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The latest federal budget is "an insult to Canadians," says Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan, who says the government's promise to promote Canadians over the Temporary Foreign Worker program will not encourage the private sector to hire more Canadians.

"It has become far too easy for companies, especially construction companies like in Fort McMurray, to choose foreign workers over the next generation of Canadian workers," says McGowan. "In its current form, it's way too easy for employers to fill positions with foreign workers as opposed to taking on apprentices."

Thursday's budget primarily shifts Ottawa's support behind trades programs to drive Canada's economy, encouraging the private sector to play a bigger role in recruiting workers and training unemployed workers for in-demand jobs.

The goal is to fill nearly 220,000 job vacancies across Canada by reaching out to the disabled, youth and aboriginals.

"Training Canadians for Canadian jobs is clearly the message we have," said Fort McMurray-Athabasca MP Brian Jean on Thursday. "You can see it's a growth economy budget."

However, a recent report from the AFL says companies are still turning to the Temporary Foreign Worker program.

"It's clear that the Harper government is sucking and blowing when it comes to foreign workers," says McGowan. "On one hand, they claim the budget is all about training Canadians to fill job vacancies. On the other hand, they are still going to promote the expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker program."

A record of 213,516 temporary workers came to Canada in 2012, up from 190,575 in 2011. In Alberta, McGowan says there are now more temporary workers than immigrants.

"There are enough Canadians to fill these jobs if employers and government gets serious about training the next generation of Canadians," he says. "Even with this budget, I'm not convinced they've gotten serious about that."

McGowan singled out the province's non-unionized construction industry as being one of the worst abusers of the program, because it's cheaper to bring in skilled workers than to train new apprentices. He also says these workers are paid, on average, 15% less than their Canadian counterparts.

As a result, non-unionized construction firms are able to outbid unionized firms for contracts with the money saved. McGowan says he would feel better about the program if employers who hired a certain number of Canadians, particularly apprentices, were the only ones getting access to foreign workers.

"Keep in mind that we are not against immigration. Canada was built on the backs of hard working immigrants," says McGowan. "This is not immigration. This is a program that uses foreign workers the way we use post-it notes, something we just throw away when we're done."

He also says the program is unfair to the workers, because many are under the impression they can become citizens once their work permits expire. Instead, most are forced to leave.

"I'd say 80% to 90% want to stay, bring their families over. But for most, especially the lower skilled workers, that won't happen," he says. "The ones working in the very low-skilled jobs, like behind the counter at McDonald's or Tim Hortons, they have no hope of ever becoming citizens."

Fort McMurray Today, Monday, Mar. 25, 2013
Byline: Vincent McDermott

CALGARY - Alberta business groups say a rejigged skills training program included in the most recent federal budget could offer some relief for the province's tight labour market.

Travis Davies of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says connecting the right workers with the right jobs is a "huge challenge" in the oilpatch, where skilled tradespeople such as pipefitters and plumbers are in high demand.

"To the degree that you can get support from both the federal government and the provincial government, it's very positive," he said.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made skills training a centrepiece of the 2013-14 budget with the Canada Job Grant.

Ottawa, provincial governments and employers would each shoulder a third of the $15,000 training grant, which is expected to come into effect about a year from now.

Ottawa still needs to get the provinces on side with the plan, and Quebec and Ontario have already expressed misgivings.

But in the West, where unemployment rates are very low, the idea is being embraced.

The man in charge of recruitment at oil producer Cenovus Energy Inc. (TSX:CVE) called the announcement "exciting."

"I think it provides an opportunity and incentive for all appropriate stakeholders to work more closely together," he said.

"I think it's important to recognize that this is a piece of the puzzle. It's not something that was announced to be the ultimate solution."

Ben Brunnen, chief economist at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, called the job grant a "great first step" that is "key to helping to alleviate the labour challenges."

"What that does is it ensures that the provinces and the federal government and employers get together at the same table to make sure they get the right people with the right skills in the right job."

The labour tightness is not restricted to Alberta's all-important oil and gas industry, Brunnen said. The tourism and hospitality industries, for instance, are also having a tough time.

"It definitely permeates across the Alberta economy," he said. "There are particular occupations under pressure in Alberta that are confronted with relatively chronic shortages and increasingly, employers have been focusing on overseas and immigrants as solutions to the labour challenges."

