Canada’s Corporate Welfare Class

Today, the federal Conservatives announced their intention, should they form government, to abolish the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). They also challenged the governing Liberals to do so immediately. We believe that this is a much-needed change of policy, for the simple reason that Canadian jobs should go to Canadians.

Yet abolishing the TFWP would only be a step in the right direction because it’s not the only immigration stream that allows foreign nationals access to our labour market in large numbers. It’s not the only stream that prices young Canadians out of the job market, suppresses wages, and is rife with abuse. The spirit of reform must ultimately extend more broadly.

LILLEY: Carney says no to scrapping TFWs but program must change

… When the Liberals implemented the changes that effectively took the guardrails off the TFW program, Canada’s national unemployment rate stood at 5.1%. That unemployment rate has steadily increased as the Liberals in Ottawa put the TFW program on steroids, opened up work permits for international students and brought in more than 190,000 asylum seekers last year, most of whom were granted work permits in short order.

OTTAWA – A new report argues the rise of gig work, artificial intelligence and rapid population growth are souring job prospects for Canada’s youngest workers.

The Desjardins Economics report, released Thursday, comes as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre cites decades-high youth unemployment levels to attack an immigration program for temporary foreign workers.

Statistics Canada’s latest labour force survey shows the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 hit 14.6 per cent in July — a nearly 15-year high outside of the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Population growth’, just another bullshit term used to gaslight Canadians.

OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Mark Carney’s Liberals to ditch the federal government’s decades-old temporary foreign worker program, taking a harder stance against a program he’s previously said should be reduced, not axed outright.

The reason why, Poilievre said Wednesday, is because of worsening youth unemployment, rather than a Liberal-induced “immigration crisis” he has claimed has weakened both the economy and security of the country.

“The individual temporary foreign workers, the workers themselves, they are not bad people. They are not the problem. They are being taken advantage of by Liberal corporate leaders who want to use them to drive down wages,” Poilievre said at a news conference in Mississauga.

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre confirmed his party’s intention to put pressure on companies using siginficant amount of TFW’s by “naming and shaming” them.

Speaking to reporters in Mississauga ON. on Wednesday, Poilievre and Shadow Immigration Minister Michelle Rempel Garner reiterated their opposition to the Temporary Foreign Worker program, stating that companies relying on the system prioritize corporate profits over Canadian jobs.

Once upon a time not so long ago, if you were a young Canadian, you could learn vital skills in an entry-level job, and earn enough to pay for school while saving. In return, employers would benefit from a skilled, productive domestic labour workforce.

But that agreement has been broken, as evidenced by Canada’s staggering youth unemployment and the countless gut-punching stories about young Canadians who have put out hundreds of resumes without getting as much as a single callback.