Much has been made about the current state of immigration and the various temporary foreign worker programs—with far too many politicians pointing a finger of blame at these hard-working folks for so many of our nation’s ills.
That simply isn’t fair.
Temporary foreign workers may make up some four percent of the total Canadian labour force, that’s roughly 795,000 people out of 19.8 million total in the labour force. Since the current unemployment rate in the country is roughly 6.5 percent, it is easy to demonize the temporary foreign worker cadre as the cause. To be clear, however, 6.5 percent is actually very close to the “natural” historical level economists expect for our nation.
For literally decades, The Expositor has been attending seminars, conferences and workshops where the impending spectre of mass Baby Boomer retirements was cited as a looming crisis—there would simply not be enough workers in the stream to keep our economy afloat.
The federal and provincial governments heeded the expressed anxiety of industry, business and public service leaders and opened up entry to a massive influx of temporary foreign workers. So much so, that our population growth went from net negative (more deaths than births) to a healthy three percent hike by 2023.
Crisis averted.
But immigrants and foreign workers, especially “visible” minorities, have been an easy target for opposition political parties, leading to a very “un-Canadian” change in historic public perceptions. Immigrants, foreign workers and students, were the cause of the housing crisis, the health care crisis, the affordability crisis—interject your crisis here.
The truth of the matter is quite different when you balance everything in the scales.
It is interesting to note that people who will readily lament that “nobody wants to work anymore” to explain the challenge of filling job vacancies, will just as readily pivot to suggest that “foreigners are taking our jobs.” And some politicians are more than willing to stoke that rage machine and give it credibility—never mind the facts.
To take critical example here on Manitoulin Island, Manitoulin Centennial Manor currently employs around 20 temporary foreign workers. They are personal support workers, nurses and other support workers. Manor administrator Don Cook will readily point out that, for the first time since he became administrator of the long-term care home, they are finally able to throw off the shackles and enormous expense of agency fill-ins.
Think about that for a moment. It wasn’t that 20 PSWs, nurses and other health care workers were lined up to take those positions—that despite the Manor having interviewed across the nation seeking recruits. It was temporary workers who came to the rescue to fill in those occupations that are caring for our most vulnerable citizens.
Take the situation with foreign students. Thanks to provincial funding freezes, our colleges and universities were forced to depend on foreign students to keep many of their course offerings in place. With those taps suddenly turned off, hundreds, nay, thousands of courses had to be dropped—and professors laid off.
Now that the zeitgeist has turned against immigration, Canada’s population has declined for the first time in living, or unliving for that matter, memory. Immigration has accounted for nearly all of our nation’s population growth for decades, dropping from a peak of 2.9 percent in 2023 to a drop of 0.2 percent in statistics released last Wednesday. The only other decrease in the Canadian population on record was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and its border restrictions.
There is no question that there are significant downsides to the rapid increase in immigration and the rise of temporary foreign workers.
The housing market is challenging to say the least, but years of government underfunding of social housing and the rise of Airbnb rentals have played a much larger role in that crisis than either temporary workers and immigrants (who pay taxes by the way, never mind the disinformation in your social media feeds) or students. This is not to say they don’t have an impact, but that impact falls nearly entirely on those lower income sectors of society impacted by government inaction on social housing.
Economists will point out that temporary foreign workers, aka the filling of job vacancies in the lower income quintile by people willing to work for less, places downward pressure on wages and by extension productivity. That is a mixed blessing, as rapid income growth can negatively impact inflation—but income redistribution and rising inequality, both significant issues in our technological age, are nothing to sneeze at.
There is also plenty of evidence that the temporary foreign worker programs have been abused, especially by large corporations seeking to plump their bottom lines with cheap, relatively compliant and eager labour—but that is nothing new under the sun, there will always be some kind of leakage as the worse parts of human nature seek to gain unfair advantage. Bad actors can be found in just about any industry and must be guarded against.
Still, without the assistance of the incredible influx of temporary workers in recent years, our beleaguered health system would be in far more serious trouble, our elderly and vulnerable would not be receiving the care they deserve and you would find that many of your favourite eateries and other industries would be cutting back service hours or closing their doors entirely.
Like most issues, the state of the economy is not best dealt with in rage-inducing 30 second sound bites.
To put it simply, foreign workers should be thanked and lauded for their bravery in coming to a new land and putting their shoulders to the wheel of our economy—not vilified and made scapegoats for government failings. They are simply seeking better lives for themselves and their families, much like the ancestors of nearly all Canadian citizens.
The flood of immigration and temporary work and study visas being issued has subsided dramatically over the past year—but that will likely not stop the vilification we see too much of in our social media feeds.
We know it is not the most popular of sentiments in these days of social media hyped perceptions, but we need to bring Canadian values to bear—foremost of which is kindness.
In this Christmas season let us adopt good will towards all, no matter wherever they called home in the past and remember, we owe them a debt of gratitude for filling the gaps left behind by the Boomer generation.
