I have always hated this program, it's been abused from the start, is of no benefit to any Canadian and is just to means to take serious advantage of the tfws
Except the very few who would agree with you, and still hire Canadians proper, even if they really can't offer much more than minimum plus a bit.
I work for one.
Exactly, if salaries increased 10x then all those who hoarded wealth would quickly lose their purchasing power, and those who dont have any would gain said power.
So what's your solution then? Reduce consumption? How? If not, then what? Talk about r/iamverysmart take on poor people getting poorer. Extra labour *is* a problem and more importantly it is a problem that can be solved easily by reducing or stalling programs like TFW.
If businesses here have to raise prices so be it. You know why? Look at Papa John's. When the ACA was about to come in Papa John's was crying the crocodile tears so common with business owners and corps, that they would have to raise their prices if they had to provide healthcare to their employees. The horror! They said they'd have to raise the price of a large pizza by, *checks notes*...11-14 cents. So GTFO with this bs about how prices will be so much higher if wages go up, because they won't. The prices going up are a fraction of the amount that poor people will get, which as you cavalierly point out later that they will put back into the economy.
So basically you don't want to pay an extra 14 cents for a pizza to see others lifted a bit.
Our current PM said exactly that in an editorial, *prior* to being elected and *increasing* the program 300%
"It is bad for our economy in that it **depresses wages for all Canadians**, but it’s even worse for our country. It puts pressure on our commitment to diversity, and creates more opportunities for division and rancor. We can and must do better." - Pre-election Justin Trudeau
I was starting to wonder if that would ever change. I guess the people calling others racist finally had their employment opportunities affected.
It has nothing to do with race. People from all walks of life are coming here from all over the globe. I feel bad for the people sold the lie to come to Canada to be placed in modern slavery.
It's too late to par it back easily. All the intentional loop holes are being exploited and can't easily be closed with out protest from our corporate overlords.
It's amazing how you can tell a "progressive" that their ideas will never work, but it takes years of that bad idea harming society before they will actually admit it.
The concept of critical thinking is something that does not exist with GenZ
It was quite popular from day one, farming corporations love the low paid labour and that is the origin of this decades ago, then expanded by Harper, then expanded by Trudeau, and on and on we go.
When it was initially started, there were rules about what types of jobs could be offered.
Serious professional industries had to demonstrate they had been unable to find a worker within Canada after a certain amount of time, and they had to prove it in the application (among other things).
What happened is that Harper’s govt reduced the the requirements from companies, and opened up the program to other industries
There’s where it started to become a problem.
Trudeau’s govt could have stopped it, but they too have corporate masters that benefit from it.
(Source - my mom, who reviewed applications in the pre and post Harper change as part of her job.)
the difference is Harper only alloted a small fraction of what we see today, the program was sustainable but when your importing so many, it's an invasion where no service can keep up.
You can blame Harper all you want, but the reality is Trudeau and his liberal cronies who, if you remember at the start of his reign, abided to massive lobbying, and followed through with it. This is entirely on IRCC, those in charge of the TFW program and immigration, the immigration minister, and the PMO, liberal/ndp coalition, and Trudeau.
I agree with you 98%. But I can speak from the other side.
As a Canadian with highly in demand technical skills in a field with a worldwide shortage I have taken advantage of other countries equivalent of TFW to work contracts around the world.
There are niche cases where it makes sense. If you are standing up a large industrial plant and need this very specific piece of equipment commissioned and there are only 8 of us with the training worldwide to do so and I'd be in your country for 6 months to a year to do it that makes sense. For me at least I also train your operators and maintenance team while I am there so they can operate and maintain the equipment once I leave.
But we don't need bartenders, hotel managers, etc. That is a joke and abuse of the system.
The IT industry has been absolutely murdered by the TFW trend. It's the new "outsourcing" trend. As a Canadian trying to start a new career, they're competing against people who are willing to take less money, are usually desperate, are malleable, and will usually have more experience.
Companies can post a job, turn down every candidate for reasons and then get their tfw.
You do realize that a vast majority of foods grown and consumed in Canada are grown and harvested by TFWs. If you think that it would be a good idea to get rid of them, your food costs would be substantially more expensive than what you are seeing right now. What is your fix for that?
While they are TFWs, they are under a special program called SAWP. It's also been extended to 9mo, and it only lets people in from Mexico, and select Caribbean countries, as it started as a program between Canada and Jamaica only. They also are skilled, in that they have to have actual provable farm skills to get into the program.
If the "TFW" program that most people know about was changed, the SAWP wouldn't be affected unless it was intentionally targeted as well.
>They also are skilled, in that they have to have actual provable farm skills to get into the program.
Yet they get paid about min wage. Ide work at a farm but for what they expect you to do the compensation is shit
TIL that the vast majority of food is picked by hand in Canada. I'm going to tell my friend's dad that just bought a new combine that this was fake news.
These food processing companies have insane profit margins and have only gone up in the past few years.
Like with every fucking sector there is parasitic wealthy minority that is taking that wealth generated from that productivity.
Addressing that is the only way anything will improve.
What else besides paying their workers the least they can compels a farmer or a company to use a TFW? Why can’t we we hire actual Canadian citizens? It cannot only be the idea that they don’t want to work in hard labour with minimum wage that they cannot find people here to work?
TBH, I would feel significantly better if all this increase in food prices are going towards the wages that require to support higher wagers for Canadian needs. However it just seems like the only people that are actually profiting are the big supermarkets and food production companies.
If tim hortons cant find canadians, then they should increase pay
Increase pay, and watch canadians apply by the thousands
Personally I'd love to see them go out of business. Open up thousands of rentals for small businesses that hire canadians
Yah Covid times were a good experiment for that, all those min wage job franchises couldn’t find anyone to work and keep the business open, so around my town these min wage jobs went from 15/hr up to 22/hr just to get people in the door to apply. During covid we had near 0 new comers to Canada.
