Yesterday, I tweeted about an amendment to the Immigration and Refugees Protection Act (IRPA) that would create a federal path to permanent residency for low-skill foreign workers. This change would apply to foreign workers with experience and training that falls under the Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities (TEER) levels 4 and 5.
TEER 4 jobs require a high school diploma or a few weeks of on-the-job training. They include home childcare providers, retail salespersons, front desk clerks at hotels, and security guards. Teer 5 jobs require no formal education. They include cashiers, shelf stockers, kitchen helpers, farm labourers, and landscapers. This is only a small sample of the vast number of jobs covered by these two categories – a full list can be found here.
Why would the federal government want to increase the proportion of low-skill immigrants admitted to Canada? The reason is simple: to correct for their own bungled handling of the foreign worker file.
The Trudeau government allowed the number of temporary residents – foreign workers, international students, and asylum seekers – to rise to a jaw-dropping 2.8 million. Temporary residents now make up nearly 7% of the Canadian population.
As opinion polls show the Canadian public turning against mass immigration, the Liberals are acknowledging that this was a mistake. At a news conference on April 7th, Prime Minister Trudeau admitted that the number of foreign workers and international students in the country “has grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb”. Immigration Minister Marc Miller has promised to reduce the proportion of temporary residents from 7% to 5%.
To this end, the Trudeau government has cut the number of low-wage foreign workers that companies can hire in most sectors from 30% to 20% of their workforces – a straightforward approach (though one that is certainly too little, too late).
But Minister Marc Miller has also expressed support for another, more surreal strategy: reducing the number of temporary residents by making a bunch of them permanent. In other words, the Trudeau government admits that the astronomic rise in non-permanent residents on Canadian soil was a mistake, but believes that reclassifying some of them as permanent residents is an acceptable solution.
Hence the latest decision to create a federal path to permanent residency for low-skill workers in the TEER 4 and 5 categories, contradicting Canada’s longstanding (and untrue) boast that we have a world class immigration system that accepts only the cream of the crop.
The Trudeau government has decided to address its own failure to control immigration numbers by lowering standards, allocating permanent residency to low-skill workers who would not qualify for federal economic immigration pathways under any normal scenario.
This flood of cheap labour will have severe consequences for Canadian workers, who are already being negatively impacted by the current wave of immigration overseen by the Liberal government. The unemployment rate stands at 6.4%, as population growth from immigration outpaces job growth. The youth unemployment rate was 13.5% in June. Young Canadians looking for a summer job are forced to compete with foreign workers and international students, who are themselves struggling to find entry-level positions in a labour saturated economy.
The good news is that this amendment has not been finalized yet. It will be pre-published in the Canada Gazette – the official newspaper of the Canadian government – in the fall. Canadians concerned about the amendment should tell their MPs to oppose this further weakening of our immigration standards.
Will the Opposition Conservatives have the courage to stand up for Canadian workers by calling on the government to axe its proposal for a cheap labour immigration pathway?
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