New rules which aim to help put an end to abuse in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Programme come into effect today.
Government officials will now have the power to inspect Canadian workplaces without warrants and to blacklist employers who abuse the programme.
The officials will be allowed to interview foreign workers about their working conditions and demand documentation about employer compliance with Canadian laws surrounding foreign workers. These inspections can be conducted within six years of the work permits being approved.
Through the TFW programme, Canadian employers are granted the right to hire overseas workers provided they have not been able to find any suitable workers from within Canada. In most cases the employer will have to receive a Labour Market Opinion from the government to be allowed to hire you.
One criticism of this system, however, is that some employers abuse the visas by employing foreign labour who will do the same job for less money than a Canadian would. This past spring the government mandated that employers pay temporary foreign workers at the same rate as Canadian workers doing comparable work,
According to the most recent figures, it currently takes around three months for a work permit application to be processed at the Canadian visa office in London.
In 2012, official figures state that 213,573 temporary foreign workers entered Canada at some stage during the year. America was the top source country for workers (36,346), followed by Mexico (20,894), France (17,454) and the UK (11,364).
Article published 31st December 2013
