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In recent years, temporary foreign workers (TFWs) have not only played an important role in filling Canada's labour shortages and advancing Canada's broad economic and cultural interests but are also seen as a large source of permanent residents admitted to Canada. TFWs come to Canada through various work permit categories under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) and the International Mobility Program (IMP). This research uses the 2019 Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB) to examine the factors that predict the transition rates of TFWs admitted to Canada between 2005 and 2014. The results of this study show that the five-year cumulative transition rates of TFWs are strongly associated with their work permit categories. Further, this study reveals that age, skill level, and initial destinations significantly affect the transition rates of TFWs in Canada. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for economic immigration policy and make suggestions for future research. Résumé: Ces dernières années, les travailleurs étrangers temporaires (TET) ont joué un rôle important non seulement en comblant les pénuries de main-d'oeuvre au Canada et en faisant progresser les intérêts économiques et culturels du pays, mais sont également considérés comme une grande source de résidents permanents admis au Canada. Les TET viennent au Canada grâce à diverses catégories de permis de travail dans le cadre du Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires (PTET) et du Programme de mobilité internationale (PMI). Cette recherche utilise la base de données longitudinales sur l'immigration de 2019 (IMDB) pour examiner les facteurs qui prédisent les taux de transition des TET qui sont admis au Canada entre 2005 et 2014. Les résultats de cette étude montrent que les taux de transition cumulative quinquennal des TET sont fortement associés à leurs catégories de permis de travail. De plus, cette étude révèle que l'âge, le niveau de compétence et les destinations initiales comportent le taux de transition des TET au Canada. Enfin, nous discutons des implications de ces résultats pour la politique d'immigration économique et nous faisons des suggestions pour des recherches futures.

Every year more temporary migrant workers come to Canada to fill labour shortages in the agricultural sector. While research has examined the ways that these workers are made vulnerable and exploitable due to their temporary statuses, less has focused on the subjective experiences of migrant agricultural workers in regards their workplace health and safety. We conducted interviews and focus groups with migrant workers in the interior of British Columbia, Canada and used a narrative line of inquiry to highlight two main themes that illustrate the implicit and complex mechanisms that can structure migrant agricultural workers’ workplace climate, and ultimately, endanger their health and safety. The two themes we elaborate are (1) authorities that silence; and (2) “I will not leave my body here.” We discuss the implications of each theme, ultimately arguing that a number of complex political and economic forces create a climate of coercion in which workers feel compelled to choose between their health and safety and tenuous economic security.

Background Canada depends on Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs), also known as migrant workers, to fill labour shortage in agriculture, hospitality, construction, child/senior care, and other low-skilled occupations. Evidence shows that TFWs, especially women live-in caregivers (LC), constitute a vulnerable population. Their health is compromised by the precarious and harsh working and living conditions they encounter. There is a paucity of research on the mental health of LCs, their support systems and access to mental health services. Method In this community-based exploratory study, we used mixed methods of survey and focus groups to explore the work related experiences and mental health of migrant live-in caregivers in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. Convenience and snowball sampling were used to recruit participants. The inclusion criteria were: being 18 years or older, initially migrated to Canada as TFWs under LC program, resided in the Greater Toronto Area, and able to understand and converse in English based on self-report. This paper reports on the focus group results derived from inductive thematic analysis. Results A total of 30 women LCs participated in the study. Most of them were from the Philippines. A number of key themes emerged from the participants’ narratives: (1) precarious migration-employment status (re)produces exploitation; (2) deskilling and downward social mobility reinforce alienation; (3) endurance of hardship for family back home; (4) double lives of public cheerfulness and private anguish; and (4) unrecognized mental health needs. The study results reflected gross injustices experienced by these women. Conclusion A multi-faceted approach is required to improve the working and living conditions of this vulnerable group and ultimately their health outcomes. We recommend the following: government inspection to ensure employer compliance with the labour standards and provision of safe working and living conditions; change immigration policy to allow migrant caregivers to apply for permanent residence upon arrival; the TFWs Program to establish fair wages and subsidized housing so that caregivers can truly access the live-out option; and local ethno-specific, settlement and faith organizations be leveraged to provide TFWs with social support as well as information about their rights and how to access health and social care.

OBJECTIVES: Temporary foreign workers contribute to economic prosperity in Canada, but they experience forms of structural inequities and have minimal rights, which can contribute to their ill health. The objective of this scoping review is to examine the extent, range and nature of the Canadian literature on the health of temporary foreign workers and their families in Canada. METHODS: The review was guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s five stages for conducting a scoping review. We performed a comprehensive search of seven databases, which revealed 994 studies. In total, 10 published research papers, which focused exclusively on the health of temporary foreign workers in Canada, were included in the study; these 10 papers represented the findings from 9 studies. SYNTHESIS: The majority of the studies involved seasonal agricultural workers in the province of Ontario ( n = 8). Major health issues of temporary foreign workers included mental health, occupational health, poor housing and sanitation, and barriers to accessing health care, including fear of deportation and language barriers. These health issues are highly shaped by temporary foreign workers’ precarious immigration status in Canada. CONCLUSION: Findings from this study demonstrate the need to reduce barriers to health care and to conduct more research on other groups of temporary foreign workers, outside the agricultural sector.

