Employment Minister Jason Kenney and TFW

TFW: Employment Minister Jason Kenney has incorrectly responded to recent policy studies and negative media coverage, which had cast a shroud of economic doom over Canadas very successful temporary foreign worker TFW program. Mr. Kenney has raised the processing cost to potential employers and limited the geographical scope of the unskilled portion of the program to areas with less than 6 per cent unemployment. Furthermore, unspecified changes now loom for the live-in caregiver program. These efforts to curtail the TFW program underestimates the economic benefits derived from TFWs, including the less skilled, while overstating the costs imposed by their presence, according to Globe and Mail. Canadas TFW program has a long, successful history and, unlike elsewhere, has not produced a legacy of undocumented workers. Two categories of lower-skilled TFW workers clearly impose no costs on resident Canadians who in turn enjoy substantial benefits, namely seasonal agricultural workers and live-in caregivers. A third group, restaurant and hospitality TFWs also generate significant economic activity that is of net benefit to resident Canadians mostly in Alberta. Wisely, Mr. Kenney has left the historically successful seasonal agricultural worker program alone. However, he has promised a review of the equally successful live-in caregiver program and as noted has incorrectly restrained the hiring of restaurant TFWs in areas with lower unemployment rates and Don DeVoretz is a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University The economic success of any immigration program requires that net economic benefits flow to the welcoming country from the increased presence of migrants. In addition, all labour market policy interventions result in some economic actors gaining benefit while others may lose. A policy intervention can be judged a success if the aggregate gains outweigh the losses. For those individuals who suffer the costs of a policy intervention, some of the realized economic gains can compensate their loss. In short, one does not curtail an economically successful labour market policy such as Canadas TFW program when a portion of these benefits can be redistributed to offset any losses incurred by a minority of Canadian residents. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.