Montreal, Canada – Canada has didn’t take significant motion to deal with systemic abuses in a decades-old overseas employee programme, subjecting hundreds of labourers to an “inherently exploitative” system, Amnesty Worldwide says.
In a 71-page report launched on Thursday, the rights group outlined a variety of abuses linked to the Short-term Overseas Employee Program (TFWP), from wage theft to extreme work hours, racist abuse and violence.
Most of the violations are associated to the labourers’ “closed” work permits, which tie them to their employers and go away them open to exploitation, Amnesty mentioned. Employees sometimes don’t converse out because of a worry of reprisals.
“Exploitation, discrimination and abuse are integral options, not bugs, of the Short-term Overseas Employee program,” Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary basic of Amnesty Worldwide Canada’s English-speaking part, mentioned in a press release.
“Beauty modifications should not sufficient. Our leaders should implement the reforms required to carry this system in step with Canada’s human rights obligations – and, in the end, to respect the rights of staff.”
Launched within the Nineteen Seventies, Canada’s overseas employee programmes have come beneath elevated scrutiny lately as former and present labourers denounced their therapy.
In 2022, a personnel from Jamaica wrote a letter likening situations on farms in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, to “systematic slavery”.
A 12 months later, a United Nations particular rapporteur mentioned the TFWP schemes “make migrant staff weak to modern types of slavery, as they can not report abuses with out worry of deportation”.
‘Like throwing away garbage’
Tens of hundreds of overseas staff come to Canada annually by way of the TFWP, which the federal government says goals to fill gaps within the labour market.
They work in low-wage industries akin to agriculture – together with on farms or at food-processing vegetation – and as in-home caregivers, amongst different jobs.
In 2021, non permanent overseas staff accounted for 18 % of the workforce in Canada’s agricultural sector and 10 % within the lodging and meals providers sector, a research launched late final 12 months discovered.
Migrant staff – lots of whom have been coming to Canada for years and even many years – even have restricted pathways to everlasting residency within the nation.
“In its present design, the TFWP is inherently exploitative,” Amnesty Worldwide mentioned in Thursday’s report.
The group additionally mentioned the scheme is “inherently discriminatory, because it entrenches situations of discrimination and disproportionate impacts of human rights violations on racialized ‘lowskilled’ staff primarily based on their race, gender, class and nationwide origin”.
Francisco, a Mexican employee who spoke to Amnesty Worldwide utilizing the pseudonym, mentioned: “The employer will get what he needs, however when [the worker] is not helpful to him … He merely sends [the worker] again.
“And I really feel that it’s like throwing away garbage and saying it’s not helpful.”
Inspections and fines
The Canadian authorities has beforehand defended the “closed” work permits as a vital measure to make sure it is aware of which employers are using overseas staff and the place they’re working.
Final 12 months, amid a rising backlash over immigration and a housing disaster, the federal government additionally introduced plans to cut back the variety of non permanent overseas staff in Canada, together with these in TFWP streams.
In the meantime, Employment and Social Improvement Canada, the nation’s labour ministry, mentioned in mid-January that it had elevated penalties for employers who fail to adjust to the foundations.
The ministry mentioned it performed 649 inspections between April and the top of September of final 12 months, 11 % of which discovered employers to be non-compliant.
It additionally issued $1.46m (2.1m Canadian {dollars}) in fines and banned 20 employers from the TFWP.
“Employees in Canada deserve and anticipate to really feel secure and guarded within the office. That’s why we’re taking steps to additional shield non permanent overseas staff and maintain unhealthy actors accountable,” mentioned Steven MacKinnon, the Canadian minister of Employment, Workforce Improvement and Labour.
“Employers should observe the foundations, and we’ll proceed to take decisive motion to guard staff’ rights and wellbeing whereas rising our economic system.”
However Amnesty Worldwide burdened in its report that TFWP abuses “can’t be attributed to a couple unscrupulous employers, nor can they be understood as remoted incidents”.
As a substitute, the group mentioned Canada bears accountability for the immigration insurance policies and legal guidelines which have left staff weak.
It urged Canada to maneuver past “slender, piecemeal measures” to make “systemic coverage modifications”, together with the abolition of “closed” work permits.
“This technique must be urgently changed with an open visa system that may absolutely shield racialized staff from labour exploitation and discrimination,” Amnesty mentioned.