 Welcome to the CHIRES presentation where we will be looking at Canada's temporary foreign worker program and how it is impacting the lives of migrant workers. There are 258 million migrants all over the world. Migration has been happening since time immemorial and the factors that have shaped migration patterns still have an impact today. There are two types of factors that drive migration, push factors and pull factors. Push factors are what causes somebody to leave their country. Pull factors are what causes somebody to travel to another country. Many of these factors are the results of unfair trade practices between different countries. People continue to migrate in large numbers because it provides benefits to both. Setting countries and host countries. However, there are also drawbacks and challenges to host countries and sending countries. Permittances or the money that migrant workers send to their home countries are vital not only to their families but to the country's economies. Each year, more than 200 million international migrants send almost half a trillion US dollars back to their families in developing countries. An estimated 40 percent, around 200 billion dollars, reaches people in poor rural areas. This is 3 times more than most countries receive as official development assistance or ODA. These remittance flows to more than just ensure the families of migrants can put food on the table and send their children to school. They also support the local economies in their communities back home. Although remittances benefit their economies, sending countries experience brain drain. And while host countries benefit from low prices, they face a challenge of having more demand for human rights protection. So who comes to Canada? People come to Canada for many different reasons. Temporary foreign workers represent one of the major groups. There are people who are recruited to come to Canada on a temporary status under the temporary foreign worker programs to fill in jobs when Canadian workers cannot be found. This is different from refugees who flee unsafe conditions in their home countries and wait for their refugee claims to be processed. This presentation focuses on temporary foreign workers. If we combine all temporary foreign workers who come to Canada, we will end up with the second largest group. Canadian immigration system used to be a nation-building strategy. However, it's been shifting towards temporary market workers instead. Nowadays, temporary foreign workers are often treated as disposable labor. Canada's temporary foreign worker program is meant to fill gaps in the Canadian labor market. Legally, employers have several responsibilities toward temporary foreign workers. However, those responsibilities often fall on the workers themselves. Many migrant workers cover their own travel expenses and arrive in debt. Some migrant workers do not have access to health care for fear of being fired. Many workplaces across Canada ignore basic safety rules. The most common regions the workers come from are Central America, Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia. Canada's temporary foreign worker program is divided into two categories. High-skilled category refers to jobs that require high credentials and experience in the field, such as managers, medical doctors, engineers, social workers, and more. Low-skilled category refers to jobs that require lower levels of formal training, for example, blue-collar and minimum wage jobs. Temporary foreign workers under the low-skilled category are employed as caregivers, agricultural workers, drug drivers, farm workers, fast-food workers, and more. They have different access to different drives and different resources. The temporary foreign worker low-skilled category has several jobs that fall under it. The two major programs are the caregiver program and the seasonal agricultural worker program. The caregiver program has two streams, caring for children and caring for people with high medical needs. Workers can apply for permanent residence after working for two years, provided they meet many requirements. Seasonal agricultural worker program is based on agreements between Canada and sending countries, such as Mexico and Caribbean countries. The sending government recruit workers. They also make sure they have the necessary documents. The government appoints their own representatives to assist workers in Canada. There is no path to permanent residence in this program. The many other smaller types of jobs that are part of the low-skilled category have their own unique challenges, but they are all part of the same system that exploits workers and makes them vulnerable. Non-status workers either come to Canada under the temporary foreign worker program and lose their status, or they overstay their visitors' visa and are working under the table. There are up to hundreds of thousand non-status workers in Canada. All of them are vulnerable for exploitation because they are not protected by any of Canada's labour laws. Due to the lack of status, these workers have trouble accessing basic services, such as healthcare, housing and emergency services. The numbers are high. Toronto alone is home to between 30 and 250 thousand non-status persons. There are several major concerns with the temporary foreign worker program. Concerns relate to many facets of migrant workers' lives, including access to permanent status, working and living conditions, connections with family, and access to resources. Temporary foreign workers wait years to reunite with their families. Some of them don't have access to permanent residence. Some don't have access to employment insurance, and tight work permits make them unwilling to change jobs no matter how badly they are treated. Temporary foreign workers are often housed by their employers, which often leads to reliving conditions, isolation from community supports, and increased vulnerability to exploitation. The video you are about to watch is an example of many systemic hurdles migrant workers sometimes have to face. Marcia Barrett got the call. Her 39-year-old cousin, Sheldon McKenzie, was in hospital. A head injury suffered on the job at a tomato farm in Ontario. His face was completely bondage. He was swollen. When we got there, he was on life support. McKenzie was in Canada as part of the seasonal agricultural worker program. Barrett says there was immediate pressure to have him sent home to Jamaica. And it came, she says, from a surprising source, the Jamaican liaison officer whose job it is to advocate for workers. He believes workers are pushed out to avoid compensation claims and damage to the reputation of the program. The only way he was in shit back maybe in three days was because we were there with our heels stuck in saying no, because the health care in Jamaica is not up to par to take care of the kind of injury that he has. Sheldon McKenzie died in Canada of his injuries. The organization in charge of Jamaican liaison says it's unaware of its officers putting that kind of pressure on injured workers or their families. There is good news in that temporary phone workers are organizing for their rights within Canada. The clip you are about to watch is from a conference held by the International Migrant Alliance and it is a part of a global movement to help migrant workers everywhere. The INA is democratic because we are proud to be grassroots. We are grassroots and are working for grassroots. We reach out to more organized and unorganized migrants to strengthen our global movement. More importantly, we unite and work with other oppressed sectors, with farmers and workers, women and youth. The INA is a symbol of our sincerest commitment to build that global migrant movement that is unified as one sector. In collaboration with temporary foreign workers, CARES migrant justice goals are the following. Permanent residents on arrival, clearing the backlog of permanent residents' applications, better access to support services, and open work permits. Migrant workers are working towards their rights. You, as individuals or as communities, can collaborate with migrant workers to advocate for better changes and better experience for migrant workers in Canada and elsewhere. Thank you for watching the presentation. To learn more about CARES migrant justice work, please visit www.carriscanada.org, slash what we do, slash migrant justice, or email connysorio at csorio at carriscanada.org.