Canada’s international students program and temporary foreign workers program has seen abuses, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Thursday.
Freeland’s comments came just days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government is moving to restrict the number of low-wage temporary foreign workers in Canada, with the exception of some sectors.
The federal government also announced earlier this year a cap on the number of international students who can come to Canada.
“We see them (international students and foreign workers) as new Canadians who have so much to offer and so much to contribute. That is a great thing about Canada. Having said that, there have been some abuses to the system,” Freeland said on Thursday.
Freeland laid the blame on errant institutions.
“Something that I think we all recognize is when it comes to international students, we have seen some institutions not invite students here to really give them a good education, but really to abuse them. And that is not OK,” she said.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on Thursday had faced questions from reporters on how he would tackle immigration if elected, and said “we need to have a smaller population growth.”
“There’s no question about it,” he said. “We need to have a growth rate that is below the growth in housing, health care and employment.”
The international student cap is expected to result in approximately 364,000 approved study permits this year – a decrease of 35 per cent from 2023.
And while the temporary foreign worker program has grown dramatically over recent years, it has come under fire for suppressing domestic wages and leaving workers vulnerable to abuse.
The number of temporary foreign worker positions has more than doubled since 2016, according to Employment and Social Development Canada data. That’s the year after the federal Liberals were first elected in 2015.
Freeland said the growth in the program “made sense” during the “extraordinary” circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. She said the federal government has decided to put restrictions in place since the situation has changed.
“It makes so much sense to say, you know what, if unemployment is six per cent or higher, we’re not going to be processing new applications for temporary foreign workers. There are Canadians in your city who need a job, look to them and offer those jobs to them,” she said.
Migrant rights groups, however, have said Ottawa’s new policy is making a scapegoat out of migrants for its mismanagement of the Canadian economy.
“High unemployment, low wages, and unaffordable housing is not being caused by immigrants and migrants — these are caused by employer exploitation and policy failures. Migrants build communities, and they deserve equal rights and respect, not scapegoating,” said Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.
Starting Sept. 26, the government will refuse applications for low-wage temporary foreign workers in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher.
For employers, there will be a cap of 10 per cent of employees coming from the low-wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program and a reduction of maximum duration of employment from two years to one, according to Employment and Social Development Canada.
This comes after Quebec announced last week its own limits on low-wage temporary foreign workers — a six-month freeze in Montreal that will take effect next month.
The TFW Program allows non-Canadians to work in the country on a temporary basis.
— with files from Global’s Saba Aziz, The Canadian Press and Reuters.