New rules to protect Canada’s temporary foreign workers were announced almost one year ago but Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has announced that they are now ready to be implemented on April 1, 2011.

“The government is taking action to protect temporary foreign workers, including live-in caregivers, from potential abuse and exploitation,” said Minister Kenney, “we owe it to them, their employers and all Canadians to ensure that the program is fair and equitable. After all, they are an essential element of Canada’s economic success.”

Temporary foreign workers, especially live-in caregivers, can find themselves in vulnerable positions when they live in an employers home. Sometimes they are expected to work overtime with no extra pay or are treated poorly but are too afraid to leave the job. These rules will ensure that the temporary foreign workers are treated properly and that they don’t end up paying thousands of dollars to come to Canada and obtain a job that doesn’t exist.

The new changes include:

A limit on the amount of time a temporary foreign worker can work in Canada before going home.

Employers who fail to meet their commitments with regards to the occupation, working conditions and wages will receive a two-year ban from hiring temporary foreign workers.

A more thorough assessment on whether the job offer from the employer is genuine.

Employers will also investigated with respect to their prior records of hiring temporary foreign workers and how they have treated them in the past.

In 2009, 76 Tamils were found aboard the Ocean Lady, and this week another boat has docked containing approximately 500 Tamils, who have been at sea in cramped conditions since May. Some of the refugees were dehydrated upon arriving, but Canadian officials have found no evidence of weapons or communicable disease on board.

The Tamil people are an ethnic group from Sri Lanka who speak the Tamil language. The volatile war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group, has driven almost a million Tamils from their homes to either safer areas in the country or other countries, namely Canada, which has the highest population of displaced Tamils. India also has a large share, but the Tamils there live largely in special refugee camps. The majority of Canada’s over 200,000 Tamil population reside in Toronto.

On what is now referred to as “Black July”, July 23, 1983, attacks against the Tamils killed as many as 3,000 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. Since then, Tamils have faced certain death, including the attempted genocide of their race, being killed for not siding with the terrorist forces, children being used for slave labour or cannon fodder and murdering Tamil females of childbearing age. Tamils being associated with the terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers, is sometimes unavoidable under penalty of death.

Critics have said that the Tamils have been able to afford $50,000 a head to be able to get on the ship and head to Canada, which could raise suspicion. However, the Tamils on the ship have likely sold everything they’ve owned, including land that has been in their possession for generations.

With all of the publicity the ship garnered, it is likely the Tamils would have been killed on return to Sri Lanka if the ship had been sent back. A similar incident happened when Canada turned away a Japanese ship carrying Punjab migrants in 1914, where at least 19 were shot upon returning home. In 1939, Canada also turned around a ship carrying almost 1000 Jewish asylum seekers, 200 of which were killed by Nazis upon returning back to Europe.

Canada is a big country, with plenty of wealth and freedom to go around. While it can be frustrating to those who are waiting to immigrate to Canada, the Tamils, in practical terms, cannot apply for refugee status from their own country, nor a nearby “safe country”. The majority want a better life or a life at all, and deserve a shot at what Canada has to offer.

Canada has a tradition of an open door policy to those feeling persecution since WWII. Despite the new proposed refugee reforms that will make it more difficult for refugee claims to get processed in Canada, we still are the democratic country of last resort to many in need.

The Canadian government has finally succumbed to pressure from a number of provinces that have been lobbying to remove the visa cap in the Provincial Nominee Program, after it has become very apparent that Canada is in dire need of more foreign workers due to labour shortages.

On Tuesday, August 10th, Canadian immigration officials announced that despite saying the numbers of visas under the Provincial Nominee Program would be reduced in June, that they will increase the numbers instead.

In order for someone to work under the Provincial Nominee Program, in most cases, they must already have a job waiting for them.

Saskatchewan was initially allowed 3,700 but will now get 4,000 visas and Manitoba will get 5,000 visas, up from 4,600.

British Columbia will receive 300 more, giving the province 3,500 total provincial nominees, and Alberta will receive 5,000 as opposed to the original 4,400 they were allocated.

In Ontario, the Provincial Nominee Program allows skilled workers to be nominated by the province and receive approval for their permanent residency visa sooner. Workers need to have a job waiting for them along with a Nominee Application package from Opportunities Ontario, have at least two years of work experience within the last five years in the occupation and have been offered a salary that meets the prevailing wage in the area for that application.

