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Manufacturing businesses in Quebec are calling on the federal government to allow temporary foreign workers already employed in the province to stay and continue working in the industry.
In September of last year, the federal government capped companies’ ability to hire low-wage temporary foreign workers at 10 per cent of their workforce compared to 30 per cent previously. It also limited contracts for these positions to one year.
According to Manufacturers and Exporters of Quebec (MEQ) president Julie White, this is not sustainable for the factories in Quebec’s regions that are starting to see the consequences of these changes to the temporary foreign worker program.
“We anticipate that the fall might be catastrophic for many manufacturers if we don’t review the rules that were announced last fall,” she said.
Hundreds of temporary foreign workers are already packing up and leaving the province because their permits have expired and their employers can’t renew them, she said. Some are leaving despite their permits still being valid for a few months because they aren’t confident that their contracts will be renewed when the time comes.
Despite support from the provincial government and conversations with the federal government, federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu is too slow to act, says the MEQ.
Ottawa aiming to reduce ‘dependence’ on program
In an emailed statement to Radio Canada, Hajdu’s press secretary Jennifer Kozelj said the government was “committed to reducing the dependence of Canadian employers on the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP).”
“To be clear, the TFWP is designed as an extraordinary measure to be used to fill critical employment gaps, only when qualified Canadians and permanent residents are unable to fill the vacancies,” she wrote. “Now is the ideal time to invest in Canadian talent.”
But the MEQ said Canadian workers can’t fill the gap.
“We are in an extraordinary situation,” said White, noting that the current trade war is already weakening the manufacturing sector, on top of a labour shortage. “The businesses that go and recruit TFWs [temporary foreign workers] don’t do it because it’s easy or fun… they don’t have a choice.”
There are 11,000 vacant job positions in manufacturing in Quebec, according to the Institut de la statistique du Québec.
“What we want from the federal government is the sensibility to our specific needs here in Quebec,” said White, adding that she was disappointed with their statement.
The MEQ wants Ottawa to grant the industry a special privilege that would allow temporary foreign workers already working in Quebec’s manufacturing sector to stay in the province and continue working.
It’s something Quebec Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge has supported, said White.
In a statement to Radio-Canada, Roberge’s office said that maintaining a level of temporary foreign workers in certain regions was important for manufacturers facing labour challenges. It encouraged the federal government to “concentrate its reduction efforts in the Montreal and Laval regions,” said spokesperson William Demers.
White says the federal government needs to act fast to grant the exemption and let workers stay so Quebec’s manufacturing can continue to function. Even having a few temporary workers missing can affect entire production lines, she says.
“If you lose 10, 15, 20, 25 workers in a matter of a couple of weeks and you don’t have the capacity to find more, businesses won’t be able to be productive,” she said.
