Canada’s international students program and temporary foreign workers program has seen abuses, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Thursday.Freeland’s comments came just days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government is moving to restrict the number of low-wage temporary foreign workers in Canada, with the exception of some sectors.
The federal government also announced earlier this year a cap on the number of international students who can come to Canada.“We see them (international students and foreign workers) as new Canadians who have so much to offer and so much to contribute. That is a great thing about Canada. Having said that, there have been some abuses to the system,” Freeland said on Thursday.
Freeland laid the blame on errant institutions.“Something that I think we all recognize is when it comes to international students, we have seen some institutions not invite students here to really give them a good education, but really to abuse them. And that is not OK,” she said.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on Thursday had faced questions from reporters on how he would tackle immigration if elected, and said “we need to have a smaller population growth.”“There’s no question about it,” he said. “We need to have a growth rate that is below the growth in housing, health care and employment.”
The international student cap is expected to result in approximately 364,000 approved study permits this year – a decrease of 35 per cent from 2023.And while the temporary foreign worker program has grown dramatically over recent years, it has come under fire for suppressing domestic wages and leaving workers vulnerable to abuse.
The number of temporary foreign worker positions has more than doubled since 2016, according to Employment and Social Development Canada data. That’s the year after the federal Liberals were first elected in 2015.
Freeland said the growth in the program “made sense” during the “extraordinary” circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. She said the federal government has decided to put restrictions in place since the situation has changed.“It makes so much sense to say, you know what, if unemployment is six per cent or higher, we’re not going to be processing new applications for temporary foreign workers. There are Canadians in your city who need a job, look to them and offer those jobs to them,” she said.