Despite repeated efforts to curtail its size, we show that Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Programs have undergone a transformation since 2000, in which TFWs now account for nearly three percent of total Canadian employment - a six-fold increase - and are increasingly skilled, employed on long-term permits, and likely to transition to permanent residency (PR). While TFW entries that are labour market tested appear to be meeting genuine labour shortages, 85 percent are exempt from labour market tests (LMTs) and the growth in LMT-exempt permits has exceeded the growth in TFWs who transition to PR status. We argue that the system requires greater transparency in identifying the locations and occupations of TFWs with LMT-exempt permits and in tracking their PR transition rates.

This paper reviews the evolution of the knowledge-based economy and with it the growth in the movement of foreign workers who often fill critical skill shortages, thus maintaining or enhancing a country's productivity. This increased movement of workers, both high and low skilled, presents challenges in terms of international trade agreements and a country's ability to manage the entry of foreign workers. The paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of enshrining commitments on the movement of persons in international trade agreements, and how Canada's temporary foreign worker program can accommodate and facilitate the entry of needed foreign workers.

Historically, Canada has adopted immigration policies focused on admitting migrants who were expected to become citizens. A dramatic shift has occurred in recent years as the number of temporary labourers admitted to Canada has increased substantially. Legislated Inequality critically evaluates this radical development in Canadian immigration, arguing that it threatens to undermine Canada's success as an immigrant nation. Assessing each of the four major temporary labour migration programs in Canada, contributors from a range of disciplines - including comparative political science, philosophy, and sociology - show how temporary migrants are posed to occupy a permanent yet marginal status in society and argue that Canada's temporary labour policy must undergo fundamental changes in order to support Canada's long held immigration goals. The difficult working conditions faced by migrant workers, as well as the economic and social dangers of relying on temporary migration to relieve labour shortages, are described in detail. Legislated Inequality provides an essential critical analysis of the failings of temporary labour migration programs in Canada and proposes tangible ways to improve the lives of labourers. Contributors include Abigail B. Bakan (Queen's University), Tom Carter (University of Manitoba), Sarah D'Aoust (University of Ottawa), Christina Gabriel (Carleton University), Jill Hanley (McGill University), Jenna Hennebry (Wilfrid Laurier University), Christine Hughes (Carleton University), Karen D. Hughes (University of Alberta), Jahhon Koo (McGill University), Patti Tamara Lenard (University of Ottawa), Laura Macdonald (Carleton University), Janet McLaughlin (Wilfrid Laurier University), Delphine Nakache (University of Ottawa), Jacqueline Oxman-Martinez (Université de Montréal), Kerry Priebisch (University of Guelph), André Rivard (University of Windsor), Nandita Sharma (University of Hawaii), Eric Shragge (Concordia University), Denise Spitzer (University of Ottawa), Daiva Stasuilus (Carleton University) Christine Straehle (University of Ottawa), Patricia Tomic (University of British Columbia, Okanagan), Sarah Torres (University of Ottawa), and Richard Trumper (University of British Columbia, Okanagan).

In recent years, the number of temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada has more than doubled. In this study, the authors examine the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, in order to determine the Canadian and Albertan approaches to integrating and protecting these migrants. They consider three possible policy perspectives on the legal status of temporary foreign workers, according to whether the country of employment (1) sees temporary labour migration as an opportunity to integrate the workers; (2) is indifferent to their future position in society; or (3) tries to prevent their integration. In order to determine into which policy perspective Canada fits, the authors analyze three important integration mechanisms: employment, family unity and access to permanent residency. They also argue that the short-term focus of Canada's temporary labour migration policy will not help the country realize its long-term labour market needs and is unfair to the vast majority of temporary foreign workers, who are expected to spend years in Canada without contributing to society in the long run.--Document.

