this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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Trudeau announces reduction in temporary foreign workers, suggests more immigration changes to come (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

A little too late Justin. You let corporate greed rule your policies when it comes to immigration and foreign students without working out the strain it qould cause elsewhere in the economy. That is the absence of governing not good government. PP and conservatives will be the same if not worse!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

I know that my opinion on all this is not popular, and I usually keep it to myself especially where immigration and students are concerned since, lets face it, the hate for them can be unreal, but in this case I feel compelled to say I feel like this criticism is unfair.

The government is dealing with many real problems at once, and federal government policy impacts often have incredible lag time , meaning you can't just keep making changes every quarter without risking a lot.

With immigration, the Fed was (and in some cases still is) responding to real worker shortages, slowing population growth, and generational change and retirement. Real problems that need to be solved, and immigration is a solution to it. Some of the changes were actually humanitarian changes to reduce TFW exploitation and abuse. Meanwhile, the fed have no control over interest rates, little to no control over global inflation, and we exist in a federal system that separates powers and responsibilities which not only limits what the federal government can do but guarantees any perceived overstep will be challenged in court by at least 2, if not more provinces.

They've been governing, you don't have to like it and many people don't consider all the factors that go into these decisions, but it isn't fair to say they've been absent.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

responding to real worker shortages

There is no such thing. In a capitalistic free market, the price of labour is set by the market. If the demand is more than the supply, that’s not a bad thing, that’s just the short amount of time that labour has some leverage, and it’s destroyed with increasing supply.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you. You get it. The problem isn't a labour shortage, it's a pay shortage. Rather than increase wages along with the demand for labour, they get cheap labour rubber stamped from overseas because the government lets them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

responding to real worker shortages

I have to disagree. And I'm as left as they come by the way. I don't blame immigrants for wanting to come her to make a better life. I blame the corporations for taking advantage of that and the government for rubber stamping LMIA applications.

We'll take my little nothing town for example. Swift Current, Saskatchewan. According to the LMIA map available here, we have 84 approved temporary foreign workers, mostly in coffee chains, convenience stores and gas stations.

Meanwhile, as a retail manager, I get five or six resumes a week from people who are either a) naturalised immigrants b) Canadian by birth, or c) folks who have just recently finished up their own TFW "contract" for lack of a better word.

So the way that LMIA works is that the business owner "applies" to the federal government and makes the case that they need to get a cheap overseas labourer because there isn't any local person available to do the job. So in a town of 15000 people, there aren't 84 unemployed people looking for part time work? I know for a fact that that's not true because I get them applying here all the time.

The fact is, these corporations apply for an LMIA because they don't have to pay them more than the bare minimum for an "x" amount of time. Then when that time comes up, rather than giving our raises, they don't give them raises, forcing them (who are now effectively naturalised) to go find another job, freeing the corporation up to apply for ANOTHER LMIA, which gets rubber stamped.

Like I said, I'm as left as they come. This country is made by it's immigrants. It's rich because of our multicultural history. Immigration is a great thing. Hell, I'm a first generation Canadian. But the temporary foreign worker program is just a way for companies to use indentured servitude to create a "service class" made up of immigrants.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Federal government has the means and responsiblity to persuade and cajole provinces in certain directions when it comes impacts of policies they are implementing. They could have foreseen the housing shortage or the unemployment or the depressed wages with the immigration, foreign workers and foreign student programs they are creating, because that's what the hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats in various government agencies are for - to plan and study all the freakin impacts- but didn't foresee it or chose to ignore it, having faith in the "markets" to solve needs of the economy. Alas, the "markets" are slow moving and not efficient at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think it's more difficult than you imagine to persuade provinces to go along with them, almost anything that might infringe on provincial jurisdiction is going to be challenged by at least Quebec and Alberta. I also don't believe we, here in 2024 with the benefit of hindsight, can fairly criticize the government for not foreseeing how the last few years have gone.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not automatic that provinces will follow the Feds. But the Feds have sticks and carrots to motivate provinces. It's politics. What provincial government wants to be seen BLOCKING a federal program to create more housing? That's one of the sticks - politics through the media.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Certain provincial governments have developed a tendency to scream "but jurisdiction!" about any federal policy that might affect them, whether or not it's useful or justified to do so and regardless of what other stimuli are applied.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago

Federal government has the means and responsiblity to persuade and cajole provinces in certain directions when it comes impacts of policies they are implementing.

I'm not going to defend Trudeau. Not on any front.

But this is a bad take. Any federal government taking a take-it-or-leave-it approach to the provinces is attempting to operate as a dictatorship, and it's something that should be actively resisted or rejected.

The problem right now is that there are a lot of Conservative Premieres, and they can taste blood in the water, so they're circling and stonewalling.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

FWIW, this announcement deals solely with temporary foreign workers - I don't believe there's an easy path for a TFW to become a permanent resident.

The expansions in TFW policy are definitely corporate-friendly, in the sense that they suppress wages. They also discourage businesses from improving productivity, which has long been a problem for the Canadian economy.