Foreign workers, stay away until we protect you

In 2022, when Ottawa opened the door wider to temporary foreign workers, the Canadian jobless rate was as low as 4.9 per cent.

- DAVID OLIVE

Temporary foreign workers pick apples at a Norfolk County farm. Condemning migrant workers to poor pay is a constraint on consumer spending, the biggest driver of the Canadian economy, David Olive writes.

The number of temporary immigrants in Canada with work permits has since exploded to 1.2 million, more than double the number just three years ago.

The general unemployment rate has since increased to 6.4 per cent in July. The jobless rate for young workers aged 15 to 24 years is 14.2 per cent, the highest level in a decade outside the pandemic.

And the unemployment rate for younger immigrants in Canada for the past five years is estimated at 23 per cent.

On the back of those numbers is an economic slowdown that has reduced hiring across the board, something Ottawa should have anticipated in 2022 when it deregulated its temporary foreign worker program (TFW).

Ottawa is now unwinding those ill-thought-out policy changes, which were meant to be a “last resort” for employers, according to Employment and Social Development Canada.

Instead, the policy changes have resulted in cheap labour pricing many workers out of the market, including newcomers.

Ottawa needs to hasten its repairs to the TFW program even though it’s under pressure from Canadian business not to do so.

There are both moral and practical issues at stake here.