[kEiThZ]

This really grinds my gears. The Toronto Star refers these TFWs as immigrants, which they are not. If I get a temporary work permit to teach English in Thailand, this is not a pathway to Thai citizenship.

Temporary residents are being squeezed out by Canada’s shifting immigration reality. Here's what the country could lose

To launch a new series, the Star spoke to temporary residents caught up in a numbers game and butting up against a system that once promised them hope.

www.thestar.com

Paywall free: https://archive.is/1z0Xo

Temporary work permits should NEVER have been a pathway to Canadian PR or citizenship. There is a right way to emigrate to Canada, which my family and millions of others have done, why is apply from your home country and wait to be accepted for PR before you come. And if you’re never accepted, there is a reason, and TFW should not be a way around this.

Let's be honest. Standards weren't high when you're family came over. They likely wouldn't qualify under the point system today. Don't believe me? Go take a look and put in their stats. If you don't have a postgraduate degree you probably wouldn't qualify today.

This is not to say the system is too restrictive. But there's an element of agricultural work and caregiving we're just never going to get enough Canadians to do. It's sad that this was used as an excuse to facilitate abuse from the restaurant and retail sectors.

Also, giving students Postgraduate Work Permits and a path to residency is a great idea. They are fundamentally more integrable than any other immigrant because you don't have foreign qualification problem. The problem came when we decided that all fields of study and levels of education are exactly the same. So my relative who did a Master's and Graduate Diploma in Data Science from Waterloo is to be considered exactly the same as the Marketing major from some strip mall college in Brampton. But really the worst abusers of this were public colleges. Just look at Conestoga. The government wanted the cheap labour and had to pretend it was elitist to say that a data scientist is more desirable graduate than a history or marketing major. Worse, the job had to be related to the field of study for PR. So the strip mall marketing grad who sells cellphone cases in the mall would have more relevant experience than the data scientist who started working in the Accounts department as a way in to a company. A lot of the worst of this has been stopped now that only graduate degrees get work permits. But we're already seeing the start of basket weaving masters programs from universities to do what colleges did before. MBAs are the new strip mall diploma.

 

[kEiThZ]

Back to Carney’s Canada, it is as the federal level where the country can deal with homelessness, addiction and mental illness, starting with a Constitutional amendment to make housing both a right and obligation.

Nah. In Canada, the provinces have an insane amount of power. Including zoning. And the feds can't override any of it. They're now trying with new legislation we'll see how long that lasts. The only thing the feds can control is immigration. Starve the employer's of potential labour and they'll have to pay more. And developers will finally stop the BS land hoarding and banking that you don't see in basically any other G7 country.

 

[kEiThZ]

Canada sees sharp decline in international students and temporary worker arrivals in 2026. Here’s how much the numbers have dropped

New data also shows the number of new asylum claims submitted dropped significantly compared to two years ago.

www.thestar.com

Paywall free: https://archive.is/FsOSu

That's all well and good, but how many and what percentage of now-expired TFW and International Students have not yet left Canada?

"More people are now at risk of losing their immigration status and becoming undocumented, immigration experts have warned."

Or... they could return home, which is the very point of temporary worker and student permits.

There already was/is a black market of under the table employment arrangements in industries like fast food, retail, and from my personal experience, non-PSW support at retirement homes. People getting shorted on wages, overtime, etc... And them doing nothing about it, either due to power imbalance, ignorance, or desperation, among other reasons.

I don't worry too much. Canada is not the US. Very hard to be undocumented here. The US basically has a parallel society for illegals. Not that easy in Canada. There's no ICE to snag you at the grocery store or other jackboot nonsense. But much harder to access all kinds of public services, credit, etc.

I suspect some will try it for a few months. Or even a few years. But the appeal of being part of the the underclass and never being able to leave Canada will wear them out. I think the hardcore long haul illegals is probably less than 10%.

 

[kEiThZ]

Why the heck did Trudeau look at Canada in 2015 and think, we need this flood of unskilled temporary and pseudo-student labour?

Plenty of people forget that the CPC as late as 2021 was pledging to outdo the LPC in bringing in students. They only flipped when it became a legitimate point of contention for young white males (core demographic for them).

 

[kEiThZ]

We should enthusiastically welcome skilled workers, no matter where they’re from. Please come to Canada and stay!

Young people are pissed because of attitudes like this. They go to college/university and take on years of debt. Then end up unemployed or underpaid when employers are willing to hire an immigrant for less.

And no this isn't a xenophobic complaint from me, an immigrant. Go look at the percentage of tech grads from our top 5 universities who leave Canada. Any other country would be absolutely embarrassed by that number. Not Canada where wage suppression for the few middle class jobs left is normalized.

 

[CMQSD402F9011]

Young people are pissed because of attitudes like this. They go to college/university and take on years of debt. Then end up unemployed or underpaid when employers are willing to hire an immigrant for less.

