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Michael Ferguson: Inspections and Worker Program

michael ferguson: That's more than seven times the number of on-site inspections conducted during the same period in 2016-17, according to The Chronicle Herald. It's all part of the government's effort to address oversight concerns with the temporary foreign worker program flagged last year by auditor general Michael Ferguson. Since the start of the year, roughly 1,600 employers have been flagged as high-risk employers and selected for inspections by the Employment and Social Development Department, with more than 1,340 on-site inspections launched and in various stages of completion. Employers often hired temporary foreign workers without first demonstrating they had exhausted all other options for finding local workers, and applications were frequently approved without being challenged, Ferguson found. Those inspections that did go ahead were flawed, since employers always had prior warning, Ferguson concluded. He also found enforcement officers lacked access to sufficient data to ensure employers were being honest about local labour availability, and rarely conducted on-site inspections. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.