Canadians support a scale-back of Ottawa’s temporary foreign worker program as concerns about housing and employment opportunities continue to grow, new polling data indicates.
Forty-three percent of Canadians said they support the federal government’s move to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers in the country, a survey from Angus Reid found. While 14 percent of those polled said they were happy with the program as-is, 22 percent said the program should be discontinued in its entirety.
More than half of Canadians—55 percent—said the original program negatively impacted the local job market, while 75 percent said it was worsening the housing crisis.
Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault announced the government’s plan last month to reduce fraud and misuse of the temporary foreign worker program. The changes, set to begin Sept. 26, include refusing applications in the low-wage stream in metropolitan areas with an unemployment rate of 6 percent or higher as well as placing a 10 percent cap on the number of foreign workers an employer can hire through the program.
Ottawa will also cut the maximum duration of employment for temporary workers in the low-wage stream from two years to one year.
The government’s revisions received support from voters of all political stripes. Fifty-four percent of Liberal, 44 percent of NDP, 42 percent of Bloc Quebecois and 39 percent of Conservative voters agreed the scaled-down version of the program should move ahead, the poll found. Conservative voters were most supportive of eliminating the program entirely.
“Canadians have grown more concerned about the effect of immigration overall—four times as many people select it as a top issue as did two years ago,” Angus Reid said in a report presenting its findings.
“For these and perhaps other reasons, the desire to open a pathway to citizenship for all temporary workers is relatively low among Canadians.”
Fifty-two percent of those polled say citizenship should not be available to temporary foreign workers as part of the program, while 36 percent supported the notion.
Alberta and Ontario, the two provinces with the highest temporary worker populations, were the most likely to say Canada takes in too many temporary workers.
Sixty-six percent of Alberta respondents said the country takes in either “way too many” or “too many” workers compared to 61 percent of those polled in Ontario. Quebec was the least likely to agree, coming in at 42 percent.
Overall, 29 percent of Canadians said the country takes in “way too many” temporary foreign workers while 27 percent said it takes in “too many.” Twenty-four percent said Canada is taking in the right number while 6 percent said the country is admitting too few.