Brunnen said the chamber also likes that there will be more of a focus on attracting talent within Canada than from overseas.

"That's been the big issue for employers — yes, there might be some Canadians that are unemployed but they just don't have the skills that we're looking for."

However, there are challenges in attracting workers to Alberta that don't have to do with training, Brunnen conceded.

"A lot of the demand for the energy sector is happening in the field, in the oilpatch. Those are in locations that are sometimes a little bit difficult to work in, or are sometimes a little bit remote."

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said the government's job training promises amount to a "fraud" so long as the temporary foreign worker program is an option.

The budget did include some new rules making it harder for employers to rely on the temporary foreign worker program.

"Employers in this country are not going to train workers aggressively as long as they have the option to use cheap, exploitable workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker program," said McGowan.

"We'll never have a system that actually promotes the training of the next generation of skilled trades as long as the temporary foreign worker program is continuously expanded, which is exactly what we've been seeing with the Harper government over the last five years."

Victoria Times Colonist, Friday, Mar. 22, 2013
Byline: Lauren Krugel, Canadian Press

Significant numbers of temporary foreign workers continued to move to Alberta even as the economy shed jobs during the recession, says a new report from the province's largest labour group.

The draft report from the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) found that although overall Alberta employment numbers dropped in 2009 and 2010, companies continued to bring in new temporary foreign workers in a hiring spree that first ramped up during the province's boom years. While the umbrella union group agreed there are true shortages of workers in a few trades and skills, the numbers show the real scarcity is in the "people willing to work for less," the group said

The issue of temporary foreign workers is of special concern in Alberta. In recent years, Alberta employers have been granted more than half of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's approvals (called Labour Market Opinions) to bring in low-skilled temporary foreign workers, many of them destined for service jobs.

Unions and other critics say the temporary workers are more likely to be exploited by employers and the federal program drives down wages, while firms with an eye on expansion say they have no choice but to look overseas for employees.

"It's really very tough to hire," said Bobby Maglalang, human resources manager at Calgary-based Hi-Flyer Food (Canada) Inc., which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut franchises in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec.

In Alberta, Hi-Flyer Food has 110 temporary foreign workers – more than a quarter of its current staff – on its payroll, and is short more than 200 workers across the province. Mr. Maglalang said even the lowest-paid "team member" makes more than minimum wage, and it's not a matter of paying temporary foreign workers less than Canadians or permanent residents. The real issue is that restaurant owners can't match salaries paid by the oil and gas industry. "We need more workers. If only we could avoid hiring foreign workers."

Richard Truscott, Alberta director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said given the amount of red tape and cost involved in hiring foreign workers, most businesses would rather forgo the process. But he said there are just not enough Canadians willing to do some jobs. Mr. Truscott said the numbers compiled by the AFL might be explained by the cyclical nature of the economy and the "lag effect" in the federal program. Many business owners were caught off guard by the downturn that followed the boom years of 2006-2008, he said. "By the time those individuals arrived and were being integrated into the business, the economy had gone sour," Mr. Truscott said.

The draft report from the AFL said in 2009, while unemployment rose and a net 28,500 jobs were lost, Ottawa still allowed provincial employers to bring in 28,545 new temporary foreign workers. In 2010, 8,600 Alberta jobs were lost but 22,992 new temporary workers came in.

In the same three years and up to 2011 as the economy began to improve, the number of temporary foreign workers living in the province stayed between 58,000 and 66,000.

Speaking during a visit to Fort McMurray, AFL president Gil McGowan said while the Harper government says it wants Thursday's federal budget to breathe new life into trades and skills training, it is not really pushing companies to take apprenticeship programs seriously. He noted under new rules brought in last April, some employers can now pay temporary workers 5- to 15-per-cent less than the prevailing wage for Canadians.

"Through the temporary foreign worker program, they're actually distorting the labour market," Mr. McGowan said.

The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, Mar. 20, 2013
Byline: Kelly Cryderman

An Alberta judge has ordered the Canadian arm of a Chinese state-owned oil company to pay the biggest workplace safety fine in the province's history after the death of two foreign workers at a massive construction project about five years ago.

"The fine is good, but no amount of money can make up for what they did wrong in the first place," said Wayne Prins, Alberta director of the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC).