I worked for Tim's years ago when I was a student and it was a decent gig. It's garbage now and they're driving their own sales into the ground through unnecessary expansion of their menu selection at the cost of quality and value. The franchises waste so much money chasing these stupid new products that don't sell but they're forced to keep on inventory. If they stuck to caffeinated drinks and basic sandwiches they would be so much better off
Remember when Popeyes started getting popular up here, and timmies tried to put a disgusting chicken sandwich on their menus for like a week before giving up? Unfortunately I’ll never be able to forget the taste of it…
I've worked at Tim Hortons. The conditions are awful, and you get paid minimum wage for a terrible job. I have a factory job, and it's much better. It's much safer and higher pay.
Nobody in canada should work in the conditions that tim Hortons makes you
Many of them, we're constantly seeing people line up around the block for minimum wage jobs. Teenagers can't get jobs at these places anymore because they only hire temporary foreign workers.
And even if they couldn't find workers at their current salaries it should not be the job of the government to subsidize them with cheap foreign labour.
If it paid enough to cover their basic necessities then probably any of them would. The problem is it doesn't, because they're too busy catering to employing a demographic with drastically lower standards (and more easily exploited) than the average Canadian.
Nah, we need to stop that. We can come up with a new program for farmers if needed but we need to kill the TFW program NOW. We use this excuse all the time ... "but the farmers need it!" and that's exactly why this program remains. Fuck that. This program is literal modern slavery. It's pure trash.
Every day the TFW program lives is another day Canadians and the workers are taken advantage of. It's that simple.
Why aren't these companies expanding to employ more highly educated people? Every decade there is a crisis in the job markets. People can't find programmers, engineers, tradesmen, and cashiers for fast food restaurants yet companies don't train.
Factory jobs are created long-term. When you have technical setup requirements, specialized people come in, set up shop and train people to run it.
Happens across industries. Let’s say you’re starting the world’s most advanced maple syrup cultivation effort in Japan. You’re probably going to send a few Canadians out there to get that off the ground, which ultimately creates jobs for Japanese citizens once left in their hands.
One of the few beneficial use cases for TFW that actually benefits Canadians in the end
Are those workers actually part of the TFW program though? I'm aware and have worked with specialty workers in the past on major installations and definitely understand the need.
As long as its just training and commissioning, that is probably fine. But of the 2 million or so foreign workers in Canada how many are here right now doing that?
There appears to be zero intent to create jobs for people currently in Canada. It is entirely a policy of wage suppression combined with a belief that immigration is a magical panacea to all issues.
Big business gets cheap labour, policitcal parties (all of them-the CPC has not committed in any way to reducing immigration numbers substantially) get a masive ethnic voting block that will gladly vote for them, and those pesky voters get replaced with a more compliant population that will settle for crumbs because it is far beter than anything they will get back in their home countries. Everybody wins!
Except you.
CPC hasn't committed to specific numbers, they committed to pulling back from Trudeau's and creating clear linkages to relevant capacities, basically listening to groups like Scotiabank who peg the hard limit at 350k
Shouldn't even exist for farm workers. When I was younger the university students would get jobs in the fields in summer, and it paid pretty well. We have a short season and we really only need people during the months uni students are off, maybe a little into fall but there are plenty of people looking for work that would take those jobs. We don't need ANY TFWs.
For fucks sake man, the argument for the need to bring in TFWs is to bring in the crops at certain times of the year. What you are describing are full time jobs. We have lots of people who will work full time jobs
Ok, firstly, school ends in April, not June. Secondly, I said into fall. But for decades we managed off Canadian labour. Where did I even say berries? Seriously, dude, WTF?
The only exception I see for being for TFWs, is having contractors come in to help setup new equipment in factories and training Canadians or Permenant Residents to use the equipment.
If these were doctors, nurses and skilled trades no one would be upset.
However since most of them are destined for Tim hortons or similar nonessential food industry jobs, most of us are justifiably frustrated.
Why are we subsidizing corporations by importing a low wage workforce.
> If these were doctors, nurses and skilled trades no one would be upset.
Some new immigrants are in those fields but Canadian companies don't hire foreigners for those roles. Not to mention the differences in qualifications.
In this article: the people in charge of these policies, the PM and Marc Miller the minister of immigration, clutch their pearls with one hand while penning increases to TFWs with their other hand.
Still Harper's fault, yep.
Even though there are many times more foreign workers in Canada right now, and even though the Liberals have doubled the number of international students and allowed them to work full time hours off campus ( thus creating an additional million foreign workers ) this is all Harper's fault.
Well, Harper and the provinces. Because we all know that the provinces control immigration, including foreign workers and international students /s
ONLY THE CONSERVATIVE PROVINCES!!!! Remember kids, BC with the highest rents highest home prices in the nation is actually doing the best on this issue because the good guy NDPs are in power!
They don't "pen increases, unfortunately. The numbers are driven by demand and by applications from employers. The Feds would implement a cap to limit numbers.
There are 3.5 million temporary residents amid the housing and job crisis and government is planning to bring it down to 2.8 million in 3 years. Is it enough?
Because the government doesn't have the average Canadian in mind but corporations/lobbyists. They don't give a fuck about us bud. It's our fault for continuing to vote for them.
Vote in a bad politician
They get hated and are voted out being replaced by another bad politician
Rinse and repeat over a couple decades this is what we get. Let’s start trying to figure out why we can’t elect good leaders and politicians.
You can vote them out as fast as you want. It doesn’t make a difference when the guy you vote on is exactly the same. The machine works exactly as intended. We have the illusion of choice.
