The issue is increasingly difficult to evade. MP Guillaume Rivard-Cliche wants Quebec to get to the bottom of the issue of “human and working conditions of temporary foreign workers” and their closed permit.
At the end of the consultations on the threshold of new permanent residents on Wednesday evening, the solidarity spokesperson on immigration submitted a request for an initiative mandate to the Commission on Relations with Citizens. If it is accepted by the other members of this commission, sessions could be held to hear the different points of view. Closed permits have long been criticized because they make the migrant dependent on his or her employment relationship alone.
Mr. Cliche-Rivard thus hopes that the debate “rises above partisanship” to “quickly find alternatives” to this work permit which binds the immigrant to a single employer. Before being elected to the National Assembly, it was as an immigration lawyer that this problem concerned him for around ten years.
The current “tipping point”, as he calls it, is the recent visit of the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery. “The Temporary Foreign Worker Program constitutes fertile ground for forms of modern slavery,” said Tomoya Obokata in his end of mission statement on September 6. He also said he was “deeply troubled 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.
“To be told that by the United Nations, if that doesn’t give an electric shock to the effect that we have to grasp the question, I don’t know what will,” said Mr. Cliche-Rivard. “It’s embarrassing that it’s a rapporteur who comes to Quebec to do our work,” he continues.
This temporary migration program was created by the federal government, but it is co-managed by Quebec which intervenes at certain stages of the process, in particular by issuing a Quebec acceptance certificate (CAQ).
Before the opening of the consultations, the Quebec Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, also affirmed that she is discussing with her federal counterpart Marc Miller to study the possibility of imposing Frenchization criteria among temporary workers.
In committee on Wednesday, Mme Fréchette mentioned certain alternatives to the closed permit which were submitted to him, such as a regional or even sectoral work permit. Last spring, she refused to include the question of temporary immigrants in her consultation on this fall’s targets.
Vulnerable workers who are victims of violence can apply for an open permit if they meet the criteria dictated by Ottawa. “It resolves a few individual stories, but the burden is heavy. [Le travailleur] must know that this permit exists and that it is accompanied,” notes the supportive MP.
Plain sling
While in the morning, the French language commissioner had shown some reluctance to increase the threshold of permanent residents admitted each year to Quebec, it is rather the question 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 demanded “the abolition of closed 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 in turn raised this issue before the minister Frechette.
“The increase in temporary foreign workers in the immigration system is alarming,” said Denis Bolduc, secretary general of the FTQ in committee. He reported receiving communications more and more often about abuse or situations of exploitation of these workers, who are afraid to exercise their appeals because of the closed permit. He therefore insisted “strongly on the need to put an end to closed work permits”.
Quebec’s Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights sharply criticized this program in 2012, ruling that temporary foreign workers are victims of systemic discrimination “because of their ethnic or national origin, their race, their social condition, their language”. The Auditor General of Canada also highlighted all the failures in the oversight of this program in 2017. Committees of the House of Commons also recommended in 2009, 2016 and 2021 that pathways to permanent residence be made more accessible.