"In our view, the fine sends the right message to contractors and people in the industry that you must follow the procedures and rules in place."

Alberta Provincial Judge John Maher ordered Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Company (SSEC) to pay a $1.5 million fine in a St. Albert court room on Jan. 24.

The fine is related to the deaths of a welder named Ge Genbao, 27, and an electrical engineer named Lui Hongliang, 33, at the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) Horizon oilsands project.

They were killed on April 27, 2007 at the facility located north of Fort McMurray.

The Chinese temporary foreign workers were welding the wall structure inside a massive storage tank when the roof support structure collapsed onto them.

Two other foreign workers were seriously injured.

Under Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety Act, 53 charges were laid against three companies in the deaths of Genbao and Hongliang and the injuries of the other workers.

CNRL, who was in charge of the construction site at the Horizon oilsands project, hired SSEC to build the storage tanks.

SSEC is the Canadian subsidiary of Chinese state –owned oil company Sinopec.

Sinopec hired more than 100 temporary foreign workers in China and began work on the construction of two oil storage tanks in late 2006.

SSEC pled guilty to three charges in September 2012 of failing to ensure the health and safety of workers.

The company was given the maximum $500,000 fine for each charge. Despite this fact, some people believe the fine will do nothing to deter them from practices that endanger workers.

"Sinopec didn't just import workers from the third world, they also imported third-world health and safety standards," said Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan.

"Alberta missed its chance to send a message that Chinese companies working in the oilsands need to play by Canadian rules."

McGowan argued that the fines are too small to make a difference to the massive corporation.

"One and a half million dollars doesn't even amount to a rounding error in the annual budget of a monstrous global corporation like Sinopec," he said.

"This fine does nothing to dissuade them from playing fast and loose with the safety of their workforce."

The original plan was to build the tank walls first, then use them to support the roof while it was under construction.

That plan changed when the project fell behind schedule.

CNRL approved the construction change, but SSEC did not prepare any formal written procedures that should have been certified by a professional engineer.

As a result, other charges in this case include failing to ensure that a professional engineer prepared and certified drawings and procedures; failing to ensure the roof support structure inside the tank was stable during assembly; failing to ensure that U-bolt type clips used for fastening rope wire were installed properly; and failing to ensure that wire rope being used was safe.

"We shouldn't forget the circumstances that led to the deaths of Genbao and Hongliang," McGowan added.

"The company did not get the construction plans certified by an engineer. The wires weren't strong enough to hold up against the wind. It was a complete abdication of responsibility on the part of the employer."

Crown prosecutors and SSEC lawyers came up with an agreement, which allocates $1.3 million of the fine to create an education program to train temporary foreign workers about their legal rights, as well as workplace health and safety.

The program aims to hire 45 instructors to train about 5,500 workers in a three year period.

Journal of Commerce, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013
Byline: Richard Gilbert

A Canadian subsidiary of Sinopec, a Chinese state-owned oil corporation, was ordered to pay $1.5-million fine Thursday, approximately six years after a collapsing tank roof killed two Chinese workers at an oilsands construction site.

According to the province, the penalty is the largest workplace safety fine in Alberta's history.

The April 2007 incident occured at Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s Horizon project, approximately 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. The workers – Ge Genbao, 28, and Lui Hongliang, 33 – were killed when the roof of a metal storage tank collapsed. Five other workers were also injured.

In late September, representatives from Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Company Canada Ltd. appeared in a St. Albert courtroom and pleaded guilty to two charges related to the deaths of the workers, plus an additional third charge for failing to ensure the safety of two seriously injured workers.

According to an agreed statement of facts filed in court, work on the storage tanks had begun to fall behind schedule at the time of the incident. SSEC Canada and CNRL began to construct the tanks walls and roofs simultaneously.

About three weeks after the new construction approach began, a cable supporting a roof snapped after strong winds and kinks weakened the wire.

The case originally involved a total of 53 charges against three different companies. During the lengthy court battle, charges against Sinopec were dropped and 29 charges against CNRL were stayed.

Despite the large fine, the Alberta Federation of Labour is calling the punishment smaller than a "rounding error in the annual budget of a monstrous global corporation like Sinopec," and that the fee will not serve as a lesson to the multi-billion dollar oilsands companies operating in northern Alberta.

