Canada’s temporary foreign worker scheme ‘inherently exploitative’: Amnesty

Rights group urges Canada to end ‘closed’ work permits that leave migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Montreal, Canada – Canada has failed to take meaningful action to address systemic abuses in a decades-old foreign worker programme, subjecting thousands of labourers to an “inherently exploitative” system, Amnesty International says. “Exploitation, discrimination and abuse are integral features, not bugs, of the Temporary Foreign Worker program,” Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section, said in a statement. In 2021, temporary foreign workers accounted for 18 percent of the workforce in Canada’s agricultural sector and 10 percent in the accommodation and food services sector, a study released late last year found. That’s why we’re taking steps to further protect temporary foreign workers and hold bad actors accountable,” said Steven MacKinnon, the Canadian minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour.