{"id":8468,"date":"2014-05-01T11:15:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T03:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=8468"},"modified":"2014-05-03T02:32:41","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T18:32:41","slug":"jason-kenney-on-hot-seat-as-controversy-rages-over-temporary-foreign-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/01\/jason-kenney-on-hot-seat-as-controversy-rages-over-temporary-foreign-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Kenney on hot seat as controversy rages over temporary foreign workers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Minister<\/a>
Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism Jason Kenny. Photo courtesy of Jason Kenney’s official Facebook page.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

OTTAWA\u2014In the midst of a fresh eruption of abuse allegations surrounding the government\u2019s troubled temporary foreign worker program, is Jason Kenney\u2019s reputation as a capable task-master taking a beating?<\/p>\n

The employment minister was on the defensive Monday in the House of Commons, but he\u2019s also under attack from business groups, labour unions and\u2014perhaps most troubling for Kenney with a federal \u00a0election looming\u2014everyday Canadians who believe the Conservatives have made it easier for foreigners to swipe their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minister has been responsible for the temporary foreign worker program for the past six years,\u201d NDP leader Tom Mulcair said during question period.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has publicly maligned companies who import workers with \u201cthe intention of never having them be permanent and moving the whole workforce back to another country at the end of a job,\u201d Mulcair continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prime minister has had this figured out for some time but why, in the six years the minister has been taking care of the program, has he never figured it out?\u201d Kenney replied with what\u2019s becoming a common refrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf and when there are abuses, we act clearly and quickly,\u201d he said, referring to the temporary ban he placed on restaurants last week preventing them from accessing the temporary foreign worker program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are about to come out with another phase of further reforms to ensure that Canadians always and everywhere get the first crack at available jobs, and that the program is only used as a limited and last resort by employers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January, Kenney pledged another round of reforms as employers and trade associations bemoaned the procedural red tape and lengthy delays they say resulted from earlier rule changes enacted a year ago. That initial crackdown came after the Royal Bank of Canada found itself in hot water for replacing Canadian staff with temporary foreign workers.<\/p>\n

Kenney suggested those changes, originally expected this month, could include a limited fast track for workers in high-demand professions in regions of the country with low unemployment.<\/p>\n

But in the face of more allegations about employers, most of them fast-food restaurants, Kenney is sounding a different tone. His office has been inundated with complaints to its tiplines in recent weeks, employment ministry officials say, and the overwhelming majority of them involve restaurants.<\/p>\n

Rather than easing restrictions, Kenney is now hinting even tougher rules may loom. That follows a difficult few days for the employment minister, during which the C.D. Howe Institute released a study that said the influx of temporary foreign workers over the past 10 years\u2014from about 110,000 a decade ago to 338,000 today\u2014had served to hike the joblessness rate in B.C. and Alberta.<\/p>\n

CBC also released a damning audio recording of the CEO of McDonald\u2019s Canada, John Betts, denouncing the crackdown on temporary foreign workers to franchisees and telling them that Kenney \u201cgets it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Jason Kenney \u2018gets it,\u2019 that means he supports going out and hiring all sorts of temporary workers,\u201d said Liberal MP John McCallum, the party\u2019s immigration critic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he \u2018gets it,\u2019 it means he\u2019s not really wanting to enforce the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview, McCallum said the temporary foreign worker controversy is resonating with all Canadians at a time of relatively high unemployment\u2014not just those in B.C. and Alberta, a Tory stronghold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to hurt them across Canada, not exclusively in the West,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Canadians fear their jobs are being away by foreigners, or see tearful waitresses on TV who lost their jobs after almost three decades\u2014that really resonates with Canadians at a time of relatively high unemployment,\u00a0 when people are looking for their jobs or their kids are. It\u2019s something everyone directly relates to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Woolstencroft, a political science professor at the University of Waterloo, agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis file is impregnated with bad optics; there are no good optics at all,\u201d Woolstencroft said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the kind of thing that angers ordinary folks; they understand that they could go into work one day and despite working there for years, be told they\u2019re going to be replaced. He\u2019s moved very quickly, however, so he\u2019ll at least be credited for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

An official in Kenney\u2019s office defended the minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned about abuses and we literally threw the book in ways we\u2019ve never thrown the book before,\u201d said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren\u2019t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  OTTAWA\u2014In the midst of a fresh eruption of abuse allegations surrounding the government\u2019s troubled temporary foreign worker program, is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":7211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1145],"tags":[398,573,2487,2198],"class_list":["post-8468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-headline","tag-canada","tag-employment","tag-foreign-workers","tag-jason-kenney","mauthors-lee-anne-goodman","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}