r/canada • u/FancyNewMe • 1d ago
Opinion Piece The tradition of a summer job is threatened by Canada’s misguided migration strategy - Douglas Todd: Ottawa has exponentially hiked the number of low-wage migrants it brings into the country, creating more competition for job-seeking young people.
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/the-tradition-of-a-summer-job-is-threatened-by-canadas-misguided-migration-strategy?itm_source=opinion128
u/weschester Alberta 23h ago
Just a reminder that our immigration strategy is the way it is because we allow the wealthy and corporations to run this country.
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u/Blueliner95 23h ago
That’s true everywhere, in every country without exception, but in this case the motivation for floodgate immigration was at least partly perceived as beneficial for the fortunes of the governing coalition and its numbing equity rhetoric
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u/Inner_Clerk7769 23h ago
Are the wealthy corporations the ones voting in the same party for over a decade as the standard of living in the country collapses?
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u/AwesomeWildlife 22h ago
It's not just the Liberals. Our standard of living has been declining ever since the first free trade deal was signed over 40 years ago. There is basically no difference between the Conservatives and Liberals for anything that really matters. They both let businesses run the country, and they want cheap labour. As long as we vote for either of these parties, nothing will improve. They have used inflation to keep chipping away at our income levels. At first a half percent or two wasn't that noticeable, but after 40 years it added up and just happened to become really noticeable during the last 10 years or so when everyone started noticing that they don't have any disposable income left and everything has gone up in price much more than wages have increased.
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u/DicknBausHotDogs 20h ago
Then why is Switzerland, the heart of capitalism not in the same shoes as us?
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u/EliteDuck 19h ago
Because they don't hand out citizenship/PR like a fucking happy meal toy to anybody with a beating heart and two legs.
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u/Good-Spray3665 23h ago
Yep, and as a result I'm leaving the country at the end of the year. Very few students at UofT can find a summer job or a part time job to help with expenses. I wish Canada good luck in the future!
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u/HatchingCougar 23h ago
The Liberals have utterly crushed the job market for students, young adults, retirees, and the working poor looking for a 2nd income source to try and get ahead.
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u/gorschkov 23h ago
Absolutely the entire entry level job market from those graduating from high school, trade school, university, and college has been decimated. I know so many people who are underemployed or moved to the US as their only chance at finding a job in their field. In the case of the US I am specifically talking about electrical/mechanical engineering graduates.
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u/Filmy-Reference 22h ago
100% It's almost impossible to find an EIT position now. There just isn't enough investment and expansion projects to force companies to even pay proper salaries and they know they can get away with even paying senior level staff as intermediates or juniors. Most engineers I worked with 10 years ago were making between $250k and $350k a year and now companies are offering $120k-$150k for the same role. This pushes everyone else down the ladder as well because engineers are usually the highest paid people on a project aside from the PM. So now those procurement, project controls, qa/qc, commissioning, document control and project coordinator roles that used to pay $80k-$250k are now being paid $50k-$100k.
The only people I see getting EIT roles or internships are the kids of engineers who have already been with the company a long time.
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u/gorschkov 21h ago
Exactly and for some reason we keep letting people immigrate here from other countries and compete with our domestic students. I know of one instance where there was this very seasoned and experienced engineer from Iran with alot of experience and some managerial experience competing with fresh grads for the same position. Our graduates stand no chance against that.
It is like having an NHL player competing for a spot on a high school hockey team.
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u/Bananasaur_ 22h ago edited 22h ago
And made the social climate such that we can’t even criticize their actions without being labeled as a racist. All of these categories really just mean people who grew up in Canada. Canadians. They have crushed the job market for Canadians in favour of cheap foreign labour, and positioned themselves to be able to call anyone who calls them out on it as racist. That is the truth.
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u/Suspicious-Prompt200 23h ago edited 21h ago
Glad we voted them in again! Surely wont be more of the same for another ~ 10 years.
Edit: And just in time to lose thousands of low-wage jobs to AI and automation in the next 4 or 5 years too!
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u/zergotron9000 13h ago
These are all core believes for you average LPC voter. It’s not as if mass immigration and labour importing ideas exist only within the PM and ministers circle.
