permanent residency means family reunification: Migrant workers deserve to have their families join them. Measures need to be put in place to allow migrant workers to have their families visit them or for them to be able to visit their families. That’s just fair.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Immediately

1. Ensure permanent immigration status for all migrant workers

a. Status on Arrival, Status for All: All migrant workers must be able to immigrate to Canada immediately, independently and permanently without depending or relying on the sponsorship or good will of their employers or third party agencies. This should include migrant workers already in Canada and those arriving in the future.

2. Ensure access to all social services and benefits a. Ensure access to Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance and other federal entitlements to both migrant workers already in Canada and portable benefits to migrant workers no longer here.

As interim measures

3. Stop the unilateral repatriation of migrant workers a. End all immigration enforcement and removal orders against migrant workers. b. End repatriation on medical grounds of migrant workers.

4. Restore Caregivers’ guaranteed right to apply for permanent resident status. Currently, only a small quota of Caregivers can apply for permanent residency, and must meet very restrictive criteria even after working here for two years.

5. Enable labour mobility

a. Create open or sectoral work permits for migrant workers: Most migrant workers in Canada (IMP workers, PGWP holders, work permit holders, etc) are not on closed permits - low-waged migrant workers should have the same access. b. End the four-year limit on work permits: Rather than value their contributions, current policy forces migrant workers to leave after four years. This uproots long-term workers who have built lives and relationships here and helped build local businesses. c. End the Caps: Work sites with over 10 full time workers are subject to progressive “caps” on the percentage of migrant workers in their total workforce each year. It was intended to be 10% in July 2016. Migrant workers are being forced out of jobs they have held for years. d. Allow workers to change jobs: No new permits are being issued in food, and retail sector in regions with unemployment greater than 6%. This has effectively locked workers already in Canada working in those industries into those jobs, greatly increasing the chances of exploitation. e. Remove LMIA fees: A $1,000 fee has been placed on Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) applications that employers are downloading to workers. Migrant workers shouldn’t have to pay to work. f. Restore portable EI benefits: Allow Seasonal Agricultural Workers and other migrant workers access to pensions, parental benefits, EI and supports after injuries even after they leave Canada. g. Regulate recruiters: Migrant workers have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to unregulated recruiters to get a job in Canada. To do so, they take on tremendous debt and so they arrive in the country unable to assert their basic rights. The Federal government can encourage provinces to regulate recruiters, and create inter- provincial agreements so that recruiters don’t switch provinces to avoid accountability. The Federal Government should develop model recruiter legislation

6. Reunite families

a. Currently, migrant workers are not able to come to Canada with their families. Visiting families at home is also often impossible. In the case of Temporary Foreign Workers in the Atlantic provinces working seasonally, many migrant workers temporary resident visas that are required to enter and exit the country take tremendously long to process, and so workers spend the months between work, simply living in remote locations without employment or income.

7. Support workers voice

a. Ensure access to collective bargaining b. Increase proactive enforcement c. Develop a one-stop shop..

8. Ensure access to health services

9. Expand eligibility criteria for services under Canada’s National Settlement Program to include all migrant workers participating in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program as recommended by the Canadian Council for .

10. Sign, ratify and implement key international mechanisms including a. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families; b. International Labour Organization's’ Domestic Workers Convention (2011)

Migrante Alberta May 16, 2016