Cameroon national Ladurelle Tsemzang Donfack, who works for tank truck manufacturer Tremcar in Quebec, says he is uncertain what the future holds for him after Ottawa's policy reversal on temporary foreign workers.Andrej Ivanov/The Globe and Mail
A group of Quebec businesses are suing the federal government for $300-million over Ottawa’s sharp tightening of the temporary foreign worker program last fall, arguing that the policy reversal was too abrupt and could drive some of them into insolvency.
The lawsuit, filed in late May, includes nearly two dozen companies in industries from plastics to truck components to slaughterhouses concentrated in the Montéregie region of the province, just outside Montreal, along with five temporary foreign workers whose livelihoods will be or have been affected by the policy changes.
Lawyer Frédéric Bérard alleges that their Charter rights to security of the person were violated by the sudden about-face from the federal government, because the workers are being deprived of their ability to support their families.
“It’s a cri de cœur and we’re sounding the alarm,” he said. “You made a promise, you sent us down a path, and then overnight you snap your fingers and tell us it isn’t the right path anymore.”
Mr. Bérard said the federal government violated the “legitimate expectations” of businesses in Quebec when, last August, it announced that companies could no longer employ more than 10 per cent of its work force through the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program. Under the changes, which took effect at the end of September, companies in high unemployment areas can no longer hire low-wage TFWs at all, except in certain high priority sectors such as construction and health care – a blow to many of his clients.
“The government has the power to change the rules of the game, that’s fine,” said the Montreal-based constitutional lawyer. “It’s a question of how they did it. Was there warning? Was there a minimum of consultation?”
The businesses themselves say they have been left holding the bag after investing heavily to expand on the assumption that the temporary foreign worker program would continue as it was. Although the program had been expanded in response to labour shortages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Patrick Charbonneau, CEO of the Granby, Que. waste-collection equipment company Durabac, said continuing skills shortages in the region make foreign workers necessary.
“We made major investments based on the old policy, around $10-million, obviously with the intention of hiring more foreign workers, because in our region there aren’t workers in welding, mechanical assembly,” said Mr. Charbonneau.
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The federal ministry of immigration and employment, named as respondents in the lawsuit, have not filed a statement of defence, according to Mr. Bérard’s office. The ministry of immigration did not respond to The Globe and Mail’s request for comment on Friday. The ministry of employment declined to comment.
Mike Moffatt, an economist who is the executive in residence at the Smart Prosperity Institute and founding director of the Missing Middle Initiative, argued that while the federal policy shift was abrupt, the Quebec companies could reasonably have predicted that it would ramp down at some point.
“What goes up has to come down,” he said. “I don’t understand how they could think this would be a permanent thing, when all of the increases were couched as being temporary to deal with the pandemic.”
Chronic shortages of native-born manual workers, meanwhile, should eventually be resolved by increasing pay to make those jobs more attractive, he said. “At a certain point we have to say, ‘How much should government be subsidizing industries that aren’t raising their wages?’”
The Quebec government also requested the temporary foreign worker program be tightened last year as part of the province’s overall reduction in immigration, which the government of Premier François Legault has called necessary to preserve social services and protect the French language.
But Mélanie Dufresne, vice-president for the tank truck manufacturer Tremcar, said her company’s foreign workers are model immigrants who are largely drawn from francophone countries such as Madagascar and Tunisia.
“We teach them the Quebec lingo!” she added.
Despite a company program to train Quebec workers on the job at $25/hour, Tremcar still can’t hire enough native-born welders and other manual labourers. About 40 of their 400 employees in Quebec came through the TFW program, although they are slated to lose 20 of those next year under the new restrictions – a hit that will combine with tariffs to hurt the company’s competitiveness, said Ms. Dufresne.
“Society has changed, we stopped having kids, and we encouraged our kids to get a university education so everything manual is no longer in fashion,” she argued. “Night shifts are less sexy.”
The Cameroonian foreign workers at the Tremcar plant in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, outside of Montreal, are happy to take night shifts and are excellent workers, she said. But they have been deeply unsettled by changes to the temporary foreign worker program. Many were hoping to bring their families over but those plans are on hold as it appears unlikely their contracts will be renewed.
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Georges Toh, a father of four who is not part of the lawsuit, says he dreamed of coming to Canada for 15 years. He planned to bring his wife and four kids to Quebec and has even started enjoying poutine. But with two years left on his current contract and renewal unlikely unless the federal government reverses course again, he has become plagued by uncertainty.
“It effects us morally: We can’t give our hundred per cent like we did, because we’re so anxious,” said Mr. Toh.
Ladurelle Tsemzang Donfack, who is also not part of the lawsuit, came from Cameroon to work at Tremcar last fall, so he hasn’t met his six-month-old son, Kylian. He also planned to bring his family to Quebec, but is now unsure of what the future holds. His video calls with his four children are full of difficult questions.
“They say, ‘Papa, when can we come and make snowmen?’” he recalled. “I ask myself, why didn’t the state plan to take into account temporary foreign workers? Imagine you leave with hope of seeing your wife and kids soon and then, boom.”