"Alberta missed its chance to send a message that Chinese companies working in the oilsands need to play by Canadian rules," said AFL president Gil McGowan. "Sinopec didn't just import workers from the third-world, they also imported third-world health and safety standards."

Ft. McMurray Today, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013
Byline: Vincent McDermott

ST. ALBERT, Alta. - A firm linked to a Chinese state-owned company was ordered Thursday to pay $1.5 million in penalties in the deaths of two foreign workers at an Alberta oilsands project.

SSEC Canada Ltd. pleaded guilty last September to three workplace safety charges in the deaths of the Chinese temporary foreign workers.

The men died in 2007 at Canadian Natural Resources' (TSX:CNQ) Horizon project near Fort McMurray when an oil storage tank they were building collapsed.

Alberta Justice spokeswoman Michelle Davio said the penalty is the largest ever imposed by a judge in the province on workplace safety charges.

"The penalty is made up of a $200,000 fine and $1.3 million payment to the Alberta Law Foundation that will be used to support outreach and education programs for temporary foreign workers and for workers who are new to Alberta," she said.

SSEC Canada is the Canadian subsidiary of Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Company Ltd.

The case involved a total of 53 charges involving three different companies, including Calgary-based Canadian Natural Resources and Sinopec.

Charges against Sinopec were withdrawn. All 29 charges against CNRL were stayed, meaning the government can reactivate them at any time over one year.

According to an agreed statement of facts filed in court, problems at the Horizon project began in 2006 when 132 Mandarin-speaking Chinese workers recruited by SSEC Canada were late in getting to the worksite.

Work on the large metal storage tanks fell behind schedule.

SSEC Canada proposed revised construction in which the tanks' walls and roofs would be built at the same time.

CNRL agreed to the revisions, but said the work should be done under its own construction management team which would supervise quality control and safety.

SSEC Canada began work using the new method before CNRL's team arrived on site, even though the procedures hadn't been certified by a professional engineer.

On April 24, 2007, about three weeks after SSEC Canada began using the new approach, a roof collapsed when the wire cables holding it up snapped after being kinked and torqued in high winds.

The two workers were crushed by falling steel. Five other Chinese workers were injured.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, called the penalty "less than a drop in the bucket."

"This was an opportunity for the Alberta government to send a clear message to companies like Sinopec that if they want to do business in Canada, then they have to observe and follow our rules when it comes to workplace rights and health and safety," McGowan said.

The case was delayed for years by uncertainty over which company was responsible and whether they would be responsible as an employer, contractor or prime contractor.

Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Co. went to the Alberta Court of Appeal in a losing effort to argue that it hadn't been properly served with legal documents, since it had no presence in Canada.

The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear a challenge.

The Canadian Press, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013

ST. ALBERT, Alta. – A firm linked to a Chinese state-owned company was ordered Thursday to pay $1.5 million in penalties in the deaths of two foreign workers at an Alberta oilsands project.

SSEC Canada Ltd. pleaded guilty last September to three workplace safety charges in the deaths of the Chinese temporary foreign workers.

The men died in 2007 at Canadian Natural Resources' (TSX:CNQ) Horizon project near Fort McMurray when an oil storage tank they were building collapsed.

Alberta Justice spokeswoman Michelle Davio said the penalty is the largest ever imposed by a judge in the province on workplace safety charges.

"The penalty is made up of a $200,000 fine and $1.3 million payment to the Alberta Law Foundation that will be used to support outreach and education programs for temporary foreign workers and for workers who are new to Alberta," she said.

SSEC Canada is the Canadian subsidiary of Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Company Ltd.

The case involved a total of 53 charges involving three different companies, including Calgary-based Canadian Natural Resources and Sinopec.

Charges against Sinopec were withdrawn. All 29 charges against CNRL were stayed, meaning the government can reactivate them at any time over one year.

According to an agreed statement of facts filed in court, problems at the Horizon project began in 2006 when 132 Mandarin-speaking Chinese workers recruited by SSEC Canada were late in getting to the worksite.

Work on the large metal storage tanks fell behind schedule.

SSEC Canada proposed revised construction in which the tanks' walls and roofs would be built at the same time.

CNRL agreed to the revisions, but said the work should be done under its own construction management team which would supervise quality control and safety.

SSEC Canada began work using the new method before CNRL's team arrived on site, even though the procedures hadn't been certified by a professional engineer.

