# Feds are adjusting the TFW program because of backlash and abuse



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

The feds have announced some major changes to the TFW (Temp Foreign Workers) program..effectively cutting the maximum number of workers (at any given time) from30,000 to 15,000 and
starting a inspection program so the TFW is not abused by employers.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dai...ttled-temporary-foreign-worker-175622671.html


----------



## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

There has been a lot of abuse and there is not enough being done to help Canadians gain the skills they need for the positions that will be offered in the future.


----------



## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Dogcom, are you serious?

We subsidize education, encourage people to stay in school, offer incentives for retraining...

Perhaps we should ban video games, lower payouts from ei, welfare, or other benefits...that may help...

But the TFW replaces low end jobs, ones which most Canadians don't even seem to want apply for because they don't pay enough to survive on...of course the TFWs seem to find a way to make enough to survive on and even send money back home...

Suppose their definition of survival may be different than others...they don't tend to have video games, cars, and other necessities...

I remember at Christmas, my kids do hampers to help people "in need", the gift suggestions for the kids for theirs hamper included a game for one of three different video game systems (all modern ones)...my kids didn't even own 1 system, let alone 3...

I admit, it would be hard to survive on minimum wage with "needs" like these people had...

Wherever there is money, there is abuse.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Just a Guy said:


> But the TFW replaces low end jobs, ones which most Canadians don't even seem to want apply for because they don't pay enough to survive on...of course the TFWs seem to find a way to make enough to survive on and even send money back home...
> 
> Wherever there is money, there is abuse.


From what I know about the TFW issue is that employers are "firing" (letting go) long time Canadian employees and hiring TFW..because they can work for less.

This is the abuse of the TFW program that McD's, and the other burger/fast food outlets are doing..at least in Alberta, where the story first unfolded. 
One senior employee that had been there for around 10 years was let go and a TFW replaced her.

She claimed on TV that it was nothing to do with disciplinary..McDs can send you home and then you have to wait for them to call you back, meanwhile they have two TFW to take your place that will work for less than minimum wages. One business owner, even owned a townhouse and forced the TFWs to stay there in overcrowded conditions and pay him market rent (split up by the number of his TFWs staying there.)
As a condition of being employed at his TWOMcD's franchises in Calgary, they had to rent from him and couldn't stay anywhere else or risk losing their jobs below minimum
wage. 
This is the abuse of the TFW program that the Feds now want to address.


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

The TFW is legalized slave labor and we don't need that in Canada.

I have to wonder who is writing the legislation these days for the Harper government..........some kids in the PMO?

Does the cabinet even read the legislation they propose, that has been repeatedly refuted by the Supreme Court or the Canadian public?

Strange things going on in Ottawa........but if past insiders in the Harper inner circle are to be believed in their "tell all" books......"strange" has been going on for awhile already.


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

Removed for wrong topic.


----------



## fraser (May 15, 2010)

In some geographies TFW is a way to get low paid labour. In others, it is a key way to get much needed skilled workers. 

However, in some sectors it is a necessary. Here in Alberta industry is crying out for certain skills such as qualified welders. Saskatewan has some of the same labour challenges. 

The large employers are bringing people in, paying them the going rate, and are hoping that they will decide to stay and bring their families to Canada. We just came back from Edmonton. CN Rail has billboards and television ads advertising job openings. Never seen that before.

So yes, at the low end there most definitely is an issue with TFW. But further up the scale it is actually easier for employers to source skilled people from outside the country than it is to encourage or even get them to relocate from other parts of Canada. IF they could attract them from Canada they most definitely would.

EI paid to send a nephew in Ontario on a welding course. Great. He could move to Alberta and get a job. But no thanks, he does not want to leave small town Ontario and Mommy so he is happy to work a dead end minimum wage job. Why EI bothered to retrain a young person who has no intention of moving is beyond my sense of logic. 

One of the challenges we have is that immigrants understand what a great country and what opportunity we have here. Many Canadians don't. They are happy to sit, do nothing, cry poor me, and think that the world or the Government owes them a living. We need more of the former and less of the latter.


----------



## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

What I was thinking about is training people with the help and input from industry, starting as early as high school to get people ready for the future. We know the future needs or we get the input from industry and such to find the needs and build a country of skill and talent directed at the right places. 

I also was listening to the story of the Gateway pipeline and was wondering why we don't process, refine and send a product to the coast that is less dangerous then the raw product. Why is it we just want to send resources but don't want to add jobs and value to them.