Voting them out faster would chance the incentives and increase the quality of the MPs a little at a time, it would also increase the chance of randomly getting a good one.
At the very least it's a better strat then keeping dogshit for 10 years.
Unfortunately the electorate doesn’t move that quickly. The first term they vote in a new party out of frustration. Inevitably that new party is a massive disappointment but the electorate hasn’t forgotten how bad the precious government was so they give the new government a second chance. That alone results in around eight years of crap. Throw in a minority government here and there and you’re now up to ten. The whole thing runs like clockwork. The electorate feels like they are making a choice and the ruling class laughs.
The problem is that the major contender party keeps picking absolutely terrible options.
The milk man, a guy literally named a tool, and now we've got fascist-courting rage-farming Skippy? No wonder they can't get a hold of power again.
I absolutely will.
An out of touch, socially progressive guy who seems like he wants to make things better but keeps fumbling? That's infinitely more desirable than out of touch, socially regressive guys who seem like they want to loot the country for either ideological reasons or personal gain.
No Canadians need any jobs, do they? How is this a thing!?
"Employers have increased their recruitment of cooks, retail clerks and cleaners paid low hourly wages, among other occupations in high demand, over the past two years, according to the report.
“For example, Joh2Stone Inc. – the operator of several McDonald’s Corp. franchises in Eastern Ontario – was approved in the fourth quarter to fill 78 food-service roles. Many Tim Hortons franchises also received approvals,” read part of The Globe and Mail’s report."
The trick is you raise your standards for entry level jobs to absurd levels, like 5 years+ experience and willing to work for minimum wage.
Then, when you throw all the applications you get in the trash because they don't meet your irrationally high standards, you pen a mournful letter to the government saying you just can't find anyone qualified or willing to take the job. They say 'Okay you can hire some TFWs for peanuts then'.
Efficient!
No you just get a firm who will help you bring these people over "advertise" a job on the shitty federal jobs website most people barely know exist and then ignore all applicants for 30 days then pretend you couldnt find anyone good.
There are no inflated standards, just willfully poor practice and false reporting to ensure exploitable labour
My teen son worked at McDonald’s for over a year (stellar employee). Left to get experience at a local
Ski hill. Now trying to get back not fast food as the ski season is over and can’t even get a call back.
“We’ve become aware as a government that this is a problem. This is a learning opportunity for all of Canada. And everyone needs to do better and try harder. Anyways…”
It was PP, actually. It's literally his policy that he wrote up as a Harper cabinet member.
Like, actually, f'realzies. You can check the records and everything.
The two governing parties of Canada are on the same side. They both make things worse in their own way, and just trade outrage on different issues back and forth. They never ever ever fix the problems the other party created, because they all benefit from playing the game together.
I'm not pro-liberal, which I expect that RES tag you've added suggests. I just think it's important to blame people as proper - and to remind those outraged at the TFW program and planning on voting PP in that *PP is directly and personally responsible for the TFW program, and that he will certainly make it worse if given power.*
Except you know what businesses actually used the TFW program up until about 6 years ago?
Farms and other seasonal businesses that genuinely couldn’t get locals to do laborious jobs no matter how much they paid, because it was impossible to hire Canadians to sign on for 8-12 hour days doing labour in a field for 4-6 months of the year before being laid off. Locals would no-show after a couple days, work long enough to get their first pay and quit for an easier gig, work long enough to go on EI, or purposely injure themselves to draw WCB.
Do you know who actually came through that program? Temporary foreign workers from Mexico and the Caribbean, usually living in employer provided housing, who would come prior to the planting season and go back to their home country after harvest, having earned and saved enough during their time in Canada to have a better life. It benefited us, it benefited them, and the numbers were low enough that unless you lived in an agricultural region you probably didn’t even notice.
Do you know what shift happened exclusively under Trudeau in the past 6 years? Every minimum wage food service and retail employer in the country exploiting the program to have their employee wages subsidized by the Feds and bring over Indian youth seeking PR status, suppressing wages, driving up housing costs, and putting strain on public services.
These stories are from a relative who used to conduct TFW investigations. They said in her entire time there not one employer was ever compliant.
My favourite TFW story is a lady from China who opened a business in the lower mainland of BC and hired herself as a TFW. The business failed thankfully, but that's one heck of a loophole.
Another story is when the Filipino government threatened to cut off their work force to Canada unless TFW work conditions improved. Tim Hortons called their bluff and sent an envoy to Jamaica to recruit there. The Filipino government backed down. That's why you sometimes see Jamaicans working at Tim Hortons.
The TFW program needs to be ended indefinitely outside of agriculture. There is no reason for TFW’s when we have 12.6% youth unemployment and close to 8% unemployment in cities like Toronto
They take everything and leave nothing. Just watch that video about that one 'international student' who literally bragged about robbing Canadians from food banks.
In NB the Covered Bridge chip factory burnt down. They had a press release stating they were flying home all tfw's. Why the hell do they need tfw's? I have factory experience and couldn't even get an interview there yet they need tfw's to make their overpriced chips??? And all the local Tim Hortons around here are staffed by tfw's. If you can't get local workers then raise your wages! This program is just a way to suppress wages of the poor and increase profits of corporations. Shut the whole thing down.
Few years ago I applied for multiple office jobs that had a tag showing that the company couldn't find someone for the position and was in the process of applying with the govt for a TFW for the position.
Nothing will happen until the "I jave mine" crowd gets laid off and cant afford their bills anymore and cant find employment. Just wait. It will happen soon.
It should be going in the opposite direction. These businesses should be left to sink or swim on their own. This is the exact opposite of that the current government ran on in 2015.
This is literally Ottawa saying that the middle class is not wanted and should not exist. To the Federal Governemnt in Canada we are their serfs, and if we won’t work as slaves, they will bring in people that will work cheaper from other countries to take what failing public services and entitlements we are owed.
