Ministry ignored immigration impacts: Report
The Canadian Immigration Department has admitted to ignoring whether foreign workers took Canadian jobs or kept wages low, Blacklock’s Reporter has reported. Impacts are not monitored, said an internal report. “The program is built on the assumption that benefits to Canada from the facilitation of select foreign workers exceed any potential harm to the domestic labour market,” said the Evaluation Of The International Mobility Program. “However document review and key informants pointed out that labour market impacts are not monitored.” Auditors scrutinized a program that allowed more than 3,970,000 foreign workers into Canada from 2014 to 2022. Most were men under the age of 34 and came from India and China. Almost half applied to stay in Canada as permanent residents, wrote the Department of Immigration. The Evaluation report said there were no attempts to make sure Canadian workers and wages were protected. “The program is less aligned with commitments to consider Canadian workers first especially given the program’s continued growth,” it said. “The department does not systematically monitor labour market impacts of the program and data gaps, particularly for open work permits, make it difficult to measure the full extent of program benefits relative to risks for unintended consequences such as displacement of Canadian workers and wage suppression.” In October, the Cabinet tabled new immigration plans to cut the number of foreign worker permits by about a tenth. A total 765,262 foreign workers were allowed into Canada in 2023. “Document reviews revealed concerns that program objectives are broad and ambiguous,” said the Evaluation report. “For example, while exemptions under Canada’s international education strategy provide open work permits to students and recent graduates, the department does not measure whether this type of employment displaces Canadian workers or suppresses wages.” In 2022, the Cabinet allowed one million foreign students to work unlimited hours. Prior to that, foreign students were limited to working 20 hours a week. “I don’t think students are taking jobs away from other people given the labour shortages that are happening in Canada,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters earlier. “My focus primarily is to make sure the public policy we have in place is one that reflects the ability of the student to actually do what they’re supposed to be doing, which is study without bankrupting themselves.”
