Foreign Workers and Employment Minister Jason Kenney

Employment Minister Jason Kenney: Canada has always been a land of immigrants and immigration. But by 2012, it was also home to about half a million temporary foreign workers, people brought here to work but not to stay. The system was created in the 1970s, and was supposed to be about filling short-term labour shortages until Canadians could be found or trained. Along with seasonal agricultural work and live-in domestics, the focus was on skilled and specialized fields where Canadians simply werent available. For a long time, the program stayed small, according to Globe and Mail. On Thursday, Employment Minister Jason Kenney announced an immediate moratorium on new temporary foreign workers in one industry restaurants. Its about time. A series of allegations over the past few weeks suggest that the program has been turned into something it was never supposed to be: a way for businesses to keep wages down by importing cheap labour. Employees at a number of restaurants in Western Canada came forward with stories of having been shoved aside by temporary foreign workers, who appear to have been brought in not to fill unfillable vacancies, but to take already occupied jobs and You can learn a lot about how the economy really works by going to a McDonalds. Or a Tim Hortons. Or the Brothers Classic Grill and Pizza restaurant at the Travelodge Hotel in Weyburn, Sask. But over the past few years it has ballooned, right through a recession and despite continued high unemployment in many parts of the country. It has quietly become an open tap that employers can turn to, to fill all sorts of low-skill, low-wage jobs. For example, the number of foreign workers in accommodation and food services admitted under a labour market opinion rose from a little more than 4,000 in 2006 to nearly 45,000 in 2012. A survey last year of members by the Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association found that one in five full-time employees is a temporary foreign worker. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.