Immigration Minister Marc Miller on Wednesday said “the age of unlimited supply of cheap foreign labour is over,” and that employers may need to offer higher wages to attract more Canadian workers.
Speaking to reporters after addressing the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Miller also suggested the federal government may be looking at boosting enforcement resources to crack down on irregular migrants who don’t leave Canada, and addressed the need for mutual enforcement of the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S.
Miller said it’s important to address what is sometimes a “very disproportionate relationship between employers and employees” when it comes to low-cost temporary foreign workers.
“There are exploitative relationships that exist, and we need to crack down on them. That includes a proper wage,” Miller said, pointing to some low-wage sectors like agriculture and food processing.
“It’s clear that the age of unlimited supply of cheap foreign labour is over, and I think that is a good thing,” he said.
However, he acknowledged crackdowns mean “this year and the next year will be one of turbulence” as those changes take effect, “but bringing the numbers down, I think, is very important to making sure that we aren’t simply chasing short-term gain for a lot of long-term pain.”
Canada this year limited the number of low-wage temporary foreign workers in most sectors and boosted their minimum wage in an effort to end employers’ reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Recently, a job listing at a Toronto-area Burger King prompted observers and experts to wonder whether the temporary foreign workers program is being used to avoid paying higher salaries to Canadians.
'More enforcement' needed to remove people staying illegally: Miller
Miller on Wednesday said Ottawa is always looking at “what measures that Canada needs to take to ramp up enforcement” and pointed to what he said were record levels of removals of temporary visa and work permit holders who choose to stay illegally.
Asked if that means more resources, including additional Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers, Miller said, “that’s how it works.”
“In the context of enforcement, generally, broadly speaking, we absolutely need to look at the enforcement mechanisms that we employ to make sure people that don’t want to leave after due process actually do leave,” he said.
“I’m not going to share publicly the plans that we have on enforcement, but more enforcement means more resources.”
The government has been pressed by opposition parties and provinces on its plan to add additional resources at the U.S.-Canada border in anticipation of a potential increase in people seeking to enter Canada from the U.S., where president-elect Donald Trump has vowed mass deportations.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters Wednesday the government “will ensure that Canada’s borders are secure and that we have the necessary resources to ensure that they’re secure,” but wouldn’t confirm “hypothetical” staffing needs at CBSA.
The government says the CBSA carried out 11,444 removals from 2019 to 2020, which was the highest number in the previous five years. Global News has asked the agency for its current removal numbers.
However, CBSA figures tabled in Parliament early this year suggest most people who received deportation letters in the last eight years remain in Canada, which the Conservative Party says suggests a lack of enforcement.
Last month, when Miller and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced they were slashing the number of new permanent residents to the country by 21 per cent by next year, they also laid out plans they say would effectively pause population growth for two years by reducing reduce temporary residents to less than five per cent of the general population.
Miller said at the time that the focus of the permanent resident program will be on “those who are already here,” and on Wednesday said that means drawing from the foreign worker pool — meaning many with temporary permits can later claim permanent residency.
Miller said Wednesday that while most temporary visa holders leave after their visas expire, those who stay are breaking the law, and the government needs to make that “quite clear.”
“When you have a temporary program, it has to mean something,” he said. “It means that people eventually may have to leave or are expected to leave.”
A Global News investigation in 2018 found the government had become increasingly ineffective at carrying out deportations for public safety and security reasons. As a result, the number of foreign citizens remaining in Canada despite having been ordered out grew from just 291 in 2012 to almost 1,200 in early 2018.
'Tough conversations' ahead with U.S., Miller says
While most focus on U.S. immigration is on the southern border with Mexico, Canada’s border has also earned attention from Republicans, including Trump’s recent appointments to his incoming administration.
In an interview Monday with his local TV news station 7News in Watertown, N.Y. — a community close to the Ontario border — newly named U.S. “border czar” Tom Homan said there’s an “extreme national security vulnerability” along the Canada-U.S. border that will also need to be addressed.
Miller said Wednesday he looked forward to speaking with Homan directly.
“I expect there to be some tough conversations,” he said, particularly when it comes to managing asylum claims and stemming the flow of new arrivals crossing into the U.S.
Miller added he also expects the U.S. to continue to abide by the Safe Third Country Agreement even if the Trump administration clamps down aggressively on both asylum claims and irregular migrants.
That includes enforcement of asylum seekers whose claims are denied, Miller said.
— with files from Global’s Uday Rana