----------



## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

fraser said:


> EI paid to send a nephew in Ontario on a welding course. Great. He could move to Alberta and get a job. But no thanks, he does not want to leave small town Ontario and Mommy so he is happy to work a dead end minimum wage job. Why EI bothered to retrain a young person who has no intention of moving is beyond my sense of logic.
> 
> One of the challenges we have is that immigrants understand what a great country and what opportunity we have here. Many Canadians don't. They are happy to sit, do nothing, cry poor me, and think that the world or the Government owes them a living. We need more of the former and less of the latter.


I recall, about 20 years ago, watching W-5......Eric Malling was in Iceland where the fishing industry was, at the time, booming.....Malling interviewed the G.M. of a fish processing plant who said that they were bringing in workers from as far away as, (IIRC) Australia........Manning said that Newfoundland was closer, and why not advertise there.

"We do" said the G.M. "they won't come". (Employment in Nfld at the time was less than stellar.)


----------



## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

dogcom said:


> was wondering why we don't process, refine and send a product to the coast that is less dangerous then the raw product. Why is it we just want to send resources but don't want to add jobs and value to them.


I believe AltaRed addressed this in post #46 on this thread:

http://canadianmoneyforum.com/showthread.php/19586-Price-of-Gas/page5


----------



## fraser (May 15, 2010)

The challenge for our Federal government is that Canada is a country of regions. Those regions have very diverse economies. What might work between Kenora and Alexandria, or in the golden triangle, might not be appropriate in other regions-east, west, or Pacific. We actually have more in common north/south with US regions than we do east/west. 

Unfortunately, our politicians are primarily interested in getting re-elected. So they play to those areas and those ridings that they believe will provide them with the most seats. TFW may not be necessary and may not play well in some parts of the country but it is most definitely needed in other parts of the country-minimum wage restaurant workers excepted.


----------



## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I remember CBC doing a report years ago when Newfoundland elected it's first conservative government.

They took a conservative from Alberta, flew him out to the rock and he was amazed at all the opportunities he saw out there. He was coming up with all sorts of business ideas...

Then they interviewed the Newfoundland conservative and he just wanted the government to "bring back the fish".

I think they offered to send him out to alberta, but he declined and kept stating that the government should "bring back the fish".

In the follow up show, the showed a seasonal worker from the rock and one from Maine. In Newfoundland, a seasonal worker fished, then went on ei for the remainder of the year...

In Maine, a seasonal worker fished, then sold Xmas trees, then had a snow clearing business, then did several other seasonal jobs...


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

The oil industry needs specialized and experienced welders, as evidenced by the failures in the southern leg of the Keystone Pipeline.

Last I read.........nobody is verifying the qualifications of TFWs. It is left up to the company to perform the testing.

Third world countries aren't going to supply Canada and other industrialized nations with a trained and ready skilled labor pool.

If these people were qualified and experienced...........they would already be working somewhere else.

How else would they have the experience?

The goal of the TFW program is to provide untrained, cheap labor to fill jobs. 

Without a supply of cheap labor........the companies would have to pay higher wages to attract workers.

The TFW program is government intervention into the marketplace....which skews the normal course of supply and demand, and as such keeps wages artificially suppressed.

Low incomes for workers........doesn't benefit Canada. 

It puts additional financial strain on social programs to have an increasing number of workers who don't pay taxes and collect government benefits.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

dogcom said:


> I also was listening to the story of the Gateway pipeline and was wondering why we don't process, refine and send a product to the coast that is less dangerous then the raw product. Why is it we just want to send resources but don't want to add jobs and value to them.


It's hard to speculate what kind of demand there may be on refined products. The second thing is that it takes a lot of investment to build a refinery and operate it, and distribution to the high demand market areas.
Pumping crude oil from a well head or tar sands is much cheaper and China in some cases is the customer,who can refine the oil much cheaper than we can here.


----------



## fraser (May 15, 2010)

Sags...why do you think the TFW program is limited to people from third world countries with no skills? 

People with skills are being brought in from Ireland, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, UK and other parts of Europe. The attraction is not only a job...it is an opportunity to visit Canada with the possibility of emigrating. The unemployment rate is some of these countries is anywhere for 25-50 percent depending on age and vocation. Canada is and of itself is a draw. A good job waiting for a skilled person simply adds to the attraction.