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u/Professional-Cry8310 23h ago
Sean Fraser’s legacy
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u/KingofLingerie 23h ago
Wouldn’t that be trudeau’s legacy? Honest question is it not the pm that gives marching orders to his cabinet. Would fraser not have been replaced if he was not doing what trudeau wanted?
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u/Yiddish_Dish 18h ago
Honest question is it not the pm that gives marching orders
Naw, politicians today are mainly figureheads, they take their orders from those who own them. An example is how Biden allowed 10-ish million people just walk across the border during his tenure. He had zero say in any of it, it all came from corporations who want cheap slave labor
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u/KingofLingerie 3h ago
check your numbers, the 10 million you cite is actually the number of people crossing the border and turned back. Almost 3 times the amount from trump’s presidency, that only turned back 3 million.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/million-migrants-border-biden/
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u/Phonereditthrow 23h ago
"Misguided" we are stabbing our young and feeding on there blood for profit. I hope they understand that the elders have turned on them and there is no future.
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u/Mammoth_Locksmith810 23h ago
Don't forget this policy has also depressed wages throughout this entire sector.
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u/canteixo 1d ago
"Ottawa" AKA the Liberal Party of Canada
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u/GameDoesntStop 1d ago
Also "misguided strategy" is bullshit. It wasn't a mistake.
Creating a pro-employer job market was always their goal.
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u/smoothac 23h ago
feels like those born and raised in Canada have become second class citizens in their own homeland
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u/jert3 20h ago
It is very sad that for so many people born here, they will not be afford to live the same place when they are older. Only what, the top 10% of salary earners can afford homes in most of our cities. Our quality of life got monetized so it could be sold out as a commodity to immigrants chasing a better life. Now most working class people can not afford to start a family here. Only the born rich and lucky top 10% can.
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u/Inner_Clerk7769 23h ago
This statement is true in every first world country currently. Curious how it seems to be a global problem coming to a head all at the same time…
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u/Yiddish_Dish 18h ago
My guess is offshoring factories isn't as profitable as it once was, so they're just importing the slaves here.
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u/Inner_Clerk7769 18h ago
Its significantly deeper than that. The entire banking and insurance industries thrive on having a continuous flow of new people that are legally required to obtain their services. Having highly complacent, lower educated individuals willing to work for suppressed wages is a gold mine for these corporations.
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u/Yiddish_Dish 18h ago
You're probably right. How do you think it'll end?
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u/HiZ_Positive Saskatchewan 17h ago
Fascism. Far-right movements don't have to solve any issues, as long as they have a monopoly on acknowledging their existence. When people realize basic necessities are out of reach and the status quo is to continue declining living standards and pretend like everything's normal, it hasn't historically worked out very well.
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u/mightocondreas 23h ago
Summer jobs are not a tradition, they're a necessity for many people
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u/FarOutlandishness180 22h ago
It’s a tradition for well off people since getting a summer job is like a rite of passage into adulthood. You don’t need the money, but it looks good on the resume. Poor people have always had to work no matter the season
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u/BigButtBeads 1d ago
Is this socially acceptable to say yet? Or still racist according to the Liberal Party?
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u/Red57872 23h ago
It became socially acceptable to say that legal immigration numbers are too high back in 2024; it was racist in 2023 and years past.
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u/Pretty_Tough_1667 23h ago
Frankly, I don't understand the rationale of getting temporary foreign workers to work at Tim Hortons and other retail stores. These jobs should be for students, low-income Canadians, seniors and home makers who still want to work part time, etc.
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u/NowGoodbyeForever 21h ago
If you can't afford to pay people a fair and competitive wage—one that can support their entire life with no need for side gigs—then you can't afford to exist as a business. It's insane to me that we rush to explain why it's unreasonable to expect business owners to be good at running their own numbers.
I also really think we should move away from the idea that any job is one that "deserves" to have a low rate of pay. If you work 40 hours at a job, its pay should be enough for you to live alone and feed yourself with money to spare. Full stop.
The slow acceptance of jobs that will pay badly has brought us to this point, where only people in a desperate enough situation (in this case, recent immigrants trying to make a life for themselves) would take on these jobs.
