Doug Parton, Business Manager and Financial Secretary-Treasurer of Ironworkers Local 97 made the following statement in response to the Minister’s announcement:
“While companies continue to misuse and abuse the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, Canadian workers continue to be left behind while their jobs are given to lower paid and often lower skilled foreign workers.
The changes announced today by the Minister are a step in the right direction, but they are just words on paper if they exclude the very industries that most use the TFW Program. In particular, the exclusion of the construction industry from these seemingly well-intentioned changes will not solve any of the negative impacts the program is currently having on Canadian trade workers.
Without amending this announcement, the government will continue to allow a system that disadvantages Canadian workers and lets employers manipulate the process to make more profits at the expense of working families in our communities.
While getting away with underpaying foreign workers, the TFW Program also drives down wages and undercuts hard-working Canadians trying to keep up with the cost of living. Put simply, there isn’t a project in Canada that our skilled trades workforce can’t build. Our government must ensure that local, qualified, skilled trade workers are prioritized and employed on job sites across the country.”
About Ironworkers Local 97:
Ironworkers Local 97 represent 2,300 hardworking men, women, and workers in underrepresented group in British Columbia and Yukon, including workers in their apprenticeship that are 21 per cent Indigenous and seven per cent women. Ironworkers build the infrastructure British Columbians rely on, from the buildings they work in, to the bridges they travel across. Ironworkers are building our communities from the ground up.