Over the past decade, Canada has experienced considerable growth in labour migration. Moreover, temporary labour migration has replaced permanent immigration as the primary means by which people enter Canada. Utilizing the rhetoric of maintaining competitiveness, Canadian employers and the state have ushered in an era of neoliberal migration alongside an agenda of austerity flowing from capitalist crisis. Labour markets have been restructured to render labour more flexible and precarious, and in Canada as in other high-income capitalist labour markets, employers are relying on migrant and immigrant workers as “unfree labour.” This book explores labour migration to Canada and how public policies of temporary and guest worker programs function in the global context of work and capitalist restructuring. Contributors are directly engaged with the issues emerging from the influx of temporary foreign workers and Canada’s “creeping economic apartheid”—the ongoing racialization of economic inequality for many workers of colour. The collection also examines how migrant and immigrant workers have organized for justice and dignity in Canada. As opposed to a good deal of current writing that often ignores the working conditions and struggles of racialized migrant and immigrant workers, the authors contend that migrant workers, labour organizations, and migrant worker allies have engaged in a wide range of organizing initiatives with significant political and economic impacts. These have included both court challenges to secure legal rights to unionization and grassroots alternatives to traditional forms of unionization through workers’ centres. Contributors include Aziz Choudry, Adrian A. Smith, Sedef Arat-Koç, Abigail B. Bakan, Joey Calugay, Jennifer Jihye Chun, Jill Hanley, Jah-Hon Koo, Mostafa Henaway, Deena Ladd, Marco Luciano, Loïc Malhaire, Adriana Paz Ramirez, Geraldina Polanco, Chris Ramsaroop, Eric Shragge, Sonia Singh, Christopher C. Sorio, and Mark Thomas.

If you believed most of what’s said about the Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker program, you might naturally assume that there is a trade-off between workers’ poor experiences with the program and employers’ significant benefits. In reality, the experiences of workers are far worse than is commonly acknowledged, while employers are not reaping as much benefit as the public might suppose. In Enduring Work Catherine Connelly draws on over one hundred interviews with people connected to different aspects of this program, analyzing their experiences from the perspective of organizational behaviour and human resources management. She compares the lived reality of agricultural workers, in-home caregivers, and low- and high-wage workers, showing how and why each group is vulnerable to mistreatment, albeit in different ways. She further explores how employment agencies and immigration consultants contribute to program abuses. Critically, Enduring Work provides the perspectives of employers, distinguishing between the reluctant users of the program who follow the rules and the reckless users who do not. Groundbreaking in its analysis of an issue very much in the news, Enduring Work unpacks the harms within Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program and offers nuanced strategies to improve it.

Canada's centennial anniversary in 1967 coincided with a period of transformative public policymaking. This period saw the establishment of the modern welfare state, as well as significant growth in the area of cultural diversity, including multiculturalism and bilingualism. Meanwhile, the rising commitment to the protection of individual and collective rights was captured in the project of a "just society." Tracing the past, present, and future of Canadian policymaking, Policy Transformation in Canada examines the country's current and most critical challenges: the renewal of the federation, managing diversity, Canada's relations with Indigenous peoples, the environment, intergenerational equity, global economic integration, and Canada's role in the world. Scrutinizing various public policy issues through the prism of Canada’s sesquicentennial, the contributors consider the transformation of policy and present an accessible portrait of how the Canadian view of policymaking has been reshaped, and where it may be heading in the next fifty years.

"Temporary foreign worker programs have become an increasingly important component of international migration to Western developed countries. However, there is little knowledge on how long foreign workers stay in the host country and what determinants are associated with their migratory trajectories. Using a national longitudinal administrative dataset of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in Canada, this study examines their length and type of stay in Canada. It further examines the likelihood of staying given individual demographic characteristics, source-country attributes, host-country institutional factors and local community conditions. The results show that the majority of TFWs stayed in Canada only for a short period, while the majority of those who stayed for a long period obtained permanent resident status. Host-country institutional constraints play a dominant role in determining the length and type of stay of TFWs in Canada"--Abstract.