On April 24, 2007, about three weeks after SSEC Canada began using the new approach, a roof collapsed when the wire cables holding it up snapped after being kinked and torqued in high winds.

The two workers were crushed by falling steel. Five other Chinese workers were injured.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, called the penalty "less than a drop in the bucket."

"This was an opportunity for the Alberta government to send a clear message to companies like Sinopec that if they want to do business in Canada, then they have to observe and follow our rules when it comes to workplace rights and health and safety," McGowan said.

The case was delayed for years by uncertainty over which company was responsible and whether they would be responsible as an employer, contractor or prime contractor.

Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Co. went to the Alberta Court of Appeal in a losing effort to argue that it hadn't been properly served with legal documents, since it had no presence in Canada.

The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear a challenge.

Edmonton - A $1.5-million fine to oil giant Sinopec will do nothing to deter them from practices that endanger workers, according to the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL).

At a St. Albert court room on Thursday, Jan. 24, the Canadian subsidiary of Chinese oil corporation Sinopec was fined $1.5 million for an incident that cost two of their employees their lives. According to the Alberta Federation of Labour, the fines are too small to make a difference to the massive corporation.

“One and a half million dollars doesn’t even amount to a rounding error in the annual budget of a monstrous global corporation like Sinopec,” McGowan said. “This fine does nothing to dissuade them from playing fast and loose with the safety of their workforce.”

Sinopec and two other companies were charged after a 2007 container collapse killed two temporary foreign workers at an oilsands project near Fort McKay, Alberta. A total of 53 charges were laid against the companies, of which Sinopec pled guilty to three charges of failing to ensure the health and safety of workers.

“Sinopec didn’t just import workers from the third world, they also imported third-world health and safety standards,” AFL President Gil McGowan said. “Alberta missed its chance to send a message that Chinese companies working in the oil sands need to play by Canadian rules.”

McGowan says it might be the largest safety fine in Alberta history, but that only shows that Alberta has a long track record of not aggressively enforcing its own workplace safety rules.

The two victims, 28-year-old Ge Genbao and 33-year-old Lui Hongliang, were just two of the more than 130 Cantonese-speaking workers who had been brought over from China for the Sinopec oilsands project.

“We shouldn’t forget the circumstances that led to the deaths of Genbao and Hongliang,” McGowan added. “The company did not get the construction plans certified by an engineer. The wires weren’t strong enough to hold up against the wind. It was a complete abdication of responsibility on the part of the employer.”

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MEDIA CONTACTS:

Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour at 780-218-9888 (cell)
Olav Rokne, AFL Communications Director at 780-289-6528 (cell) or via email [email protected].

Temporary Foreign Worker program under the microscope

• The program will be reviewed due to criticism over the approval of a deceitful application that allowed a northeast B.C. coal project to hire 200 Chinese nationals for jobs that could have been filled locally. The AFL has concerns that the review will be used as a smokescreen to hide deeper problems, and called for meaningful participation from labour activists and from the public at large.
  
  If they want to find the source of the problems with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, the Harper Conservatives just need to look in the mirror," AFL president Gil McGowan said. "They created this monster by removing any checks and balances from the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and by rubberstamping every application."
  
  For more information see Nov 9 AFL release and backgrounder.

AFL and UFCW lead the charge for food safety

• The Alberta Federation of Labour and United Food and Commercial Workers are calling on Premier Alison Redford to stand up for the province's beef industry by conducting an independent public inquiry.
  
  In a public letter sent to the Premier on Thursday, October 18, AFL president Gil McGowan and UFCW Local 401 president Doug O'Halloran explained the reasons a public inquiry into the causes of the E.Coli outbreak at the Lakeside plant in Brooks would be in the best interest of consumers, the cattle industry and of Albertans.
  
  Read the whole story:  Oct 18 AFL Release
  
  

Urgent Action

Help us defeat Bill C-377

• The Alberta Federation of Labour is calling on all of our affiliates and members to help quash the anti-union Bill C-377.
  
  This private-members bill is not about transparency; it is an effort on the part of the Harper Government to undermine the ability of unions to act as an effective voice for working people. The bill is designed to increase costs to unions and divert resources from collective bargaining and servicing towards accounting and bureaucracy.
  
