Migrant Workers/Caregivers

One of the places where systemic racism is the most apparent in our immigration system is in its treatment of domestic and migrant workers.

It is my firm belief that if you’re good enough to work, you’re good enough to stay.

For caregivers and domestic workers, justice means PR status upon arrival. Domestic workers, who are mostly women of colour from developing nations, are the only class of economic immigrants who are not given PR status upon arrival. Instead, they must endure precarious working conditions with uncertain immigration status and futures as they navigate pilot program after pilot program. As they care for Canadian families, the lack of PR status separates the workers from their own families.

For temporary migrant workers, it is long known that employer specific work permits put them in highly vulnerable situations where abuse and exploitation by employers are rampant.

The Canadian immigration must treat workers with justice and respect. No more abuse of migrant workers! Landed status now!

Parliament passed Motion 44 with Jenny’s amendment to expand economic immigration to "all skill levels" and adding “caregivers" into specifically considered occupations

I’m so pleased to see that the House has passed Motion 44 to improve Canada’s immigration system. The Motion has adopted my amendment to expand "the economic immigration to allow workers of all skill levels to meet the full range of labour needs", and adding "caregivers" into specifically considered occupations and essential sectors that are underrepresented in current economic immigration programs.

HANSARD: Jenny addresses the importance of an improved Temporary Foreign Workers program

Parliament VIDEO: Justice, respect and human rights for migrant workers - landed status on arrival

MP Jenny's Kwan's speech in Parliament on April 26, 2022 addressed the Liberals' failure to ensure the health and safety of temporary foreign workers.:

MEDIA RELEASE - Migrant workers deserve respect and dignity

People who come here to work deserve dignity and protection. There is no denying that there is a power imbalance in the Temporary Foreign Workers program that has resulted in many migrant workers being exploited, including being subject to wage theft and poor working conditions. We’ve seen the horrors of how TFWs are put in substandard housing, unable to isolate in dense living quarters during the pandemic and unable to speak up until their health was affected. This highlights the ongoing and deep-seated problem with the TFW program.
The findings of a recent damning report by the Auditor General exposed the Liberal government's failure to ensure the health and safety of temporary foreign agricultural workers where Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) provided little assurance that workers were protected during the 2020 and 2021 growing seasons. In fact, even though the Liberals promised they would take action to address this blatant violation of the worker's rights in 2020, the quality of inspections have gotten worse. By adding more TFWs to the system, ESDC will be spread even thinner and struggle even more to ensure the safety of these workers.

HANSARD: Jenny proposes caregivers be included temporary foreign workers to get permanent residency

ANSARD - Motion 44 adopted Jenny’s amendment to expand economic immigration to include workers of all skill levels and caregivers

IN THE NEWS: New Canadian Media - Canada eyes 1.3 million immigrants to overcome labour pains

Jenny Kwan, the Vancouver East MP, who also acts as the NDP Immigration Critic, said the government is actually scaling back the Federal Skilled Workers Program by almost 50 per cent by shifting resources and immigration levels from one stream to another.

“The immigration levels released today shows that the government is perpetuating the problems they created when they failed to adjust the levels to accommodate the new (temporary to permanent resident pathway) immigration measure,” she said.

IN THE NEWS: Toronto Star - Applicants to Canada’s skilled-worker immigration program will soon face 36-month wait times, documents reveal

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the skilled worker program is an important immigration stream for Canada and the current pause “will not only put people’s lives in limbo, but result in missed opportunities for Canada, risking that applicants may choose to emigrate to another country that recognizes their talent and experience.”

“Failing to address the backlogs will ultimately create more work for immigration as documents expire and the circumstances of applicants change. It will also fuel additional inquiries by applicants because they are concerned about a lack of progress in their applications. All of this serves only to further tie up the department’s resources.”

IN THE NEWS: Indo-Canadian Voice - NDP urges Liberals to take immediate action to address Canada’s nursing shortage

“Nurses are overworked and it is hurting them and their patients. When hospitals don’t have enough nurses, wait times increase and surgeries get delayed,” said Kwan. “Meanwhile, there are qualified internationally educated nurses waiting for their applications to be processed. The Liberals need to recognize that they can fix this crisis, rather than being a roadblock. We are demanding that the government adequately fund IRCC so that qualified health care workers can be granted permanent residence.”

IN THE NEWS: Toronto Star - Advocacy group hints at unexplained immigration policy shift

Activists from the Migrant Rights Network (MRN) say a “secretive policy shift” may be brewing at Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) which may explain the unprecedented rate of rejections of permanent residence applications on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds.
Richard Goldman, a lawyer at Montreal City Mission, believes that some policy change may have occurred, but whether this involves the personnel assessing the applications, the training of these personnel or an internal directive is unknown.

“The Humanitarian and Compassionate application system is broken,” says Syed Hussan, who works with the Migrant Rights Network (MRN) secretariat, which organized marches in Montreal and Ottawa this past weekend to demand the government extend residency status to all migrants in order to ensure their equal access to rights. “And as the data we released is showing, it can arbitrarily be changed without oversight or accountability.”