The original purpose of the TFW program was exactly that-to bring badly needed skilled workers to Canada. It still is. Unfortunately, the program was allowed to morph into a secondary program of providing cheap unskilled labour. The latter does not in any way negate the need for the former. Welding is simply one of many skills that are in deficit-there are many others. Your assumption that these skilled workers are all being brought in to take advantage of a low wage rate is a misperception.

The public does not hear/read much about this other dimension of the program because it does not make for an entertaining newspaper article or TV segment. Don't judge the effectiveness of this program on the needs or the employment situation in Ontario. My guess is that if the Ring of Fire is ever developed Ontario will have a skills problem. They will find that it is easier to attract skilled workers from overseas than it is to convince skilled workers in Windsor, Oshawa, etc. to move to Northern Ontario or Alberta/Saskatewan for that matter.


----------



## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

Just a Guy said:


> I remember CBC doing a report years ago when Newfoundland elected it's first conservative government.
> 
> They took a conservative from Alberta, flew him out to the rock and he was amazed at all the opportunities he saw out there. He was coming up with all sorts of business ideas...
> 
> ...


Looks like Alberta could take a lesson from Newfoundland now.


----------



## realist (Apr 8, 2011)

Just a Guy said:


> I remember CBC doing a report years ago when Newfoundland elected it's first conservative government.
> They took a conservative from Alberta, flew him out to the rock and he was amazed at all the opportunities he saw out there. He was coming up with all sorts of business ideas...Then they interviewed the Newfoundland conservative and he just wanted the government to "bring back the fish".


Pretty sure I saw that too or a similar broadcast. It was kind of sad that they just didn't get that the fish are gone and won't be coming back. That should probably be a lesson to how Canada treats its other natural resources though... 

I have some empathy for small businesses that simply can't find qualified staff, but when the McDonald's of the world start complaining that if they pay people a living wage they can't afford to run a business, consider me skeptical. What they really mean is that they would have to raise the price of a Big Mac a few cents and it would hurt sales. That's called capitalism. It's the same reason that housing in Fort McMurray costs a lot - there is a large market of relatively well paid people there. Why would you work at McDonald's for minimum wage when you can work in the oil patch for double or triple that? 

Cutting the program altogether is likely less optimal than improving the scrutiny and processes. Also, companies back in the day actually trained people rather than expecting them to arrive fully molded. Is that being explored by enough places?


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

realist said:


> What they really mean is that they would have to raise the price of a Big Mac a few cents and it would hurt sales. That's called capitalism. It's the same reason that housing in Fort McMurray costs a lot - there is a large market of relatively well paid people there. *Why would you work at McDonald's for minimum wage when you can work in the oil patch for double or triple that? *


 Because Fort Mac can be a very hostile place for TFW..and the oil patch can be dangerous to unskilled workers that can hardly speak or write English and probably not understand instructions
very well. Serving up a Big Mac and fries in a McD's is a lot different environment than working in a very cold and confusing environment where one serious mistake can result in severe injury...
besides,I think these TFWs have to sign some kind of agreement with their employer before they can even come over here to work..and probably the Feds check up on them occasionally as well. 



> Cutting the program altogether is likely less optimal than improving the scrutiny and processes. Also, companies back in the day actually trained people rather than expecting them to arrive fully molded. Is that being explored by enough places?


OJT (on the job) training still exists, McD's can train a TFW to flip a burger or stick some fries in a frier in less than an hour...that's probably all they get there/


----------



## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Carverman I heard that a refined product would be much easier to clean if there was a spill. I am no expert here but if this is true then it would be a good idea since a spill seems to be the deal breaker on pipelines.

Again no expert here so just opinions and questions to be rebuffed but I still think Canada should be looking far into the future to be a leader in training, education in general and how it handles its resources.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

dogcom said:


> Carverman I heard that a refined product would be much easier to clean if there was a spill. I am no expert here but if this is true then it would be a good idea since a spill seems to be the deal breaker on pipelines.
> 
> Again no expert here so just opinions and questions to be rebuffed but I still think Canada should be looking far into the future to be a leader in training, education in general and how it handles its resources.


??? I believe the discussion was about TFW...not pipeline spills..unless you are suggesting that the pipelines hire TFW to clean up any spills?


----------



## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

we need to import people from the phillipines to stand at a kiosk in a mall for $10 an hour because no canadian will do it ?
really .... ?


----------



## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

carverman said:


> ??? I believe the discussion was about TFW...not pipeline spills..unless you are suggesting that the pipelines hire TFW to clean up any spills?


It was in reply to post number 14 above.


----------

