Eric Lefebvre

“Mr. Speaker, we recall that the United Nations special rapporteur warned that Canada’s temporary foreign worker program can create conditions resembling modern-day slavery. Last month, the San Group, a company operating in Port Alberni, was fined $429,000 and banned for two years for serious violations involving migrant workers. My office met with those workers, and they were terrified. They feared losing their jobs, their status and the money they had borrowed to come to Canada. It was NGOs, the Salvation Army’s Michael Ramsay and Kim Tran, a local Vietnamese interpreter, who stepped up and helped out because the federal government was not there to support these migrant workers who were trying to get help. A two-year ban certainly is not enough. Exploited workers deserve timely support, open permits and a pathway to permanency. Does my colleague agree that this program needs to be fixed and that there needs to be funding to support workers?”