Advocates Call Ottawa’s PR Program “A Smokescreen”
Advocates Call Ottawa’s PR Program “A Smokescreen”
Evelyn Encalada Grez works as an assistant professor in the labour studies program at Simon Fraser University’s sociology and anthropology department. She is the co-founder of J4MW. (Photo supplied)
Ottawa is granting 90,000 applicants a pathway to permanent residency to reach its immigration target this year. But the program does nothing for the migrant workers feeding the country, says one migrant justice organization
When Ottawa announced a new federal program that would provide a path to permanent residency (PR) for temporary foreign workers in Canada, the effort was welcomed by many.
Under the program, 30,000 workers in essential roles such as transportation, construction, and agriculture will be able to apply to become permanent residents in May.
The program will also accept 20,000 foreign health care workers and 40,000 international students. This is part of the federal government’s efforts to reach its goal of admitting 401,000 immigrants in 2021.
But one migrant justice organization says the move is “a smokescreen that fails to address Canada’s racist and exclusionary immigration system.”
On April 22, Justicia For Migrant Workers (J4MW), a volunteer-run collective that advocates for the rights of migrant farm workers, published an open letter on their website in response to Ottawa’s program.
“The reforms do nothing to change the indentureship of thousands of migrant workers in Canada,” it reads.
“Migrant agricultural workers who work under a system of indentured labour will once again see no improvements to their working and living conditions as a result of the continuation of a closed work permit system that binds workers to one employer.”
“Instead, migrant farm workers are put into competition with over 90 other occupations for a measly 30,000 spots, when over 50,000 farm workers have entered Canada on tied work permits during the pandemic alone.”
Comments (0)