Migrant workers have paid their dues and should be given a path to permanent residency

It is a popular misconception that Canada does migrant workers a favour by allowing them to work hard, for little money, in hazardous and degrading conditions.

Canada’s economy has hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs that depend on temporary migrant workers—harvesting crops, caring for children and the elderly, working in construction and meat packing, and a host of jobs across the service sector, write a group of academics.Photograph courtesy of Pexels

Opinion

BY AUDREY MACKLIN, HARALD BAUDER, JENNA HENNEBRY, MYER SIEMIATYCKI

August 5, 2020

Canada has expanded its temporary migration system to bring in a steady supply of exploitable and interchangeable migrant workers who are coerced into accepting low wages and miserable working conditions below standards that Canadians would accept. Now, exposure to COVID-19 has been added to the ter...

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