I expect TFW recruitment to decline in the coming months since unemployment is now above 6%. Whatever general labour shortage existed after the pandemic, it has clearly passed.
I also sometimes wonder whether giving TFWs a faster path to citizenship or PR will actually make them less attractive to employers, since they will have more bargaining power and more labour rights and will be less cheap.
None of this was ever based on unemployment rates, data or evidence. It was all based on what corporations and employers were telling the federal government.
Unemployment in Toronto is at 7.4%, yet how many foreign workers are there?
Uhhh let's not test this please. The last thing we need is more uneducated workers making minimum wage or less. They take more from services than they contribute, so we quite literally pay for them to be here
So you'll vote for Trudeau because PP is going to do the horrific thing of being like Trudeau...
That logic doesn't track... If you're going to vote for Bernier then that logic tracks, but you aren't so...
Rwanda what? That country is boooooming.
They’ve got Africa by the balls, pushing into Congo, stealing minerals. They’ve got the west paying them big bucks to pretend to take asylum seekers from Britain. They’re the Singapore of Africa.
You mean Botswana. Rwanda is a authoritarian state where poiltical opponents of their presidents mysteriously get beheaded. Their economy is not particularly good in comparison with their neighbours and the moment Congo gets its shit together, they are gonna need Jesus/UN to save them
I could very well be wrong. Botswana is fantastic from what I heard and well managed.
But I was reading in The Economist that Rwanda is well managed and has boomed since the genocide. That Kigali is blazing ahead.
And that Paul Kagame has gotten the country involved in the Congo by supporting M23. And that people are not happy at all with that, but the West won’t do anything and still provide him with support and aid.
> For example, Joh2Stone Inc. – the operator of several McDonald’s Corp. franchises in Eastern Ontario – was approved in the fourth quarter to fill 78 food-service roles. Many Tim Hortons franchises also received approvals
This makes no sense to me. Do kids not work fast food anymore? I suppose many would turn their noses up at such work these days. It's not like these temporary workers are any cheaper; they're still subject to the same minimum wage and labour regulations as Canadians.
I can only assume that the franchise owner in the above quote tried to hire locally and not enough people applied. We reap what we sow.
Aren’t there fucking *Canadians* that need work? I get this current generation doesn’t want to work, but maybe they need to be *encouraged* to. This country is in a nosedive.
Justin Trudeau and his government must resign immediately. Treasonous PM, treasonous federal government.
This is killing our country.
The addiction to TFW's must stop. If it's the only thing holding the economy together, the economy must be allowed to fail and reset. This needs to end.
I have always hated this program, it's been abused from the start, is of no benefit to any Canadian and is just to means to take serious advantage of the tfws
It benefits the owners of all the minimum wage franchises in every neighborhood
Except the very few who would agree with you, and still hire Canadians proper, even if they really can't offer much more than minimum plus a bit. I work for one.
And their customers. Extra labor isn't the problem. It's excess consumption and strain on housing.
Wage suppression doesn't help
Wouldn’t need cheap shit if we got paid livable salaries
Exactly, if salaries increased 10x then all those who hoarded wealth would quickly lose their purchasing power, and those who dont have any would gain said power.
So what's your solution then? Reduce consumption? How? If not, then what? Talk about r/iamverysmart take on poor people getting poorer. Extra labour *is* a problem and more importantly it is a problem that can be solved easily by reducing or stalling programs like TFW. If businesses here have to raise prices so be it. You know why? Look at Papa John's. When the ACA was about to come in Papa John's was crying the crocodile tears so common with business owners and corps, that they would have to raise their prices if they had to provide healthcare to their employees. The horror! They said they'd have to raise the price of a large pizza by, *checks notes*...11-14 cents. So GTFO with this bs about how prices will be so much higher if wages go up, because they won't. The prices going up are a fraction of the amount that poor people will get, which as you cavalierly point out later that they will put back into the economy. So basically you don't want to pay an extra 14 cents for a pizza to see others lifted a bit.
It was always meant to suppress wages
Our current PM said exactly that in an editorial, *prior* to being elected and *increasing* the program 300% "It is bad for our economy in that it **depresses wages for all Canadians**, but it’s even worse for our country. It puts pressure on our commitment to diversity, and creates more opportunities for division and rancor. We can and must do better." - Pre-election Justin Trudeau
The government said they were going to do it when inflation start going crazy. It was in the news more immigration to stagnate wages
Abused from day one, criticise it and get called a racist.
>get called a racist. I think the tide has finally turned on that rhetoric. Sad it took this long to get there though and I fear it may be too late.
I was starting to wonder if that would ever change. I guess the people calling others racist finally had their employment opportunities affected. It has nothing to do with race. People from all walks of life are coming here from all over the globe. I feel bad for the people sold the lie to come to Canada to be placed in modern slavery.
It's too late to par it back easily. All the intentional loop holes are being exploited and can't easily be closed with out protest from our corporate overlords.
You know the gov fucked up when ever your most liberal of friends start complaining about the amount of indians.
It's amazing how you can tell a "progressive" that their ideas will never work, but it takes years of that bad idea harming society before they will actually admit it. The concept of critical thinking is something that does not exist with GenZ
Incredible all the thing they justified once they realized you could browbeat someone with the accusation of being a heretic, isn't it?
It was quite popular from day one, farming corporations love the low paid labour and that is the origin of this decades ago, then expanded by Harper, then expanded by Trudeau, and on and on we go.
We should not be bringing in TFWs to work in burger and donut shops. If half of them go out of business its no great loss.
