Canada hopes to encourage more tech workers to visit and work in the country. But in its effort to do so, critics of the plan have concerns that the rights of other migrant workers will get lost in the process.
In an announcement last week, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said the federal government is exploring a list of potential policies to encourage high-earning tech workers to tour the country and boost its tech sector, such as a renewed digital nomad scheme and dedicated open work permits.
While the initiative could help to bring in thousands of new workers to fill labour shortages and spur innovation, experts say the government risks perpetuating an inequitable immigration system that gives more mobility and freedom to some workers over others.
“If it’s possible to create open work authorization for the tech industry to allow flexibility for labour mobility … that same [principle] must be extended to all migrants,” said Syed Hussan, executive director of advocacy group Migrant Workers Alliance for Change who’s based in Toronto.
“Why is it that certain groups of people have more rights … and others don’t?”
Hussan and others who work in the field say open work permits and flexible work schemes given to tech workers should be made more available to all types of migrant workers — particularly those in industries experiencing their own shortages, such as agriculture, personal care and health care.
People in these industries — many from countries in the developing world who earn low wages — are typically given restricted visas that limit their stay in Canada based on their work with an employer, make it difficult to qualify for health-care coverage and restrict their ability to speak out against labour abuse over fear of losing their permits, he said.
Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, says open work permits and flexible work schemes given to tech workers should be made more available to all types of migrant workers — particularly those in agriculture, personal care and health care. (CBC)
“Canada needs to have the ability for workers in any different wage category to be able to come here with the same rights — and that’s the fundamental issue,” Hussan said.
According to Statistics Canada’s latest data, the industries grappling with the highest job vacancy rates include agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting; health care and social assistance; and accommodation and food services. Ottawa recently launched a separate temporary foreign worker program targeting immigrants working in these industries, among others.
Divide between richer and poorer workers
Canada started prioritizing more highly skilled tech workers sometime in the 1990s due to the internet boom, said Valerie Ann Preston, a professor in the faculty of environmental and urban change at York University in Toronto.
She said this marked the start of extended perks given to highly skilled workers on temporary permits, such as not being tied to single employers, allowing their spouses to work upon immigrating to Canada and providing easier access to permanent residency.
Highly skilled workers on temporary permits in Canada have been given extended perks, such as not being tied to single employers, allowing their spouses to work upon immigrating to Canada and providing easier access to permanent residency. (Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock)
“What’s interesting to me is that we maintained the privileged position of high-tech workers,” Preston said.
Many of these tech workers disproportionately come from richer, more developed regions of the world, Preston said. They include North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, other migrant workers often given more limited working visas disproportionately come from Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and parts of Asia.
They’re often highly skilled in industries from their home country but have a hard time transferring those skills to the Canadian market, which can be due to limitations in their work permits, so they end up making a “trade-off” by working in in-demand industries, Preston said.
“They may come with lots of skills and lots of experience, but they’re going into jobs that don’t offer pathways for career advancement … they’re going into jobs that are not well paid.”
How to correct the ‘2-tier’ system
John Shields, a professor in politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, said the government’s move toward enticing tech workers fits with its broader plan of using immigration as a way to address labour shortages — spurred by an aging population and a skills gap across the board.
But Canada risks encoding inequity into immigration law if it continues to give more leeway to those at the “so-called top” of the labour market without adjusting its acceptance criteria for those in different but equally important industries, he said.
Foreign workers trained for in-demand jobs like nursing are working in N.L. fish plants
3 months ago
Duration 2:19
Some temporary foreign workers arriving in Newfoundland to work in fish plants are certified nurses and early childhood educators — which the province desperately needs more of. Memorial University economics professor Tony Fang talks about skill mismatch.
“There is a bit of a two-tier system here where for those lower-skilled jobs, you see a lot of the emphasis on the immigration program on temporary migration, where people actually have a hard time being able to qualify for permanence,” Shields said.
“And yet … those areas are often in very high demand, and they’re not things that Canadian-born workers or immigrants who’ve been here for a longer period of time want to do.”
When asked if the government would consider expanding open permits to other migrant workers, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said while employer-specific work permits “protect” the Canadian labour market, it understands “the need for flexibility in this space.”
“Which is why since 2019, we have allowed foreign nationals with an employer-specific work permit to apply for an open work permit if they are facing abuse or are at risk of abuse in their workplace,” spokesperson Sofica Lukianenko said in an email statement, adding that people can also apply for new work permits and change employers quickly if they have another job offer.
But for Hussan, the government needs to shift toward an immigration system that gives all workers permanent residency upon arrival, forgoing a multiple-tiered system altogether. For Shields, increasing pathways to permanent residency for all workers is a start.
“We need to fill those gaps all through the labour market, and that includes in some of these other areas which actually should be also better recognized and more highly paid, too,” Shields said.
PARIS (AP) — French judicial authorities are investigating the disappearance of two Paralympic athletes from Congo who recently competed in the Paris Games, the prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Thursday.
Prosecutors opened the investigation on Sept. 7, after members of the athletes’ delegation warned authorities of their disappearance two days before.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that shot putter Mireille Nganga and Emmanuel Grace Mouambako, a visually impaired sprinter who was accompanied by a guide, went missing on Sept. 5, along with a third person.
The athletes’ suitcases were also gone but their passports remained with the Congolese delegation, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
The Paralympic Committee of the Democratic Republic of Congo did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.
Nganga — who recorded no mark in the seated javelin and shot put competitions — and Mouambako were Congo’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, organizers said.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
