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Migrant voices need to be heard in review

House brawl bumps caregiver Teta Bayan

In an op-ed in The Globe and Mail, Bayan called on HUMA to grant all migrant workers open work permits. "Canada's laws support abuse," Bayan writes. "The vicious cycle of abuse, exploitation and precariousness that we experience can only be fixed by setting us free from tied work permits and giving us our immigration status upon arrival in Canada." In addition to the #StatusNow events, CMWRC has circulated a petition that has garnered just over 2,000 signatures. Five #StatusNow actions will take place in Charlottetown, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, and Kelowna between May 28 and May 31. More actions are planned through June 6.

Of those surveyed some statistics are worth repeating: 43 per cent were paid less than minimum wage, 52 per cent did not receive overtime pay, 61 per cent did not receive public holiday pay and more than 20 per cent of respondents were owed wages.

No, exploitation is not "cultural"

The Importance of The Fight for 15 and Fairness for Immigrant Workers

No Future for Labour without Real Solidarity with Immigrants and Migrants

Like supporting the call of migrant workers for status, supporting The Fight for $15 and Fairness is a step towards building genuine solidarity across racial and ethnic lines. 

Those numbers will soon rise. Last week, the federal government announced that employers could usher in highly skilled temporary workers such as engineers and electricians in 10 days instead of the current 12- to 14-week approval process, noting red tape will likely be reduced in processing other categories of temporary foreign workers as well. Of note, the fastest growing category of temporary foreign workers is low-skilled workers, whose numbers have grown ten-fold in just five years. These are not the seasonal fruit-and-vegetable pickers on which our nation also relies. These folks toil year-round at Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, in our abattoirs, nursing homes, and hotels; workplaces where employers say they can’t find Canadian workers willing to work at the offered wages.

four-year cap on residency for temporary foreign workers, brought into play in 2011

In Alberta, by the end of 2011, more than 58,000 people were working under temporary foreign work permits, up from about 37,000 at the end of 2007. The province can only nominate up to 5,000 of these workers to become Canadians. The vast majority of low-skilled temporary foreign workers have no avenue for permanent residency.

Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario (IAVGO), a Toronto community legal clinic representing Clarke and Williams.

One of the government’s arguments has been that the workers were not entitled to extended coverage because they didn’t have valid work permits. But they were working under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, and IAVGO has countered that immigration status doesn’t matter in such government programs.

“Workers need to be able to get [Ontario Health Insurance Plan] coverage and healthcare after their work permit expires. If they’re a migrant worker that got injured here, they should be able to have the choice and the means to stay here for healthcare, especially when they’re talking about such compelling circumstances like Mr. Clarke and Mr. Williams, where they got injured on the job,” argued Ponting.

Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper assumed power in 2006, the number of foreign temporary workers admitted into Canada has grown by 40 per cent. The temporary worker stream is now larger than the stream of permanent workers intending to set down roots and become citizens.

When Canada introduced its temporary foreign worker program in 2002, the governing Liberals vowed never to adopt the European model route in which “guest workers” are paid less than nationals and treated as second-class residents. But under Harper, the country is now moving in that direction.

The committee is one of the most well-respected human rights bodies in the world, comprised of independent and eminent international law experts from every continent. My experiences in Geneva affirmed my impression that the committee approaches the Herculean task of ensuring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with professionalism and rigour. After reviewing thousands of pages of documentation, listening to hours of testimony from NGOs and the Canadian government, and grilling government representatives with insightful questions, on Thursday, the committee issued its final verdict.

The concluding observations for Canada are breathtaking in their scope, covering issues related to national security, Aboriginal Peoples' rights, prisoners' rights, and even freedom of expression and association for human rights defenders.

The document is a sobering reminder of how much Canada has changed in the 10 years since our last review and we should be outraged that, in such a short time, our international reputation has been so tarnished. We have gone from being a global leader in the protection of human rights - the gold standard, even - to a country that repeatedly ignores UN recommendations, engages in suppression of dissent, and enables cruel treatment of migrants. At seven pages in length, the UN's assessment of Canada is necessary pre-election reading for anyone wishing to chart the changes wrought to our society in the past nine years of Conservative government rule.

Of particular interest to me, of course, were the concluding observations and recommendations related to Canada's treatment of non-citizens, people like Hassan. The committee expressed grave concerns around laws that allow for the mandatory detention of asylum-seekers who arrive by boat, recent cuts to the interim federal health program for asylum-seekers, and indefinite detention of migrants.

The committee recommended that Canada ensure that there is proper oversight over CBSA, place time limits on immigration detention, and ensure there are viable alternatives to detention. It also recommended that those held in provincial jails be granted access to treatment centres for mental health issues.

These recommendations are an important vindication of the rights of non-citizens, thousands of whom are detained in maximum-security jails every year, including vulnerable migrants such as asylum-seekers, torture survivors and those with serious mental health issues, people like Hassan.

However, the UN's strong recommendations will quickly become cold comfort for Hassan's family if Canada does nothing to implement them. Despite the death of at least 11 immigration detainees held in CBSA custody since 2000, Canada has done nothing to end arbitrary detention and cruel treatment of non-citizens held without charge. Now that the UN has made recommendations to end rights violations against immigration detainees, we must press all the major political parties to commit to implementing the recommendations if elected. Renu J. Mandhane is executive director of the international human rights program at the University of Toronto's faculty of law.

Delphine Nakache and Paula Kinoshita. In their 2010 paper published by the Institute for Research in Public Policy, they warned of possible consequences that could undermine the country’s social fabric.

Venancio, 29, a worker from the Philippines, was hit by a car in June 2012 while riding her bike to work. The crash left her a quadriplegic and because she couldn't work her visa was not renewed. In April, former Health Minister Stephen Mandel rejected a call to provide healthcare coverage to Venancio.