If you're running a Tim Hortons at such razor thin margins that minimum wage is too much to pay, your business is failing. They don't need TFW
When it was initially started, there were rules about what types of jobs could be offered. Serious professional industries had to demonstrate they had been unable to find a worker within Canada after a certain amount of time, and they had to prove it in the application (among other things). What happened is that Harper’s govt reduced the the requirements from companies, and opened up the program to other industries There’s where it started to become a problem. Trudeau’s govt could have stopped it, but they too have corporate masters that benefit from it. (Source - my mom, who reviewed applications in the pre and post Harper change as part of her job.)
the difference is Harper only alloted a small fraction of what we see today, the program was sustainable but when your importing so many, it's an invasion where no service can keep up. You can blame Harper all you want, but the reality is Trudeau and his liberal cronies who, if you remember at the start of his reign, abided to massive lobbying, and followed through with it. This is entirely on IRCC, those in charge of the TFW program and immigration, the immigration minister, and the PMO, liberal/ndp coalition, and Trudeau.
You’ll clearly see me call Trudeau out in my comment. But spew away
tfw there are too many migrants and not enough houses
I agree with you 98%. But I can speak from the other side. As a Canadian with highly in demand technical skills in a field with a worldwide shortage I have taken advantage of other countries equivalent of TFW to work contracts around the world. There are niche cases where it makes sense. If you are standing up a large industrial plant and need this very specific piece of equipment commissioned and there are only 8 of us with the training worldwide to do so and I'd be in your country for 6 months to a year to do it that makes sense. For me at least I also train your operators and maintenance team while I am there so they can operate and maintain the equipment once I leave. But we don't need bartenders, hotel managers, etc. That is a joke and abuse of the system.
The IT industry has been absolutely murdered by the TFW trend. It's the new "outsourcing" trend. As a Canadian trying to start a new career, they're competing against people who are willing to take less money, are usually desperate, are malleable, and will usually have more experience. Companies can post a job, turn down every candidate for reasons and then get their tfw.
You do realize that a vast majority of foods grown and consumed in Canada are grown and harvested by TFWs. If you think that it would be a good idea to get rid of them, your food costs would be substantially more expensive than what you are seeing right now. What is your fix for that?
While they are TFWs, they are under a special program called SAWP. It's also been extended to 9mo, and it only lets people in from Mexico, and select Caribbean countries, as it started as a program between Canada and Jamaica only. They also are skilled, in that they have to have actual provable farm skills to get into the program. If the "TFW" program that most people know about was changed, the SAWP wouldn't be affected unless it was intentionally targeted as well.
>They also are skilled, in that they have to have actual provable farm skills to get into the program. Yet they get paid about min wage. Ide work at a farm but for what they expect you to do the compensation is shit
I'm sorry, vast majority?
TIL that the vast majority of food is picked by hand in Canada. I'm going to tell my friend's dad that just bought a new combine that this was fake news.
These food processing companies have insane profit margins and have only gone up in the past few years. Like with every fucking sector there is parasitic wealthy minority that is taking that wealth generated from that productivity. Addressing that is the only way anything will improve.
What else besides paying their workers the least they can compels a farmer or a company to use a TFW? Why can’t we we hire actual Canadian citizens? It cannot only be the idea that they don’t want to work in hard labour with minimum wage that they cannot find people here to work? TBH, I would feel significantly better if all this increase in food prices are going towards the wages that require to support higher wagers for Canadian needs. However it just seems like the only people that are actually profiting are the big supermarkets and food production companies.
DEPORT in an instance
Automation and growing crops that are less labour intensive for harvesting
8% unemployment in Toronto and rising and every Tim's is bringing TFW. Truly insane.
how many of those unemployed do you think would work at a Tim Horton's?
If tim hortons cant find canadians, then they should increase pay Increase pay, and watch canadians apply by the thousands Personally I'd love to see them go out of business. Open up thousands of rentals for small businesses that hire canadians
Yah Covid times were a good experiment for that, all those min wage job franchises couldn’t find anyone to work and keep the business open, so around my town these min wage jobs went from 15/hr up to 22/hr just to get people in the door to apply. During covid we had near 0 new comers to Canada.
I worked for Tim's years ago when I was a student and it was a decent gig. It's garbage now and they're driving their own sales into the ground through unnecessary expansion of their menu selection at the cost of quality and value. The franchises waste so much money chasing these stupid new products that don't sell but they're forced to keep on inventory. If they stuck to caffeinated drinks and basic sandwiches they would be so much better off
Flatbread Pizza. Enough said.
Remember when Popeyes started getting popular up here, and timmies tried to put a disgusting chicken sandwich on their menus for like a week before giving up? Unfortunately I’ll never be able to forget the taste of it…
I've worked at Tim Hortons. The conditions are awful, and you get paid minimum wage for a terrible job. I have a factory job, and it's much better. It's much safer and higher pay. Nobody in canada should work in the conditions that tim Hortons makes you
Many of them, we're constantly seeing people line up around the block for minimum wage jobs. Teenagers can't get jobs at these places anymore because they only hire temporary foreign workers. And even if they couldn't find workers at their current salaries it should not be the job of the government to subsidize them with cheap foreign labour.
https://app.higherme.com/careers/58bd9e7f472bd?langCode=en pass this on to your friends. let us know how many apply.
If it paid enough to cover their basic necessities then probably any of them would. The problem is it doesn't, because they're too busy catering to employing a demographic with drastically lower standards (and more easily exploited) than the average Canadian.
Everyone regardless of what party they identify with should be calling for an end to the TFW program.
I can understand it for farm workers. I cannot understand it for subsidized factory jobs we essentially already publicly funded to create.
Nah, we need to stop that. We can come up with a new program for farmers if needed but we need to kill the TFW program NOW. We use this excuse all the time ... "but the farmers need it!" and that's exactly why this program remains. Fuck that. This program is literal modern slavery. It's pure trash. Every day the TFW program lives is another day Canadians and the workers are taken advantage of. It's that simple.
