The Auditor-General weighs in on Canada’s immigration policies

Last week Auditor-General Sheila Fraser tabled her fall report in Parliament, part of which critically evaluated Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) Program. Fraser criticized the management of the program, and specifically the federal government’s failure to ensure the safety of workers or to monitor the status and location of workers. These criticisms generated responses from very different points of view.

One point of view included concerns for improving the well-being of people entering Canada through the TFW program, while another called for the overhaul of the system with a refocus on highly skilled workers within immigration policy.

For example, Bill Curry from the Globe and Mail focused on the conditions in which many of Canada’s TFW find themselves. The work is often dangerous, the hours are long, the pay often falls below minimum wage, and the benefits are few and far between.

Minimum standards for the selection of workers and the management of the program are left to the provinces and are not enforced by the federal government. The provinces also do a poor job at monitoring the status and location of workers, and many fall through the cracks and end up working illegally after their contracts expire. Most TFW, except live-in-caregivers, are not welcome to apply for permanent residency after the expiration of their contracts.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney claims this program is necessary because of the projects which TFW undertake. But the working and living conditions and lack of opportunity to stay permanently in Canada are unacceptable.

Mindelle Jacobs from the Ottawa Sun also picked up on Fraser’s criticisms, but from a different angle. She claims that the United Nations is pressuring countries like Canada to allow widespread immigration in order to combat global inequality. She argues that Canada should not give into such pressure.

Jacobs’s concern is that Canada will then be swamped with unskilled workers who will overload our already burdened social assistance programs. Instead, immigration should focus on matching specific gaps in the labour force with highly skilled applicants.

Jacobs argues that continuing with immigration as it is will only encourage the acceptance of low skilled workers, which she claims will deteriorate quality of life in Canada.

Both points of view echo Fraser’s calls for the re-evaluation of Canada’s immigration policies. Both also recognize the needs within the labour force in Canada. But each argument has a different primary motivation-the economic situation of our country verses the well-being of those living and working in Canada. These two goals are by no means antithetical, of course. We can be welcoming and prioritize well-being without sacrificing our economy. It is a question of priority.

Fraser’s report comes at a time when Canadians are expecting major changes to immigration policies. Her report re-emphasizes the need for such changes. But we must carefully consider the impact of these changes as related to our priorities. Will economics triumph as a top priority, or will it shift to a focus on the human beings entering our country?