Under the Foreign Temporary Workers program, businesses can obtain a Labour Market Impact Assesment (LMIA) to hire foreign workers to fill temporary labour and skill shortages. This requires the business to prove that there are no Canadians or permanent residents available to do the job.

Oftentimes these businesses will create job ads with convoluted requirements to dissuade citizens from applying, or claim applicants don't qualify for their needs, just to lie and show they need FTWs to fill these positions. This gains them cheap labour, leaves qualified Canadian citizens unable to fill positions, and allows businesses to put more money in their pocket by abusing the system.

We have seen the news articles of workers who have dared to speak out and the conditions they endure. For example, in 2012, there was a complaint laid against a Tim Hortons franchise owner in Dawson Creek. The complaint showed that the franchise owner had hired workers from Mexio through the FTWs program, in which they were forced to live in overcrowded housing and subjected to racist and discriminatory treatment.

FTWs lack the basic protections and rights that Canadian workers enjoy. Their path to permanent residency is complicated, long, and not guaranteed versus people who have arrived as landed immigrants. They are often forced to live in squalid conditions with lower pay, where they cannot speak up against their mistreatment under threat of being deported.

It is little more than slavery against peoples trying to make a better life for their families and themselves. Hold these businesses accountable, end the abuse of the FTWs program and provide better protections and rights to those arriving through the program for work.