The problem is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. MP Guillaume Rivard-Cliche wants Quebec to get to the bottom of the issue of the “human and working conditions of temporary foreign workers” and their closed permits.
On Wednesday evening, at the end of the discussions on the threshold for the new permanent residence permit, the solidarity spokesman for immigration submitted a request for an initiative mandate to the Commission for Relations with Citizens. If accepted by the other members of this Commission, meetings could be held to allow the different points of view to be heard. Closed residence permits have long been criticized because they make migrants solely dependent on their employment relationship.
Mr Cliche-Rivard therefore hopes that the debate “goes beyond partisanship” so that parliamentarians can “quickly find alternatives” to this work permit that binds the immigrant to a single employer. Before being elected to the National Assembly, he worked as an immigration lawyer, and in that capacity he focused on this issue for about ten years.
The current “turning point,” in his words, is the recent visit of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery. “The temporary foreign worker program provides fertile ground for forms of modern slavery,” Tomoya Obokata concluded in his mission statement on September 6. He also said he was “deeply disturbed by the stories of exploitation and abuse” told to him by migrant workers. Mr. Obokata will present his report to the Human Rights Council in September 2024.
“If we are told that by the United Nations, then I don’t know what will happen if that doesn’t cause an electric shock in the sense that we have to understand the question,” Mr. Cliche-Rivard said. “It is embarrassing that a rapporteur comes to Quebec to do our work,” he continues.
This temporary migration program was created by the federal government but is co-managed by Quebec, which intervenes at certain stages of the process, in particular by issuing a Quebec acceptance certificate.
Before the consultations began, Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette also confirmed that she was talking with her federal colleague Marc Miller about exploring the possibility of imposing Frenchization criteria on temporary workers.
In committee on Wednesday, Ms Fréchette mentioned certain alternatives to the closed permit that had been presented to her, such as a regional or even sectoral work permit. Last spring it refused to include the issue of temporary immigrants in its consultation on this autumn’s targets.
The Quebec Liberal Party introduced a bill last spring to urge the Legault government to accommodate temporary immigrants, Nelligan MP Monsef Derraji recalled Thursday morning. “We support any initiative aimed at correcting and improving the working conditions of temporary foreign workers,” he told Le Devoir in response to this request for an initiative mandate.
Vulnerable workers who have been victims of violence can apply for an open work permit if they meet the criteria set by Ottawa. “It resolves a few individual stories, but the burden is great. [Le travailleur] “I need to know that this authorization exists and comes with it,” the supporting MP noted.
Simple sling
While the French language commissioner had shown some reluctance this morning to raise the threshold of permanent residents admitted to Quebec each year, it is the issue of temporary foreign workers that all the union centers wanted to address as a priority.
They all denounced the “current two-tier immigration system” and called for “the abolition of closed residence permits” in a press release. The Central of Democratic Unions (CSD), the Central of Quebec Unions (CSQ), the Confederation of National Unions (CSN) and the Federation of Quebec Workers (FTQ) then each raised this issue before Minister Frechette.
“The increase in temporary foreign workers in the immigration system is alarming,” Denis Bolduc, general secretary of the FTQ, told the committee. He reported that he had increasingly received reports of ill-treatment or situations of exploitation of these workers, who were afraid to appeal due to the closed permit. He therefore “strongly insisted on the need to put an end to closed work permits.”
Quebec’s Human and Youth Rights Commission sharply criticized this program in 2012, ruling that temporary foreign workers were victims of systematic discrimination “based on their ethnic or national origin, their race, their social status, their language.” The Office of the Auditor General of Canada also flagged any failures in oversight of this program in 2017. House of Commons committees also recommended making pathways to permanent residence more accessible in 2009, 2016 and 2021.