Why can Canadians not work these jobs? I have.
Why aren't these companies expanding to employ more highly educated people? Every decade there is a crisis in the job markets. People can't find programmers, engineers, tradesmen, and cashiers for fast food restaurants yet companies don't train.
Factory jobs are created long-term. When you have technical setup requirements, specialized people come in, set up shop and train people to run it. Happens across industries. Let’s say you’re starting the world’s most advanced maple syrup cultivation effort in Japan. You’re probably going to send a few Canadians out there to get that off the ground, which ultimately creates jobs for Japanese citizens once left in their hands. One of the few beneficial use cases for TFW that actually benefits Canadians in the end
Are those workers actually part of the TFW program though? I'm aware and have worked with specialty workers in the past on major installations and definitely understand the need.
As long as its just training and commissioning, that is probably fine. But of the 2 million or so foreign workers in Canada how many are here right now doing that?
There appears to be zero intent to create jobs for people currently in Canada. It is entirely a policy of wage suppression combined with a belief that immigration is a magical panacea to all issues.
Big business gets cheap labour, policitcal parties (all of them-the CPC has not committed in any way to reducing immigration numbers substantially) get a masive ethnic voting block that will gladly vote for them, and those pesky voters get replaced with a more compliant population that will settle for crumbs because it is far beter than anything they will get back in their home countries. Everybody wins! Except you.
CPC hasn't committed to specific numbers, they committed to pulling back from Trudeau's and creating clear linkages to relevant capacities, basically listening to groups like Scotiabank who peg the hard limit at 350k
There are better alternatives to handle those scenarios than the TFW program
This is the problem and why it will never go away, every group says they want it gone except for their favourite group of exploited labour.
Shouldn't even exist for farm workers. When I was younger the university students would get jobs in the fields in summer, and it paid pretty well. We have a short season and we really only need people during the months uni students are off, maybe a little into fall but there are plenty of people looking for work that would take those jobs. We don't need ANY TFWs.
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How long the is the farm season then? If its even longer then thats more reason why Canadians should do it
For fucks sake man, the argument for the need to bring in TFWs is to bring in the crops at certain times of the year. What you are describing are full time jobs. We have lots of people who will work full time jobs
Ok, firstly, school ends in April, not June. Secondly, I said into fall. But for decades we managed off Canadian labour. Where did I even say berries? Seriously, dude, WTF?
The only exception I see for being for TFWs, is having contractors come in to help setup new equipment in factories and training Canadians or Permenant Residents to use the equipment.
Yeah agreed. We need a new democratic party that works for unions and working class canadians
If these were doctors, nurses and skilled trades no one would be upset. However since most of them are destined for Tim hortons or similar nonessential food industry jobs, most of us are justifiably frustrated. Why are we subsidizing corporations by importing a low wage workforce.
> If these were doctors, nurses and skilled trades no one would be upset. Some new immigrants are in those fields but Canadian companies don't hire foreigners for those roles. Not to mention the differences in qualifications.
Half the nurses staffing long term care are foreign lol. Because they can't quit or they risk their visa
And now the blame will come for all immigrants
What are people blaming immigrants for?
In this article: the people in charge of these policies, the PM and Marc Miller the minister of immigration, clutch their pearls with one hand while penning increases to TFWs with their other hand.
While wiping away tears and saying "If only somebody could do something about this."
Surely this is Harper's fault, no?
Still Harper's fault, yep. Even though there are many times more foreign workers in Canada right now, and even though the Liberals have doubled the number of international students and allowed them to work full time hours off campus ( thus creating an additional million foreign workers ) this is all Harper's fault. Well, Harper and the provinces. Because we all know that the provinces control immigration, including foreign workers and international students /s
ONLY THE CONSERVATIVE PROVINCES!!!! Remember kids, BC with the highest rents highest home prices in the nation is actually doing the best on this issue because the good guy NDPs are in power!
You guys having fun with your little left wing hate circle jerk?
I think it was sarcasm
Partly yes, he massively expanded the TFW program. The Conservatives have long supported bringing in cheap labour just as much as the Liberals.
They don't "pen increases, unfortunately. The numbers are driven by demand and by applications from employers. The Feds would implement a cap to limit numbers.
There are 3.5 million temporary residents amid the housing and job crisis and government is planning to bring it down to 2.8 million in 3 years. Is it enough?
Every single one of them has to go and if anyone tells you otherwise don’t vote for them
Best we can do is citizenship
No. Trudeau and Marc Miller are total idiots and are barely addressing the problem.
Yea - “bring them down” by grantee them permanent residency.
Why are we still allowing TFW if we have hundreds of thousands of students who are able to work unlimited hours on student visa?
Because the government doesn't have the average Canadian in mind but corporations/lobbyists. They don't give a fuck about us bud. It's our fault for continuing to vote for them.
Exactly. Like something really has to give right now cause this is so crazy
This is not the bottom. It can get so much worse. And it will. You don't hate your leaders enough yet. But you will.
That's one of the best parts of opening the floodgates to newcomers, they haven't yet learned how terrible our politicians are
Vote in a bad politician They get hated and are voted out being replaced by another bad politician Rinse and repeat over a couple decades this is what we get. Let’s start trying to figure out why we can’t elect good leaders and politicians.
Canadians don’t vote people in, they vote them out. That’s the issue.
Trudeau has been in power for 10 years, the issue is we aren't voting them out fast enough.
You can vote them out as fast as you want. It doesn’t make a difference when the guy you vote on is exactly the same. The machine works exactly as intended. We have the illusion of choice.