And no this isn't a xenophobic complaint from me, an immigrant. Go look at the percentage of tech grads from our top 5 universities who leave Canada. Any other country would be absolutely embarrassed by that number. Not Canada where wage suppression for the few middle class jobs left is normalized.

Or they could enroll in the trades. But most won’t because their unions both the IBEW and LiUNA happen to support Conservative parties and they’ll get hazed there. why indigenous, LGBTQ, racialised, and neurodiverse people and young people don't do trades?

Another thing. Most of the Corporations and Billionaires want TFWs particularly from countries that are lower Caste areas

 

[Northern Light]

On the heels of our series of posts above, Tim's (RBI) out announcing that they will no longer lobby the Feds to expand access to TFWs and will in fact, significantly reduced reliance on the program.

They are committed to hiring 10,000 Canadians in their next round of hiring *

Tim Hortons to dial back use of Temporary Foreign Worker program, aims to hire 10,000 locally

The chain’s parent company also pledged to stop lobbying the government to expand the program citing high youth unemployment rate

www.theglobeandmail.com

* Tim's doesn't hire retail employees at a corporate level, these jobs are hired for by franchisees, not sure how this commitment is supposed to be delivered or checked on.

In the article, Tim's makes the claim that only 3.6% of its workforce is TFWs.

I'm dubious, if they mean corporate staff, sure.....but including all franchisees? Less convinced.

Worth saying, of course, that concentration matters, a wage suppressive affect in North Bay, with the same minimum wage as Toronto is an issue, but less of one, with lower cost housing, than a Toronto or Vancouver, where one might imaging TFWs are more common.

Nationally, Tim's and their franchisees employ ~110,000, so 3.6% of their work force is ~4,000

 

[kEiThZ]

Most of the Corporations and Billionaires want TFWs particularly from countries that are lower Caste areas

You know nothing about caste and the various social implications. Please stop acting like you do. It's racist nonsense and ignorant.

 

[urbanclient]

You know nothing about caste and the various social implications. Please stop acting like you do. It's racist nonsense and ignorant.

They've been trolling and spreading misinformation in the 6 months they've been here. Deeply partisan ignorance. Most recently implying that the housing crisis would be alleviated if unionized labour weren't racist, age-ist, X-ist, as if most house builders use unionized subcontractors / labour. (They don't. Housing construction is rife with non-unionized labour and cash jobs). Also, is there any chance that immigrants don't want to do construction jobs? X-isms aside, StatsCanada shows that immigrants are less likely to be in construction even 10 years after arriving, compared to Canadian-born residents.

Also ironic that a self-proclaimed leftist would vilify labour unions for having different political affiliations while defending wage-suppressive and inflation-causing immigration rates so long as it aligns with their party.

Conservative bad. Conservative broke everything. Liberal good.

Most of us here are economically left or left-leaning. Blaming Conservatives for every problem under the sun is not just unproductive, it's inaccurate.

Crossposting this:

But on the other hand, it feels like a bad sign of where we're headed. If Canada continues to fail at solving the fundamental issues that cause homelessness, it feels like we're inching closer and closer to a favela style model: designated spaces of extreme poverty that exist because the formal system has failed to house people.

Obviously, encampments in Canada are wayy different than a favela in Brazil or colonias populares in Mexico. But the comparison feels relevant in the sense that it's the government managing poverty spatially rather than solving it structurally.

I can't find the videos, but not too long ago I saw a few videos talking about how legal housing has a much lower floor in Asian countries. Speaking of the South, Southeast, and East Asia. Here is a similar video:

Point is, you simply cannot rent a legal apartment in most of the GTHA on minimum wage, which is at most, what can be expected of homeless people. In many areas, living wage is significantly higher than minimum wage. That's not to say a higher minimum wage would solve the housing crisis, as much of the higher wages would flow directly to the landlords. Housing supply relative to population doesn't change when minimum wage goes up.

In 2022, the CMHC said Canada would need 3.5 million more affordable housing units to restore affordability to 2004 levels, by 2030. That's nearly 400,000 more units per year than business-as-usual. Or about 650,000 units total per year. Those familiar with the industry would know that's impossible. I would also remove the "affordable" modifier. If by some miracle 3.5 million units, not affordable units, units were built between 2022 and 2030, housing would become more affordable, so long as the population doesn't outpace the effective housing supply.

Back to why 400,000, let alone 650,000 is impossible. Canada has been averaging roughly 200,000 housing completions per year (or lower) for the last two decades. The recent downturn in the market makes it unlikely that we'll get close to the 250,000 implied by CMHC, at least for 2026.

CMHC predicted that 2.3 million units would've been built in the 9 years leading up to 2030. That's before another 3.5 million units that are needed to "restore affordability". 5.8 million total in 9 years.

IN A NUTSHELL: Canada averages roughly 200,000 units per year. ~8% of the labour force is already in construction, compared to ~5% in the USA. There is no chance of doubling or tripling housing completions by simply throwing more money at builders and/or real estate developers.

There are a multitude of factors at play slowing housing supply growth, I've only talked about one. There are no easy solutions.