Drawing on a survey of nearly 600 migrant farm workers in Ontario, Canada, we investigate the ways in which the liminality of temporary migrants is both conditioning and consequential in terms of health for these migrants. In particular, we demonstrate how the liminality inherent in managed temporary migration programmes creates the conditions for heightened vulnerability, which also have consequences for the health of migrant workers and their access to care. We discuss common barriers to health care access experienced by migrant workers, including employer mediation, language differences, and hours of work.

While migrant workers play an important role in maintaining the Canadian work force, unlike permanent residents and Canadian citizens, they are permitted to work in Canada only for short durations, with limitations placed on who they can work for, where they can live, and what services they have available to support them. The uneven allocation of rights to immigrants and migrants is enabled by a multifaceted immigration bureaucracy and the application of what I term immigration classifications. This analysis applies the lens of classification theory to examine the multilayered work that classifications do in the management of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) and access to settlement services. It finds that, built into immigration classifications is a prioritization of economic considerations of what make immigrants desirable for long-term settlement in Canada. These considerations further shape understandings of the role the state should take in supporting immigrants and migrants. This economic-focused perspective is prioritized at the expense of considerations of the human rights and settlement needs of migrant workers, leaving them systematically marginalized and vulnerable to abuse.

This article examines how the dormitory labour system as it is employed in the agricultural streams of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) affects workers’ everyday sociality. In the article, I demonstrate how the physical compression of home and work into a singular geographic site shapes workers’ identities and everyday relationships. Drawing on findings gathered from interviews with migrant farm workers from Mexico and Guatemala working in Southern Ontario, I explore how the requirement to warehouse temporary foreign workers directly on employer property collides with workers’ ability to establish an autonomous and dignified life in Canada. In particular, I demonstrate how the TFWP agricultural dormitory system produces inter-generational dynamics that intensify worker self-discipline and generates gender dynamics that support the development of a hyper-productive transnational workforce.

This study explored the settlement and integration experiences of 12 current and former Filipino temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in the low-wage service industry residing in a remote and isolated area of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The study employed a qualitative research approach that involved five in-depth semi-structured interviews and two focus group discussions, with data analyzed using thematic analysis. Informed by labour process theory, four major themes emerged from individual interviews and focus group discussions: (1) the importance of employment, (2) settlement and integration challenges, (3) looking forward-looking back–transnational navigation and (4) settlement and integration support. These themes help to tell the stories of TFWs in the service industry, including the challenges and opportunities of transnational migration. The findings highlight minimal organizational support available to TFWs in the settlement and integration process, with the lion’s share of this responsibility falling on other Filipinos within the community to provide tangible and emotional support. Recommendations for how to support TFWs’ settlement and integration needs in remote and isolated communities are discussed.

Temporary migrant workers represent a large portion of the labour force of Canada's agricultural industry with over 50,000 entering the country each year. Despite well-documented barriers, there have not been standardized and proactive measures to prevent and quickly respond to positive COVID-19 cases among this group who have experienced some of the largest outbreaks outside of long-term care facilities. We conducted research in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia between 2017-2020, with formal and informal support persons of migrant agricultural workers including members of government agencies, non-profits, and community groups. We found that migrant agricultural workers' access to support and services is constrained by a series of socio-political forces that we have termed \"Relentless Border Walls\". In this paper we define this concept and discuss three key factors that constitute it: onus on workers; paternalism and control; and system-enabled vulnerabilities. Ultimately, these concepts highlight how migrant agricultural workers are made uniquely susceptible to COVID-19 outbreaks, and suggest necessary social and political changes to better address the needs of this population.

Drawing on the experiences of service providers supporting live-in caregivers and migrant agricultural workers in two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec), we explore how structural violence shapes the precarious conditions of female temporary foreign workers. Service providers emphasized how transnational social pressures on women to maintain employment, the captivity involved in women’s employment contracts, the limits on unionization, and women’s isolation and lack of privacy, act together to create an unbalanced relationship between the employer and female worker. In turn, this leads to precarious migration and work conditions that foster a vulnerability to violence and abuse while at the same time limiting access to and delivery of services and social support to female temporary foreign workers. Amid these restrictions, service providers focus on making a difference where they can through initiatives such as human rights education workshops, offering support, understanding Canadian regulation, and empowerment workshops. Greater Canadian national options for permanent residency status could provide a basis for adequate services to temporary foreign workers as part of their universal human rights. Temporary foreign workers contribute to Canadian society, making it encumbant upon the Canadian state to ensure the respect of their universal human rights.