Speech: Calling on the Government to Create Pathways to Permanency for Essential Temporary Migrant Workers

On June 1, 2021 Senator Omidvar spoke to her motion calling on the government to create pathways to citizenship or permanent residency for essential temporary migrant workers across all sectors and table a status report on the issue. Watch her speech:

Hon. Ratna Omidvar, pursuant to notice of December 10, 2020, moved:

That, in light of a recent Nanos poll demonstrating strong support amongst Canadians to provide a way for temporary foreign workers to remain in Canada, the Senate call on the Government of Canada to create pathways to citizenship or permanent residency for essential temporary migrant workers across all sectors; and

That the Senate call on the Government of Canada to table a status report on this issue within 100 days of the adoption of this order.

She said: Honourable senators, the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of temporary migrant workers who gain entry to Canada through the so-called low-skills category. I hesitate to use the words “low skills” because we know now, and we should have known earlier, that low skills do not equate to low value — quite the opposite. We now understand how crucial these workers are to our permanent personal health and food security.

This is a sentiment echoed by many Canadians. According to a recent Nanos Research poll commissioned by myself and Senator Rob Black, more than 8 in 10 Canadians support or somewhat support providing a way for temporary migrant workers to remain in Canada. They also fully understand and appreciate how important these workers are to the agricultural sector and putting food on our tables. The findings of this poll are similar to a much larger poll conducted by Environics that found that Canadians today are much more appreciative of the essential work that migrants do.

Temporary foreign workers are not a new phenomenon. The seasonal agricultural worker program was established in the 1960s, but it was not until the 1990s that temporariness went mainstream. Since that time, the number of people who work in Canada temporarily has grown exponentially. For every new permanent resident admitted to Canada in 2019, almost three temporary residents were admitted to work or study.

Canadians perhaps don’t quite understand how much our system is now geared toward temporariness, with pathways to permanency for some and not for others. If you are a highly skilled temporary foreign worker, there is a clear pathway to pursue, but if you are in certain NOC — National Occupation Classification — categories then that pathway is well out of reach. If you are a personal caregiver, an agricultural worker, a tradesperson, a meat packer or a truck driver on a temporary work visa, the path forward is fraught.

I should use the past tense because the Minister of Immigration made a recent and welcome announcement enabling temporary foreign workers in essential occupations to apply for permanency in a short window from May to November. By doing so, Canada has created a one-time, limited opportunity for truck drivers, caregivers, health care workers and agricultural workers to apply, depending on specific criteria. By doing this, the minister has put some tired, old, sacred cows out to pasture — but only temporarily, even when the jobs are permanent. So at best, it is a short-term fix to a longer-term opportunity, but I welcome this move because it may well move the government to grasp this particular bull by the horns.

Who are temporary foreign workers? These are the people who do the work that Canadians are not willing to do, at least not over the long term. At the beginning of the pandemic, much was made of the availability of unemployed students to pick berries and strawberries and do the work of migrant workers. We now know that was simply wishful thinking. In 2017, there were close to 550,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada. Although these workers are employed in a variety of industries, the largest share is employed in crop production. That year, temporary foreign workers accounted for more than 40% of all the agricultural workers in Ontario and over 30% of all the agricultural workers in Quebec, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia.

Next on the list are individuals employed in personal households, likely as home help and caregivers. I am so moved by Senator Boniface’s comments about the search for personal caregivers and how fraught it is, because I know how essential they are. Without a constant stream of caregivers in my home, I would not be able to look after my mother. I choose to keep her at home, where she is safer and healthier at a far lower cost to the system, but this only works because I have wonderful women who help me care for her.

Although migrant workers provide essential labour, they are subject to a failed system that puts many of them at the mercy of their employers, and if their work permit is tied to an individual employer as opposed to a sector, it puts them even more at risk. Some workers endure harassment, unpaid overtime, inadequate wages or unsafe working conditions. In cases where workers live in employer-provided accommodations, concerns have been raised about substandard housing, overcrowding and employer control over personal lives and choices. I want to be clear that the abuse of migrant workers isn’t from all employers. Many treat their workers well. It is the system that is wrong, because it gives employers way too much power and too many responsibilities without appropriate frameworks and supports. It is inevitable that there will be bad apples in this basket.

There are many benefits to turning impermanence into stability for the workers, employers and Canada. Offering migrant workers the option of applying for permanent residency would remove much of the vulnerability associated with temporary status, and the employers would benefit from having a workforce made up of mostly permanent residents. Some of the work, such as animal production, food processing and greenhouse production, takes place on a year-round basis. This would also help employers maintain a stable workforce without the need for annual expenditures on recruitment, transportation, training, housing, legal and medical issues. In addition, the change would benefit workers by making it possible for them to migrate with their families to Canada. This will alleviate isolation, as well as help revitalize rural communities with not one but clusters of families from the same community.

I take an example from the history books of Italy and New Zealand. As we all know, we love Italy for its cheese, that wonderful mozzarella and Parmesan. What you may not know is that the children of the farmers in Lombardy no longer want to work at milking, feeding and keeping the cows to produce the cheese. They have all migrated to Rome, Milan, Venice and elsewhere for other opportunities. So Italy looked around for clusters of migrants with roots in the farming communities. Lo and behold, where did they find people who love cows? The place I come from, the Punjab. Lombardy is now home to many immigrant Punjabi families who have taken out citizenship, put down roots and continue to produce that wonderful mozzarella and Parmesan. The same story is told in New Zealand and, in fact, in Canada, where more than 100 years ago, the Sikh population migrated to British Columbia to work on the cranberry farms. Now many of these farms are owned by these families.

The government has many options it can use when thinking of permanency outside of time-limited pilots and one-time programs like the one the minister announced. Pilot programs, honourable senators, are only there to provide proof of concept. If that proof is there, they need to be merged into the mainstream. Should it choose to, the government should land migrant workers on arrival, much like it lands permanent residents. It could adapt the system for express entry, which is already there, to a different skill set. It could allow provinces to nominate more of these essential workers through the provincial nominee program, and it could, in fact, encourage local municipalities and their boards of trade and local farming communities to nominate immigrants to the municipal nominee program. I urge the government to proceed from pilot projects to new streams.

Honourable senators, as we reflect on our history after that wonderfully moving speech from Senator Ravalia, let’s remember that it was not just the highly skilled who built our country. Quite the opposite: It was farmers from Europe who were adept at cold-weather farming. They arrived at the beginning of the last century, worked hard, and their children today — all those successful Ukrainians, Poles, Mennonites and Germans — are our country’s leaders in many sectors. We needed those workers then, and we need them now. Let us recognize that our addiction to the highly skilled as permanent residents is a narrow, unidimensional view of the labour market. We need to embrace the labour market as a whole, more so now that we know that it comprises essential workers. Perhaps it is time for new language as well.

As I have noted in the chamber, language gives our ideas shape, influences our imagination and puts a contour on abstract terminology. I find this whole narrative of high skills and low skills offensive. All skills have value, and I would recommend using this crisis to find new language for new times.

Instead, let’s call them essential skills, which would include both health care professionals and truck drivers, engineers and agricultural workers. It would include science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, engineers and hospitality workers. It enables us to look at the labour market as a whole instead of a mere slice of it. It would allow us to finally shrug off our singular addiction to skilled workers.

It is time to do this, colleagues. I look for your support. Thank you.