Voting them out faster would chance the incentives and increase the quality of the MPs a little at a time, it would also increase the chance of randomly getting a good one. At the very least it's a better strat then keeping dogshit for 10 years.
Unfortunately the electorate doesn’t move that quickly. The first term they vote in a new party out of frustration. Inevitably that new party is a massive disappointment but the electorate hasn’t forgotten how bad the precious government was so they give the new government a second chance. That alone results in around eight years of crap. Throw in a minority government here and there and you’re now up to ten. The whole thing runs like clockwork. The electorate feels like they are making a choice and the ruling class laughs.
I ordered my pitchfork off amazon awhile ago, ready whenever the rest of you are.
Look at our history. This is following the trend of the last like 30 years.
Harper was in power for 10 years too.
The problem is that the major contender party keeps picking absolutely terrible options. The milk man, a guy literally named a tool, and now we've got fascist-courting rage-farming Skippy? No wonder they can't get a hold of power again.
Don't act like Trudeau is any better than them.
I absolutely will. An out of touch, socially progressive guy who seems like he wants to make things better but keeps fumbling? That's infinitely more desirable than out of touch, socially regressive guys who seem like they want to loot the country for either ideological reasons or personal gain.
I mean, compared to the politicians in a lot of their home countries, this is probably nothing to them.
This only the beginning of the death spiral of Canada.
Why is this happening. Close the doors. I can’t begin to understand why we’re brining in actual millions of people
Because our federal government doesn’t care about the repercussions we’re all facing duh
No Canadians need any jobs, do they? How is this a thing!? "Employers have increased their recruitment of cooks, retail clerks and cleaners paid low hourly wages, among other occupations in high demand, over the past two years, according to the report. “For example, Joh2Stone Inc. – the operator of several McDonald’s Corp. franchises in Eastern Ontario – was approved in the fourth quarter to fill 78 food-service roles. Many Tim Hortons franchises also received approvals,” read part of The Globe and Mail’s report."
Those same franchises most likely also have strict hiring policies of 'NO LOCALS'.
The trick is you raise your standards for entry level jobs to absurd levels, like 5 years+ experience and willing to work for minimum wage. Then, when you throw all the applications you get in the trash because they don't meet your irrationally high standards, you pen a mournful letter to the government saying you just can't find anyone qualified or willing to take the job. They say 'Okay you can hire some TFWs for peanuts then'. Efficient!
No you just get a firm who will help you bring these people over "advertise" a job on the shitty federal jobs website most people barely know exist and then ignore all applicants for 30 days then pretend you couldnt find anyone good. There are no inflated standards, just willfully poor practice and false reporting to ensure exploitable labour
That. I know a guy who does that. The local resumes go in the garbage. And nobody ever checks to make sure that no qualified locals applied.
Exactly this. Or you simply say you cannot afford the price workers ask and request cheaper people.
My teen son worked at McDonald’s for over a year (stellar employee). Left to get experience at a local Ski hill. Now trying to get back not fast food as the ski season is over and can’t even get a call back.
If there was a master list of these companies we would know who to boycott
Keep wages low and housing high at any cost
When Trudeau and Marc Miller find out who broke the immigration system there’s gonna be hell to pay
“We’ve become aware as a government that this is a problem. This is a learning opportunity for all of Canada. And everyone needs to do better and try harder. Anyways…”
"We're all in this together."
They'll say harper rofl
It was PP, actually. It's literally his policy that he wrote up as a Harper cabinet member. Like, actually, f'realzies. You can check the records and everything.
Must have been a constitutional change for poor Trudeau to be stuck with it all this time. Let’s just give you a RES tag…
The two governing parties of Canada are on the same side. They both make things worse in their own way, and just trade outrage on different issues back and forth. They never ever ever fix the problems the other party created, because they all benefit from playing the game together. I'm not pro-liberal, which I expect that RES tag you've added suggests. I just think it's important to blame people as proper - and to remind those outraged at the TFW program and planning on voting PP in that *PP is directly and personally responsible for the TFW program, and that he will certainly make it worse if given power.*
Except you know what businesses actually used the TFW program up until about 6 years ago? Farms and other seasonal businesses that genuinely couldn’t get locals to do laborious jobs no matter how much they paid, because it was impossible to hire Canadians to sign on for 8-12 hour days doing labour in a field for 4-6 months of the year before being laid off. Locals would no-show after a couple days, work long enough to get their first pay and quit for an easier gig, work long enough to go on EI, or purposely injure themselves to draw WCB. Do you know who actually came through that program? Temporary foreign workers from Mexico and the Caribbean, usually living in employer provided housing, who would come prior to the planting season and go back to their home country after harvest, having earned and saved enough during their time in Canada to have a better life. It benefited us, it benefited them, and the numbers were low enough that unless you lived in an agricultural region you probably didn’t even notice. Do you know what shift happened exclusively under Trudeau in the past 6 years? Every minimum wage food service and retail employer in the country exploiting the program to have their employee wages subsidized by the Feds and bring over Indian youth seeking PR status, suppressing wages, driving up housing costs, and putting strain on public services.
Theyve been in power for 8 years. After that long the current people wear it. They could have cut it years ago and never did.
Why would they change it? They're rich, they benefit from the problems it causes. Not as much as PP does, though.
> When Trudeau and Marc Miller find out who broke the immigration system Like O.J. trying to find the *real* killer
OJ can rest easy knowing that the real killer is dead
Slaves you mean ? Might as well call it what they are.
Slavery with extra steps.
At this point Trudeau’s govt’s policies are making nonracist ppl racist
The f’ers. They’re determined to go out scorched earth before they are kicked out of office.
Century Initiative fam, we’re all gonna live in Favelas at a 2nd world living standard. This is what they want
Fucking morons. Holy shit. Call an election.