  "This is a political bill. In the same way that they have cut funding to environmental groups and women's groups, they are trying to weaken and muzzle a strong progressive voice," Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said. "We have an obligation to act together to protect the labour movement, and in doing so, protect broader civil society."
  
  To join the fight, contact your Member of Parliament:  CLICK HERE
  
  Download the AFL Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-377:  CLICK HERE

Events

November 23-25: Parkland Institute's 16th Annual Fall Conference: Petro, Power and Politics

November 24: International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women

December 4: AFL Open House

December 7: Deadline to register for 2013 AFL/CLC Winter School

Did you know ...

• In 2010, 74 per cent of employers with workers under the TFW Program were found to be in violation of the Alberta Labour Code.
  
  
• There are currently more than 60,000 Temporary Foreign Workers in Alberta, giving the province the biggest TFW population in Canada as a proportion of the labour force.
  
  
• More than 50,000 additional TFW applications from Alberta employers were approved in 2011.
  
  
• Between 2002 and 2008, the number of TFWs present in Canada rose by 148 per cent, from 101,259 to 251,235.

Social justice lawyer Fay Faraday says it's time for Canadians to insist on sweeping reforms of the federal Foreign Temporary Workers Program to protect workers from the kinds of abuses reported on in the three previous articles in this series. "It's a systemic problem and we will keep hearing those horror stories until we do something about it."

Faraday offers 22 recommendations in her Metcalf Foundation funded report titled "Made In Canada: How the Law Constructs Migrant Workers' Insecurity," which found that abuse of migrant workers is endemic. Faraday's proposals include allowing work permits to be tied to an industry or a province rather than a single employer. She also advises the government to "reverse" the trend of temporariness and allow all workers the chance to apply for Canadian residency.

Faraday, together with other lawyers, Ai Li Lim and Charles Gordon, and union leaders Joe Barrett and Gil McGowan, emphasize the need for enforcement mechanisms: a civil body or employment standards investigators to ensure labour laws are respected. It's not like it's not possible. In Manitoba, for example, all employers and recruitment agencies must be registered with the provincial government, and inspectors are sent to worksites.

Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan calls the Manitoba government's system the "gold standard" of protection for migrant workers. Because of the oversight, the federal government will not process an application for a migrant worker if the provincial government believes that an employer would break labour laws. To Faraday, this collaboration suggests that "national standards" can be accomplished to provide "front-end protection against migrant worker exploitation."

Manitoba also transitions many migrant workers into permanent residency through the Provincial Nominee Program, through which 90 per cent of its economic immigrants come. From 2005 to 2009, Manitoba granted residency to 13,089 foreign workers, representing 38 per cent of all nominees, whereas Ontario accepted only 1,247 in that same four-year span.

In 2011 the federal government introduced changes to the TFWP to "provide further protections for temporary foreign workers while alleviating temporary labour shortages." These three changes include:

• ensuring the "genuineness" of the job offer;

• banning employers for two years if they fail to respect wages and working conditions;

• imposing a limit of four years in which migrant workers are eligible to stay in Canada -- and they cannot return until another four years has passed.

The first change, say critics, is virtually meaningless, while the second is not being enforced. There is currently not a single employer on the blacklist -- and no regulating body exists to find and ban bad employers. Only the last change -- limiting stays to four years -- is actually implemented by the government, which, say critics, merely serves to heighten workers' disposability in Canada. Within four years, workers most likely would have improved their language skills, have learned their rights, and be more willing to unionize.

Protections do exist: government

An October report by Jeremy J. Nuttall in The Tyee that a recruiting company was asking Chinese coal miners to pay an illegal $12,500 recruitment fee to gain work in B.C. through the Temporary Foreign Workers Program raised further concerns about the mistreatment of migrant workers. Two Canadian unions responded by launching a judicial review to investigate whether the workers were given employment authorizations, also known as a Labour Market Opinion, that ensures Canadian workers were sought before recruiting miners from China. As the controversy over the HD coal mine in Murray River grew, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada announced that it was already investigating the entire Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

HRSDC says the government is concerned over the "integrity" of the program. "When Canadians are not available to fill vacancies, temporary foreign workers who are hired must be treated fairly and the same as Canadians doing the same job," says Marian Ngo, press secretary for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.

