HUMAN RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT RESEARCH STAFF
Government officers told to skip fraud prevention steps when vetting temporary foreign worker applications
August 30, 2024 ·
Contributed by: Ghada Alsharif and Kenyon Wallace, Toronto Star
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As the Trudeau government promises to crack down on a temporary foreign worker program it admits has been abused, a Star investigation has revealed the government is fast-tracking applications by directing processing officers to skip crucial steps designed to prevent fraud.
Beginning in January 2022, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) directed staff to apply “streamlining measures” when evaluating the legitimacy of applications by employers who want to hire temporary foreign workers.
According to internal ESDC documents obtained by the Star and interviews with a current ESDC employee, routine checks meant to ensure the system is not abused by unscrupulous employers have been suspended in an effort to process applications faster.
Those checks include contacting employers to confirm they actually applied to hire a worker, verifying that lawyers and consultants applying on behalf of employers are in good standing with their regulator, and clarifying the overtime, vacation and benefits promised to the worker.
“This really shows a complete contradiction between the public-facing government policies and how the program is actually run,” said Catherine Connelly, a professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business who has been studying the temporary foreign workers program for more than a decade who examined the internal ESDC documents.
“On one hand, we’re told the government will crack down on everything, and then on the other hand, we see from the documents that this is clearly a rubber stamp,” she said. “If the government is not going to do even basic checks, how can the public have any confidence in anything?”
Read the full article in the Toronto Star.