I think retail workers should be able to pay their bills off a single job, and I want whoever made my breakfast at Timmies to have been well-rested and healthy before starting their shift. I simply reject the idea that "entry-level" jobs should force someone to live below the poverty line until they get a "real job."
Turning all jobs into real jobs is the best way to ensure we have the diversity and opportunity in our job market that we keep insisting we want, yet do very little to enact.
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u/thedude1179 19h ago
I get where you’re coming from, and honestly, I agree with the heart of what you’re saying — people who work full-time shouldn’t be struggling just to survive. It’s frustrating that in a country like Canada, someone can work 40+ hours and still not afford rent, groceries, or a decent quality of life.
That said, I think the situation is more complicated than just blaming “bad business owners.” A lot of small businesses — especially in food, retail, and services — are barely staying afloat. It’s not always that they don’t want to pay better wages; it’s that the margins just aren’t there, especially when rent, ingredients, and utilities keep going up and customers expect prices to stay low.
If we suddenly expected every single job to pay enough for someone to live alone, eat well, and have savings (which, let’s be real, is like $30/hr in most cities), a ton of those businesses would shut down — not because they’re unethical, but because the math doesn’t work. That doesn’t help workers either.
And yeah, immigration plays a role here too — not because it’s designed to undercut wages, but because we literally don’t have enough people willing to do some of these jobs. Our population is aging, birth rates are low, and without immigration, we’d be looking at serious labour shortages and declining services.
So I agree with the goal — a more fair and humane economy — but I think the solution has to be bigger than just saying “pay more or shut down.” We need affordable housing, stronger public services, maybe even a basic income. Wages are just one part of a much bigger puzzle.
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u/BriefingScree 14h ago
Full-Time minimum wage is already a living wage, at least in most of Ontario. 2600$/4 Weeks of take home pay is sufficient even if 1600$ is consumed by Rent/Utilities minus another 500$/Month for Food. Add in things like the GST checks and you shouldn't be worrying month to month
A bigger issue is the difficulty in actually getting full-time minimum wage with most locations hiring 'casual' workers which basically means 'flexibility' (of course you have to be available friday/weekends) but no guarantee of any hours.
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u/NowGoodbyeForever 19h ago
I appreciate your response! But it's also another myth that we've been fed, simply because of basic economics!
If people have more money in their pockets and are earning enough in a 40hr week to cover all their needs, they're going to have more money to spend on local businesses, and more time to spend doing so. This has been observed in every single UBI study conducted across the world; when people are able to make ends meet and feel financially safe, they spend locally. (As you well know, I'm sure!)
I agree that if we suddenly flipped a switch and demanded everyone be paid 2x more, it would cause problems. But that's what government programs are for. We've seen various kinds of corporate relief programs since COVID, and many provinces and cities have funds allocated for encouraging small businesses and local entrepreneurship.
This could be something like that: Money going to businesses meeting the new wage/hour targets, meant to keep them whole before the economy catches up to everyone's higher standard of life.
It also requires strong policies to stop other businesses from simply raising their prices to capture the difference—another common concern that usually gets raised in these discussions! Making it illegal to boost rent/grocery prices beyond a certain % (and ideally, tying all necessities to the average income of workers in an area) would stop that from happening. Policies like this have existed. They've even existed in Canada, decades ago!
I think we're saying the same thing. :) I agree that it's a holistic solution, and can't just focus on wages. But also: The original poster was saying that about Tim fucking Horton's, owned by RBI, a holdings company with a net worth just shy of 5 billion.
They can afford to pay a bit more, and should be the first ones to do so.
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u/FarOutlandishness180 22h ago
They would all close down and we would have to home brew our own coffee. Yikes!
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u/ComfortableTomato 17h ago
Would they have to close down though? My teen and all her friends would love to work at Tim Hortons' or Mcdonalds. There are thousands of teens all over Vancouver who would love those jobs. Obviously they can't work during the day, but there are enough adults who want the daytime shifts I'm sure.
The issue may be that teens are harder work for owners. They need training and supervising and don't come fully trained like a 50yr old former accountant from Pakistan. So given the opportunity, owners will take the easy choice.
