Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) has crossed the line from a stopgap solution for labor shortages into a system that normalizes exploitation. A new report from UN special rapporteur Tomoya Obokata lays bare what migrant-rights advocates have warned for years: the program is a breeding ground for “contemporary forms of slavery.”
The facts are staggering. In 2023 alone, employers were approved to hire nearly 240,000 temporary foreign workers more than double the number just five years ago. What began as a way to plug gaps in agriculture now extends into fast food, construction, and even low-wage healthcare jobs. Yet the core structure of the program hasn’t changed: work permits remain tied to a single employer, trapping workers in jobs where wage theft, abusive hours, unsafe conditions, and even sexual harassment are well documented.
Obokata’s investigation found workers saddled with crushing debts, forced to repay recruitment fees while enduring hazardous workplaces and emotional abuse. Some injured laborers were sent back to the fields before healing; others were shipped home when they sought medical care or compensation. And while these workers pay into Canada’s social programs, they cannot access the benefits they help fund.
This isn’t just economic exploitation it’s racialized dehumanization. As Chris Ramsaroop of Justice for Migrant Workers puts it, Canada is “profiting off of the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifices of Black and brown workers of the global south.” That indictment should shame a country that prides itself on fairness and inclusion.
Ottawa’s response has been to promise “stricter oversight” and sector-specific permits. But these are cosmetic fixes. So long as workers’ right to remain in Canada depends on a single employer’s goodwill, they will fear retaliation if they speak up. That imbalance of power is the very mechanism of their exploitation.
The moral path forward is clear: grant these workers a real stake in the society they sustain. Permanent resident status would give them the freedom to leave abusive employers, access the social programs they pay for, and build stable lives for their families. Anything less perpetuates a system of indentured labor that has no place in a modern democracy.
Canada cannot continue to outsource its prosperity to people it refuses to protect. The choice is stark: either embrace the dignity and rights of those who feed us and care for us or admit that the country’s economic engine is powered by a form of slavery in all but name.