Canada’s Housing Supply Shortage: Restoring affordability by 2030

Current projections indicate that housing stock will reach close to 19M housing units by 2030. That means, Canada will need an additional 3.5M affordable housing units to restore affordability.

www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca

Also:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/1s79a96/construction_slow_as_hell_what_are_you_guys

 

[guavadelic]

On the heels of our series of posts above, Tim's (RBI) out announcing that they will no longer lobby the Feds to expand access to TFWs and will in fact, significantly reduced reliance on the program.

They are committed to hiring 10,000 Canadians in their next round of hiring *

Tim Hortons to dial back use of Temporary Foreign Worker program, aims to hire 10,000 locally

The chain’s parent company also pledged to stop lobbying the government to expand the program citing high youth unemployment rate

www.theglobeandmail.com

* Tim's doesn't hire retail employees at a corporate level, these jobs are hired for by franchisees, not sure how this commitment is supposed to be delivered or checked on.

In the article, Tim's makes the claim that only 3.6% of its workforce is TFWs.

I'm dubious, if they mean corporate staff, sure.....but including all franchisees? Less convinced.

Worth saying, of course, that concentration matters, a wage suppressive affect in North Bay, with the same minimum wage as Toronto is an issue, but less of one, with lower cost housing, than a Toronto or Vancouver, where one might imaging TFWs are more common.

Nationally, Tim's and their franchisees employ ~110,000, so 3.6% of their work force is ~4,000

They were making similar claims last year when there was a big debate on the TFW program, and most found the figure pretty dubious. However, it's important to note that Tim's definition of "locally hired" is pretty broad. The figure includes International Students, for example:

More than 95% of Tim Hortons employees are hired locally.

Local employees at Tim Hortons include Canadians born here, new Canadian citizens, students, seniors, permanent residents, international students, and people with valid Canadian work permits. These individuals make up the overwhelming majority of our workforce and are here now, legally allowed to work in Canada.

https://www.news.timhortons.ca/en/a...tons-and-the-temporary-foreign-worker-program

Also, I wonder how much this change in approach is due to the return of Dunkin' Donuts to Canada.

 

[urbanclient]

Tim's definition of "locally hired" is pretty broad.

Pretty broad is an understatement.

"Local employees at Tim Hortons include Canadians born here, new Canadian citizens, students, seniors, permanent residents, international students, and people with valid Canadian work permits."

That's virtually everyone physically present in Canada... Surely diplomats and athletes aren't itching to work at Tim Hortons.

Who can work in Canada without a work permit – exemptions and eligibility - Canada.ca

See which jobs and situations are exempt from Canada’s work permit rules. Check eligibility for work permit exemptions, visa or eTA requirements.

www.canada.ca

The word "include" doesn't make the list exhaustive either... So maybe there are Leafs players moonlighting at Tims during their extended summer break. Source:

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

 

[Northern Light]

Pretty broad is an understatement.

"Local employees at Tim Hortons include Canadians born here, new Canadian citizens, students, seniors, permanent residents, international students, and people with valid Canadian work permits."

That's virtually everyone physically present in Canada... Surely diplomats and athletes aren't itching to work at Tim Hortons.

"Tim's we're proud to say we'll under-pay virtually anyone"

 

[CMQSD402F9011]

You know nothing about caste and the various social implications. Please stop acting like you do. It's racist nonsense and ignorant.

Here’s what I’ve seen someone on FB who said this regarding a truck accident in Canada

Again let's circle back to the trucking companies. Here's where it gets racial but not in the way you think. I've worked with Indians and have had Indian friends over the years
I know about the caste system. These firms are hiring lower caste individuals as they know they can abuse them. Why aren't our governments going after the ownership? You want to stop these tragedies? Make the owners pay proper wages and have proper staffing that these guys aren't working risking their lives and the lives of others. No I'm not saying Indian people can't own trucking firms. That's Iike the teacher who gives the whole class a detention because they didn't see who threw the eraser. We need proper oversight into this industry.

 

[nightstreak]

Young people are pissed because of attitudes like this. They go to college/university and take on years of debt. Then end up unemployed or underpaid when employers are willing to hire an immigrant for less.

And no this isn't a xenophobic complaint from me, an immigrant. Go look at the percentage of tech grads from our top 5 universities who leave Canada. Any other country would be absolutely embarrassed by that number. Not Canada where wage suppression for the few middle class jobs left is normalized.

I'm thinking professions where there's far more demand than supply that hasn't been filled by local graduates. We need physicians and surgeons, we need registered nurses. We can't get enough. There are also a deficits in electricians, welders and mechanics. We also can't find enough STEM workers regardless of how many Canadian graduates we have.

The Canadian govt. should be seeking this type of immigrant and encouraging Canadian students in these fields and with pay incentives to stay here. Canadian doctors are moving to the US and Europe where they get paid more. This is all squarely a role of the Federal government and instead the last administration just kicked open the doors for virtually anyone to come in a bid to increase our total population.