The Canadian government should look no further than its own backyard to find what’s wrong with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, a NOTL farmworkers advocate says.

Reacting to federal Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault’s announcement that his office is cracking down on employer fraud within the system, Kit Andres suggested the minister is missing the mark.

If he really wants to improve the program and ensure the safety and respect of all migrant workers who come to Canada each year to help prop up the economy, the government needs to change how it operates the program, Andres said.

The government is acting in bad faith in how it takes advantage of workers by limiting their rights — rights they can’t receive without permanent resident status, said the advocate from the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

“It’s about a program that allows abuse and exploitation to happen,” said Andres, pointing to inequalities such as the lack of regular employment insurance benefits or not being allowed to change jobs while in the country.

“You have good employers here, but the farmworkers are part of an exploitative system.”

“They don’t have a choice to go to those good employers. The good employers bring them back.”

Employment and Social Development Canada said in an Aug. 6 news release that while the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is intended to fill vacancies for which qualified Canadians are not available, that policy is being side-stepped by many employers.

This is especially true the non-agricultural sector, the release stated, and that “the federal government will take further action to weed out misuse and fraud within the system.”

“I’ve been clear over the last year; abuse and misuse of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program must end,” Boissonnault said via the press release.

“Bad actors are taking advantage of people and compromising the program for legitimate businesses. We are putting more reforms in place to stop misuse and fraud from entering the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.”

In Niagara-on-the-Lake, the majority of foreign workers are employed in the agricultural sector, but Andres said the organization does have members from other sectors.

Good employers in non-temporary worker scenarios attract good employees who will stay with those employers, work hard and buy into the business model of the organization, Andres said.

“But that all goes out the window with migrant workers because (without permanent resident status) they don’t have a choice.”

Crackdown measures to weed out bad bosses include fines from $500 to $100,000 per violation.

“Workers don’t see that money,” said Andres. “And if it’s not for workers, it’s for the government to say, ‘Look, we are cracking down.'”