For those grappling to make sense of the recent changes to Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), the response by the United Nations special rapporteur, Tomoya Obokata, offers a scathing indictment. Likening it to a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery,” his condemnation exposes the cracks in a program that were amplified during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. What was once a directive to boost immigration as a means to combat the country’s labour shortage, now seems to have become an extraneous effort to walk back the government’s original intentions. With the long tail of this change significantly impacting migrants who already have permits in Canada, the decision seeks to radically reshape the Canadian workforce across all sectors. 

As it stands, the TFWP has plenty of room to evolve. Often, workers are left dependent on employers, limiting their capacity to advocate for enhanced working conditions. At the same time, employers are burdened with excessive bureaucratic responsibilities that have been shifted onto them by the government. The program is overdue for an overhaul, yet political machinations and anti-immigrant sentiment obscure the root of the problem. In the midst of a social inflection point that is reshaping the way Canadians think about work, while the TFWP sets a troubling precedent for the broader workforce, it also encourages a reimagining of new, viable solutions. 

Launched in 1973, the program’s initial target was recruiting high-skilled workers in the fields of healthcare and technology. Nearly 30 years later, a category for low-skilled workers was added, which caused an update to the program by increasing wages and additional fees for employers. The geographic spectrum of workers is vast, impacting those hailing from South America to South Asia, and it goes beyond that, too. Under the program, employers could hire foreign workers primarily covering agriculture and manufacturing. This includes processing and canning vegetables that you may pick up at your local market, or working in nurseries for grown trees to decorate for Christmas. But, the program would also cover tech workers from Global Majority countries qualified to fill critical skill gaps.

On August 26, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, Randy Boissonnalt, announced cutting the number of foreign workers accepted in Canada through the TFWP. This also impacts workers who fall under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) which also consists of migrants from Caribbean countries like Anguilla, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and Mexico who all fall under bilateral agreements between Canada and their respective countries. 

The reduction has a disproportionate impact on low-wage streams while demanding that employers are only able to hire 10 per cent of their workforce through the TFWP. In food security sectors, construction, and healthcare, the cap balloons slightly to 20 per cent.

“The changes we are making today will prioritize Canadian workers and ensure Canadians can trust the program is meeting the needs of our economy,” says Minister Boissonnalt. Three weeks later, on September 18, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller, released a statement announcing that Canada’s intake of international students would be sliced by 10 per cent. This change would also curtail options for permanent residency eligibility for post-graduate permit holders. (These changes coincide with rising tuition costs for international students, which have ballooned over 50 per cent in the past decade and may impact the workforce of a future generation.)

There are a myriad of conditions, both near and far, that have contributed to the tightening restrictions. Around the world, as anti-immigrant sentiments have surged in troubling ways, countries have clamped down on their borders. The US has tightened rules on asylum seekers entering through Canada and those crossing the border via Mexico, introducing stricter penalties. Conversely, the need to call upon, and access, a global workforce persists. Despite the rise in popularity of the far-right anti-immigrant political party, Alternative for Germany, the country recently signed a controlled labour deal with Kenya to ease immigration laws and enable long-term visas.    Elsewhere, Japan, a country historically self-reliant, relaunched its foreign worker program to compete with nearby markets in South Korea and Taiwan.

While Ottawa claims that the policy change was designed to rein in the “misuse and fraud” of the program (a claim similar to that made by Home Security in the United Kingdom to cut down net migration into the country), much can be attributed to the upcoming elections. 

Immigration has become a political pressure point leading up to the elections, with both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his opponent Pierre Poilievre volleying the topic back and forth. One in four Canadians believe immigration to be an issue, alongside climate change and housing, with Canadians correlating healthcare, job security and housing issues to the rise of immigrants. 

However, this misconception is connected to both how the TFWP was designed, and how it’s been used by employers. The program’s built-in structural issues have cast a shadow on the state of foreign workers in Canada. This has created a ledge for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to piggyback off these sentiments and bolster a range of populist and nationalist policies.

In hindsight, the mounting challenges of diminished housing stock, increasing job insecurity, and the erosion of public healthcare have grown alongside the rise of immigration in the country, rather than as a direct cause. The housing crisis, in particular, has been decades in the making. With its failed shelter system, transitioning people into permanent housing is difficult, and the rising cost of rent saw an increase of 11.3 per cent in 2023. On a provincial level, the healthcare system under Ontario Premier Doug Ford expanded into privatization, specifically in MRI and CT clinics.

The TFWP’s impact is emotional and physical for those who have interacted with it. In September 2024, Guatemalan farm worker Byron Alfredo Tobar initiated a class-action lawsuit which would challenge the TFWP. The class action claims the program’s “employer-tying measures… violate the workers’ rights of liberty as well as right to life and security.” Tobar came to Canada in 2014 on a closed work permit and claimed his shifts averaged 12 hours a night with 10-minute breaks that happened three times per shift. He was reluctant to risk his status in Canada by speaking out.

Much like Tobar, there are still a plethora of migrants who haven’t spoken out and may be facing similar, if not more tenuous conditions. 

Greater visibility and transparency into the inner workings of the program is a critical first step. However, the new changes share an inherent flaw—an emphasis on reduction, rather than expansion. A solution rooted in adding more elements and resources to the program is obscured by reduced eligibility criteria and a smaller workforce.

In an op-ed for the Globe and Mail, Ratna Omidvar, the chair of the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology, suggests installing a commission solely focused on migrant labour policy. Omidvar also outlines that the current TFWP forbids workers from moving between employers, creating extreme shortages in some workplaces and fostering conditions for overwork in others. When paired with lengthy institutional hurdles and costly recruitment measures, often, by the time workers arrive, the timing of their arrival is misaligned with the peak season. The outcome is a system where the benefits to employers clash with the needs of workers.

Chris Ramsaroop, the organizer of Justice 4 Migrant workers, is one of those individuals fighting for change with a larger collective since 2001. “There was so much outrage and hysteria surrounding the program during the pandemic. The Canadian economy survived because of the labour of undocumented people, international students, temporary foreign workers, refugees, immigrants,” he says. “These are the people that saved our society in every aspect of it, and now we’re claiming that we no longer need them?”

So, what is the solution here? The push for more comprehensive policy needs to come from all those affected—workers, employers and all those invested in an equitable labour landscape. It also means refusing and scrutinizing options that fall short during the upcoming election cycle. Advocacy is a key factor in change, according to Ramsapoorp. “That’s why resistance must exist. It means continuing what workers have always conducted, [even if it] comes at a tremendous cost to themselves.”

In mid-November 2024, the federal government announced a 20% wage increase as part of its Labour Market Impact Assessment Program (LMIA). This new protocol, adding critical conditions to the TFWP, raised the wage threshold by 20 per cent. In Ontario, wages are set to rise from $28.39 to $34.07. This condition not only boosts earning potential for new workers—especially those in the low-wage stream, though it may also affect high-wage workers—but also encourages employers to approach recruitment and hiring more thoughtfully, budgeting for higher wages and affirming a stronger commitment to their workforce. For workers entering under this condition, the increased wages enhance earning potential and open new paths to permanent citizenship.

The change is a promising step forward, but its effectiveness will take time to gauge. With a potentially transformative election looming, immigration remains a hot-button issue, and the evolving TFWP will remain at its centre.