A never-released consultant’s report urged the Canadian government to take steps to prevent employers from abusing federal programs that let them hire temporary foreign workers. The March 2024 report prepared by Deloitte for Employment and Social Development Canada recommended the agency immediately increase the volume of “randomized, field-level reviews” and audits of workplaces that employ …
A never-released consultant’s report urged the Canadian government to take steps to prevent employers from abusing federal programs that let them hire temporary foreign workers.
The March 2024 report prepared by Deloitte for Employment and Social Development Canada recommended the agency immediately increase the volume of “randomized, field-level reviews” and audits of workplaces that employ temporary foreign workers.
Deloitte’s report, which is based on interviews with government officials and what the consultancy called “open-source” intelligence, focused on the “misuse” of so-called Labour Market Impact Assessments, or LMIAs, documents employers must obtain before hiring temporary foreign workers.
Deloitte’s report corroborated evidence from investigations by the IJF and CBC that found some employers and consultants are illegally making workers pay them for LMIAs, often to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.
Deloitte’s report said this was particularly common in specific industries like trucking, agriculture and hospitality, which already have disproportionately high numbers of temporary foreign workers.
Deloitte also reported that government representatives identified British Columbia and the Prairies as regions with “high prevalence of misuse,” though the consultancy concluded LMIAs were being misused across the country.
In addition to making workers pay for LMIAs, the report said there was evidence some employers coerced money or labour from workers by threatening to terminate their employment or by withholding their sponsorship to remain in the country.
“Examples indicate employers are aware of the value placed on the LMIA in connection [to] immigration status and use this as leverage to exploit [temporary foreign workers],” the report said.
The report appears to have been commissioned in early 2024 at a time the temporary foreign worker program was under intense scrutiny.
A report from the IJF and CBC, for example, found cases in Ontario of employers charging workers tens of thousands for LMIAs, sometimes for jobs that did not actually exist.
Other reports have found cases where workers in sectors like trucking and agriculture are systematically underpaid, housed in poor conditions, and sometimes coerced by employers who threatened to terminate their immigration status if they did not comply.
A UN special rapporteur has argued the program is a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery,” though Canadian officials have said that comparison is inflammatory and unfair.
The Deloitte report recommended government officials immediately scale up randomized inspections of workplaces for temporary foreign workers and that they increase documentation requirements for LMIAs — changes the government has since implemented.
The report also recommended the government create a dedicated framework to detect fraud in the temporary foreign worker program, which Deloitte suggested could include using artificial intelligence to monitor employer performance. The version of the report, released under access to information law, contained redactions, including large segments of the report labelled “detailed findings” and most of a section about “sectors/regions with high prevalence of misuse.”
Employment and Social Development Canada, the federal department that commissioned the report, declined to provide a full unredacted copy to the IJF.
Source: Investigative Journalism Foundation (Subscribe for more information)
