Trudeau government tiptoes back into temporary foreign workers morass

How does importing low-wage labour help the middle class? It doesn’t.

Thestar.com
March 30, 2016
By Thomas Walkom

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are tiptoeing back into the minefield that is Canada’s temporary foreign workers program.

They are doing so carefully. This month’s decision to relax the rules for seasonal industries wishing to hire cheap foreign labour was not publicly announced.

Instead, the information - that such industries will be able to hire unlimited numbers of temporary foreign workers for up to 180 days a year - seeped out through the media.

This particular goody was designed to appeal to fish-plant owners in Atlantic Canada who had been chafing under stricter rules put in place by the previous Conservative government.

But it was also welcomed by hoteliers and restaurateurs who operate seasonally. According to press reports, resort owners in Banff, who might otherwise have been forced to hire unemployed Albertans at higher wages, were particularly pleased.

The unemployment rate in Alberta is 7.9 per cent. In Atlantic Canada, it runs anywhere from 9.1 to 14.1 per cent.

You might ask why, if so many Canadians are out of work, the federal government is making it easier for employers to bring in cheap foreign temporary help.

You might ask how this contributes to Trudeau’s stated goal of strengthening Canada’s middle class.

The answer, which isn’t very satisfactory, is that much of Canada’s economy is built around low-wage labour.

Atlantic fish-plant owners, for instance, argue that they can’t compete internationally unless they pay wages that are so low Canadians won’t accept them.

Instead, these owners import low-wage workers from countries like Thailand.

It’s the same argument made by Leamington-area tomato farmers who use cheap temporary workers from Mexico and the Caribbean to harvest their crop — a crop that, thanks to the ketchup wars between corporate giants Heinz and French’s, has become synonymous with Canadian nationalism.

Similarly, couples who want live-in nannies hire from countries like the Philippines. They do so not because foreigners are uniquely qualified to care for children but because they will accept lower pay than Canadians.

The expansion of the temporary foreign workers program into the manufacturing and services industries began more than a decade ago under Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government. It grew like wildfire under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

But faced with evidence that some businesses were firing Canadians in order to replace them with temporary foreign help, the Harperites scaled the program back.

Employers in the accommodation, food-service and retail sectors were barred from using temporary foreign workers if the unemployment rate in their region was greater than 6 per cent (an exemption was made for Yellowknife).

More important, the proportion of temporary foreign workers at any given workplace was to be capped at 10 per cent.

The Conservatives made the reasonable argument that if employers weren’t attracting enough Canadian workers they should offer higher wages.

But to help employers along and make sure these wages didn’t rise too much, the Conservatives also made it more difficult for the jobless to get employment insurance benefits.

On gaining power, the Trudeau Liberals turned the Conservative plan on its head.

First, they announced plans to undo Harper’s employment insurance cutbacks. That made it easier for jobless workers to turn down low-wage jobs.

Second, they dropped the radical suggestion that employers unable to find suitable Canadian workers should offer higher wages.

Instead, the Liberals threw in their lot with those who have built their businesses around low-wage labour.

It is a potent lobby.

In the Atlantic provinces, for instance, not only are the seafood processing plants in favour of cheap foreign labour but so are the fishermen who sell their catch to these plants.

Theoretically, there is another way for low-wage operations to stay alive. If they were unable to rely on cheap foreign labour, they might invest more in automation and become more productive. They might become part of what Finance Minister Bill Morneau calls his “innovation agenda.”

But as long as the federal government lets them bring in low-wage workers from abroad, most won’t go that route. Why should they? This is cheaper.