These stories are from a relative who used to conduct TFW investigations. They said in her entire time there not one employer was ever compliant. My favourite TFW story is a lady from China who opened a business in the lower mainland of BC and hired herself as a TFW. The business failed thankfully, but that's one heck of a loophole. Another story is when the Filipino government threatened to cut off their work force to Canada unless TFW work conditions improved. Tim Hortons called their bluff and sent an envoy to Jamaica to recruit there. The Filipino government backed down. That's why you sometimes see Jamaicans working at Tim Hortons.
The TFW program needs to be ended indefinitely outside of agriculture. There is no reason for TFW’s when we have 12.6% youth unemployment and close to 8% unemployment in cities like Toronto
D Porte
As harsh as it sounds, deporting most of them would alleviate a lot of strain and I hope someone has the balls around here to do that
They take everything and leave nothing. Just watch that video about that one 'international student' who literally bragged about robbing Canadians from food banks.
In NB the Covered Bridge chip factory burnt down. They had a press release stating they were flying home all tfw's. Why the hell do they need tfw's? I have factory experience and couldn't even get an interview there yet they need tfw's to make their overpriced chips??? And all the local Tim Hortons around here are staffed by tfw's. If you can't get local workers then raise your wages! This program is just a way to suppress wages of the poor and increase profits of corporations. Shut the whole thing down.
Few years ago I applied for multiple office jobs that had a tag showing that the company couldn't find someone for the position and was in the process of applying with the govt for a TFW for the position.
Nothing will happen until the "I jave mine" crowd gets laid off and cant afford their bills anymore and cant find employment. Just wait. It will happen soon.
is there like an organized effort to fuck this country up as much as they can
It keeps average wages low and saves corporations money so it's good as far as they're concerned
We should have some kind of rule that there are no TFWs until the unemployment rate is under 2%.
Trudeau: Double it.
Democracy manifest.
Damn you Harper …. It all u fault
We should all be contacting our MPs in unison. Lets at least organize something like this here. We cant keep whining while doing nothing about it.
Modern day slavery,
Canada so progressive but basically taking advantage of modern slave labour.
It should be going in the opposite direction. These businesses should be left to sink or swim on their own. This is the exact opposite of that the current government ran on in 2015.
oh more Indians again.
This is literally Ottawa saying that the middle class is not wanted and should not exist. To the Federal Governemnt in Canada we are their serfs, and if we won’t work as slaves, they will bring in people that will work cheaper from other countries to take what failing public services and entitlements we are owed.
What could go wrong?
I expect TFW recruitment to decline in the coming months since unemployment is now above 6%. Whatever general labour shortage existed after the pandemic, it has clearly passed. I also sometimes wonder whether giving TFWs a faster path to citizenship or PR will actually make them less attractive to employers, since they will have more bargaining power and more labour rights and will be less cheap.
There was never a labour shortage, there was a “pay people a decent wage” shortage
Agreed. It was always just about artificially deflating wages.
By "labour shortage" I was referring to a tight labour market.
None of this was ever based on unemployment rates, data or evidence. It was all based on what corporations and employers were telling the federal government. Unemployment in Toronto is at 7.4%, yet how many foreign workers are there?
And that's just official numbers... the unofficial numbers are definitely way higher.
Uhhh let's not test this please. The last thing we need is more uneducated workers making minimum wage or less. They take more from services than they contribute, so we quite literally pay for them to be here
Its very very much still here.
Sweet summer child, it's only going to increase.
To the Trudeau supporters that lurk here will you still vote for him?
has PP said he'll do anything different? PP's policies are basically the same as Trudeau, you just get a nasty person in charge instead.
So you'll vote for Trudeau because PP is going to do the horrific thing of being like Trudeau... That logic doesn't track... If you're going to vote for Bernier then that logic tracks, but you aren't so...
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Brampton
Rwanda what? That country is boooooming. They’ve got Africa by the balls, pushing into Congo, stealing minerals. They’ve got the west paying them big bucks to pretend to take asylum seekers from Britain. They’re the Singapore of Africa.
You mean Botswana. Rwanda is a authoritarian state where poiltical opponents of their presidents mysteriously get beheaded. Their economy is not particularly good in comparison with their neighbours and the moment Congo gets its shit together, they are gonna need Jesus/UN to save them
I could very well be wrong. Botswana is fantastic from what I heard and well managed. But I was reading in The Economist that Rwanda is well managed and has boomed since the genocide. That Kigali is blazing ahead. And that Paul Kagame has gotten the country involved in the Congo by supporting M23. And that people are not happy at all with that, but the West won’t do anything and still provide him with support and aid.
They're trying to get in before the new rules take affect
As unemployment increases. Very cool. Great system we have here.
Wonderful……..
> For example, Joh2Stone Inc. – the operator of several McDonald’s Corp. franchises in Eastern Ontario – was approved in the fourth quarter to fill 78 food-service roles. Many Tim Hortons franchises also received approvals This makes no sense to me. Do kids not work fast food anymore? I suppose many would turn their noses up at such work these days. It's not like these temporary workers are any cheaper; they're still subject to the same minimum wage and labour regulations as Canadians. I can only assume that the franchise owner in the above quote tried to hire locally and not enough people applied. We reap what we sow.
This program shouldn't exist. It was created by Conservatives and neo Liberals to suppress wages.
Was in Home Depot today and Rona today and they have obviously hired a bunch and even piping Indian music into the store.
Aren’t there fucking *Canadians* that need work? I get this current generation doesn’t want to work, but maybe they need to be *encouraged* to. This country is in a nosedive.
Justin Trudeau and his government must resign immediately. Treasonous PM, treasonous federal government. This is killing our country. The addiction to TFW's must stop. If it's the only thing holding the economy together, the economy must be allowed to fail and reset. This needs to end.