The other federal department that oversees the TFWP, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), says it has plans to further protect workers. In an email, CIC communications representative Paul Northcott told The Tyee that the government introduced "new legislative authorities that will allow for inspections of employers, including site visits, to verify their compliance with program requirements" as part of the Economic Action Plan 2012. He also highlighted separate efforts of provincial governments to prevent abuse, such as Ontario's June 2012 inspections of recruitment agencies, Manitoba's and Nova Scotia's requirement for employers and recruiters to be provincially registered, and Alberta and Saskatchewan's new legislation to crack down on unscrupulous agencies and improve transparency.

Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan isn't impressed. The provinces took responsibility because they had to "fill the vacuum" of inaction on the part of Ottawa, he said.

"The federal government has literally spent tens of millions of dollars on expanding the TFWP and introducing mechanisms to speed approval for the employers but they spent barely a cent on investigation and enforcement [to protect the workers]," he added.

McGowan also expressed doubt about the CIC's announced changes, noting that he and the Alberta unions have been asking for changes for at least five years. "Given the Harper government's reluctance to spend on public services, I remain skeptical about whether or not they will actually put the resources in place to make these rules anything more than a paper tiger."

Temp workers and Canada's job landscape

Earlier in this series we met Costa Rican Jose Salguero, one of the imported workers who helped build the Canada Line railway for pay so low they took action by joining a union and winning a BC Human Rights Tribunal decision. We met Filipino Alfredo Sales, who fought to reclaim over $6,000 in lost wages from Denny's, and leads a class action suit on behalf of dozens more migrant workers the restaurant chain employed. Workers like Jose Salguero and Alfredo Sales require courage to stand up for themselves by filing legal action. According to McGowan and Faraday, low-wage workers in general tend not to complain to the authorities over employment violations until after they quit and find work elsewhere. Adding their temporary status to the equation makes it all the more risky.

Industry argues that Canada is a big country with a lot of tough or specialized jobs that need doing in hard places, and that foreign workers can be the only way to fill the need. But critics respond that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, wittingly or unwittingly, creates Third World conditions for migrant workers, and risks putting similar pressures on the domestic workforce. By moving entire employment categories, which Canadians will always have a need for, to non-resident workers, the TFWP encourages economic dependency abroad while discouraging the development of local job markets. It's outsourcing by insourcing from abroad, a two-tiered system wherein no one wins.

The lack of enforceable rules allows major corporations, medium-sized businesses and even middle-class Canadians who need caregivers to do as they please with migrant workers. Neither SELI and SNC Lavalin, who paid their Latin workers a fraction of what they paid Europeans, nor Denny's, who did not pay for Filipino workers' airfares and overtime work, -- nor even Sinopec, who was ruled responsible for the deaths of two Chinese oilsands workers, due to safety violations -- have paid any fines. Nor have they been banned from hiring migrant workers in future.

Becoming the 'Dubai of the North'

McGowan believes that the continued use of migrant labour will heighten racial tensions, as local and foreign workers are pitted against each other. "It flies in the face of Canadian values and it's being used as a tool to undermine the Canadian labour market," he says. The AFL believes that the system is broken, that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program should be scrapped and replaced with permanent immigration -- the way Canada was before.

"We're not saying that Canada should stop bringing workers from overseas to work in our economy, he says. "What we are saying is that this is not the way to do it."

The risk with the current loosely regulated system is that the hard-won rights to eight-hour work days, overtime pay, medical coverage and worker protections may be eroded by transnational corporations who have access to a cheap workforce that is more docile by the nature of the regulatory framework.

"If they can mistreat foreign workers I don't think it's long before they mistreat domestic workers as well," says lawyer Charles Gordon. He also says eventually migrant workers will want to stay – and they will, "legally or illegally." Other experts anticipate that the nearly half a million migrant workers present in Canada in 2011 could go underground when they are expected to return to their home countries after four years in accordance with new legislation.

"The United States is an example of that, where you have a lot of illegal foreign workers but they're working and they're a significant part of the economy," Gordon says.

McGowan draws a comparison to other countries. "We're becoming the Dubai or Saudi Arabia of the North, not only because we have oil, but because we're abandoning real immigration in favour of using an exploitative guest worker program to fill our most menial and undesirable jobs. We've joined a global underground railway trading in human misery. It's a shameful transformation and a betrayal of Canadian values and our traditional approach to immigration."

The Tyee, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013
Byline: Krystle Alarcon