As of April 2010, international students can also use the Provincial Nominee Program if they have completed their post-secondary education at a Canadian institution or received their PhD from an Ontario University.

A bulletin published by Citizenship and Immigration Canada on July 22nd states that “persons who have deserted the military in their country of origin may be inadmissible to Canada”.

Michelle Robidoux of the War Resisters Support Campaign, a support organization for Canadian war resisters, told the Postmedia News on Monday that, “They’re calling these cases high-profile and contentious. They’re saying (the soldiers) may be criminally inadmissible, creating this perception that they’re criminals,” she said, “it appears they are prejudging these individuals who should be treated like any other applicant.”

About 50 war resisters have applied for refugee status in Canada since 2004, but there are an estimated 200 or so in Canada currently. Of the 50 applications, 10 have been denied and the remaining 40 are still waiting, but the bulletin is believed to possibly eventually sway the decisions because it makes it appear as though the soldiers are committing a crime.

The timing of the bulletin is also somewhat suspicious, as in one month’s time a vote will be held on a private member’s bill that would allow war deserters to apply for permanent residence, although it is not known if it will exclusively apply to American soldiers.

While the bulletin may conjure up imagery of American soldiers coming to Canada, other non democratic countries (and some democratic ones) make it mandatory for all citizens to serve in their armies for a certain period of time and is known to draft citizens including women into combat unless they get married, are of a certain religion or flee.

Needless to say this is a very troubling development. Many military deserters from non-democratic countries are deserving of protection from Canada rather than being branded criminally inadmissible. This approach would certainly run counter to our democratic traditions of protecting people fleeing nations that do not respect human rights. I would hope that at lease there will be some desecration built into the law allowing for consideration of all the circumstances surrounding the desertion including the human right track record of the county in question.

Unscrupulous immigration consultants have been widely reported on in the media of late, taking advantage of immigrants and taking their money while offering little in return and in some cases, nothing in return. They finally received enough attention for the government to propose new rules to regulate the industry, but now some Canadian job recruiters are taking advantage of temporary foreign workers.

The Calgary Herald reported on one woman who paid almost $6,000 to an employment agency and learned there was no job for her after she landed, even though she had a work permit and experience.

Hundreds of separate investigations in Alberta have been launched within the past four years alone, looking into these employment agencies and their charging of fees for essentially doing nothing. Charging fees to help someone find a job is illegal, so the fees go by other names, like “settlement” fees.

In the fall, Ottawa is expected to receive recommendations on how to fix the problems because no matter which province the problems occur in, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a federal program.

In December 2009, there were approximately 283,000 temporary foreign workers in all of Canada.

Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney proposed new measures last year that would help solve these problems such as having a better assessment process of potential job offers, checking out employers with regards to their compliance with labour laws and placing restrictions on hiring foreign workers if the employer is found to break promises about wages and work conditions.

Those changes have not come to pass, but other changes have been considered with regards to employment agencies, such as: revising the definition of an employment agency, requiring written contracts between job seekers, employers and employment agencies, putting an end to false advertising, threatening deportation and misrepresenting wages and the rights of workers and regulating fees for settlement services. It should be decided this fall as to whether any of these proposals will become reality.

As reported by 680 News, former immigration judge and city councilor Steve Ellis has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Ellis was found guilty of breach of trust and bribery in April and was charged in 2006 after he propositioned a South Korean refugee claimant for sex, in exchange for an approval.The meeting with the Korean claimant was recorded who took the matter to police.

In a statement in court Friday, Ellis apologized and said he’s ashamed.

At his sentencing hearing, Ellis’ psychiatrist testified that the 50-year-old suffered from a bipolar disorder, which leads to errors in judgement. The judge said Ellis breached the trust placed in him and that his actions undermine the public’s confidence in the immigration system.

This illustrates how far we have come in terms of protecting the rights of refugee claimants. However, it is ironic that the Tory’s with their new refugee reforms,  are seemingly rolling back the protections afforded to claimants fleeing persecution overseas. Well, at least claimants can know that once they reach our shores, their rights are respected at least until a final decision is made on their claims.