opinion

A temporary foreign worker feeds cattle at the MCF Leclerc Farm in Trois-Rivieres, Que., in April. In the first half of 2025, Canada renewed or newly issued 105,195 Temporary Foreign Worker permits.

The Conservatives are right: The Temporary Foreign Worker program mostly should not exist.

But the Conservatives are also missing something: the Temporary Foreign Worker program, or TFW, is only a small part − in fact the smallest part – of Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs.

These programs are not only about providing business with a steady supply of low-wage workers without permanent status – but they are partly, and even mostly, that.

They are not exclusively about driving down pay at the bottom end of the labour market – but as currently structured, they often are.

The

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