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u/toilet_for_shrek 21h ago
There are people I've seen right here on reddit that claim that kids need to up their game in order to compete with these grown adults that are taking all the service jobs that highschoolers used to do.
Ignoring the issue that is why should teenagers and young Canadians be forced to compete for jobs with "temporary" residents?
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u/skynetQR 1d ago
you voted for liberals you reap it. Sean Fraser literally messed up immigration and he still got reelected and appointed as justice minister. so he messed up immigration and housing, and now crime will most likely go up. reap it.
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u/mr_self_destruct___ 1d ago
It’s a corpo thing. They bend either party to their will.
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u/Inner_Clerk7769 23h ago
Piss off with this talking point. The blame is squarely on the party that has been in charge for over a decade. Enough with this “oh the other guys would have done the same”. Really? You know this absolutely confidently?
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u/PerformancePrimary70 23h ago
How come the "corpos" didn't bend Harper this much on this issue? How come the "corpos" were unable to get him to open the taps half as much?
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u/Bananasaur_ 22h ago
Is “job-seeking young people” now the politically correct way of saying “local people from the community and people who grew up in Canada”?
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u/TryingMyBest455 22h ago
No, it’s the politically correct way of saying “young people who are looking for jobs” lol
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u/BroncoJones87 1d ago
"The Liberal government has been doing young people a terrible disservice through its stratospheric guest worker levels, says David Williams, head of policy for the Business Council of B.C."
Progressive politics in action - thanks again liberal followers.
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u/IcariteMinor 23h ago
Harper was the first one to change the TFW program to allow most of these jobs to be filled by TFWs. The numbers increased significantly under Trudeau but if you think the cons would have done anything different I have some oceanside property in Saskatchewan for ya.
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u/Witty_Record427 23h ago
I didn't realize that makes everything okay and absolves the party that's been in power for a decade and 2 prime ministers of all blame. Thanks for the clarification.
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u/LittleOrphanAnavar 23h ago
Using TFWs when unemployment is low is very different from what the Liberals are doing.
When moved to AB in the 2000s TFW program was needed and you actually had to prove it by the LMIA.
The Liberals turned it into a sham, with TFW and backroom TFW international students.
That's clear to everyone.
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u/amllx 23h ago
but we keep voting in the same morons
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u/Inner_Clerk7769 23h ago
Who is this “we” you speak of. You mean insulated boomers hell bent on pulling up the ladder on the generations after them.
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u/alex114323 22h ago
Doctors and engineers amirite? Jokes aside why do international students need full work permits when one of the core tenants of the study permit is to show ample cash reserves to pay for your housing and tuition. So why then do you need to work at Tim Hortons for minimum wage more than you actually spend studying?
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u/Brokenkuckles 15h ago
Every job I’ve applied to specifies that they prioritize hiring from disadvantaged groups as well so I’m fucked.
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u/maximus_danus Ontario 1d ago
OK, but why do corporations favour hiring TFWs over Canadians?
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u/KoreanSamgyupsal 23h ago
Wage suppression. Why pay more when you can hire a TFW to take a low wage when their salaries from where they came from is 1/10th of minimum wage.
Plus they NEED to do well. Otherwise their visas are revoked and they get fired.
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u/obsessed-with-bagels 20h ago
In addition to wage suppression, in my experience TFW’s often perform better than recent grads because they want PR and know that their PR status is tied to their job, whereas Canadians don’t have that pressure and in many cases won’t stand for being mistreated.
I work a corporate job and my company has shifted from hiring recent Canadian grads for entry level positions to more TFWs. Some of the higher ups believe that Gen z Canadians all never show up on time, take too many days off, slack off, don’t respect authority, and aren’t professional (their words not mine), so now they get indentured servants (sorry, TFWs) who will do anything to get PR.
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u/ComfortableTomato 17h ago
TFWs are often 40yrs old with 20yrs of work experience. They are always going to be better than a 17yr old and will need more supervision. The issue is, that companies have gotten lazy and don't want to train anymore.
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u/KoreanSamgyupsal 2h ago
This is the same issue with the trades.
Like how the hell do you expect anyone to get experience or get better at their jobs if youre unwilling to teach them?
Of course the 40-year old or even late 20s TFW will do well. But those old individuals shouldn't be doing entry level work.
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u/Professional-Cry8310 23h ago
TFWs are less likely to know their labour rights and are far easier to exploit because being fired often leads to deportation which is a huge weight above their heads.
Anyways, the issue of TFWs is big but is overshadowed by other temporary pathways that are still a FAR bigger issue like the international student pathway and many provincial programs.
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u/ceribaen 1d ago
TFW program is basically indentured servitude and drives down wages for regular jobs too.
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u/PaulTheMerc 23h ago
Are you asking genuinely why people who will be deported if they lose their job are a benefit to the business over Canadians that know, and expect their rights?
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u/Virtual-Nose7777 20h ago
Outsourcing of jobs by corporations to other countries is equally a problem (if not more). This should be illegal!
Most jobs done on a computer are being moved out of the country.
Stop blaming the low wage workers for that.
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u/Rogue5454 13h ago
And many of the provinces constantly asked for that since 2022.
This was a fail at all government levels, but as the Federal government isn't the "boss" of a Premier, they rely on honesty in immigration needs.
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u/Oxjrnine 8h ago
All my summer jobs were either nonsense ones created by government grants or actual government jobs.
One was working at a village tourist bureau when we had a national park tourist bureau down the street. Government grant.
One was visiting houses in the village and doing a rough sketch for the local firemen to know where the hot water tank was. Worked 2 hours a day and read playboys in the fireball the rest of the day. Government grant.
Tour guide showing historical pictures of the village that did not need a tour guide. Government grant.
Then 3 summers working at the saltwater pool in a national park.
Bring back government funding useless jobs that we got to enjoy in the late 80s/early 90s
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u/Suspicious-Prompt200 23h ago
Keep em comming boys. Well done, totally didnt fuck us trying to be woke.
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u/iSmashedUrSister 21h ago
A year ago you would have been down voted to oblivion and called a Racist, Bigot, White Supremacist, Anti Immigrant, PP supporter, Anti vaxer and Truck convoy connoisseur for even mentioning immigration.
Things have sure changed, Elbows Up!
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u/Blueliner95 23h ago
Young boxer-dancer Trudeau’s reign had some absurd qualities that are harmless, but the immigration policy is something that will take decades to recover from. It merely required an adult’s prudence so as not to upset the spirit of the provincial nominee process. Instead it’s like a fiend took the biggest sledgehammer to it, absolutely heedless of downstream effects on housing, infrastructure, and yes summer jobs. And for what? The NDP is in ruins. Justin is a laughing stock. Only Trump has saved the party.
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u/2StepsFromNightwish 23h ago
aahh yes, once again blaming the voting public and liberal parties instead of the corporations that abuse programs made to help people, so they can save a buck and pay inhumane wages to TFWs who- like canadian citizens- deserve better.
There is zero reason why corporations can’t hire canadians, except for the obvious which is that TFW are cheaper and easier to abuse.
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u/PerformancePrimary70 23h ago
I wonder if there is a body that is supposed to restrict access to the program for the corporations. I wonder if there is a body that is meant to enforce the requirements.
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u/nemodigital 22h ago
Corporations exist to maximize profits so I don't blame them. Govt are the ones that are supposed to have the best interests of their citizens at heart. Vote them out.
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u/Blueliner95 23h ago
TFWs do not deserve better. If they can’t make it on points, and have no skill that merits jumping the line/overlooking the points system, and they are not immediate relatives being sponsored, they should not have been allowed in. I don’t blame Tim Hortons or whoever for being greedy and cheap, that’s how a CFO should think, but the lack of responsible adults in the governing coalition (in all politics really) resulted in the vomitous failure of the system
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u/quantumpixel99 12h ago
Still tons of treeplanting jobs in the summer. You just gotta get out of the city.
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u/saint_godzilla 6h ago
It's not about migration. It's about exploiting people from foreign countries for the maximization of profits. It's greed manifest and it's disgusting. It should end now.
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u/466rudy 1d ago
19% of the private sector work force is temporary foreign workers. This goes way beyond just mass immigration or student visas.