By Yumna Iftikhar | The Independent
As Newfoundland and Labrador continues to rely on newcomer and migrant workers in various sectors, human rights advocates are sounding the alarm on growing reports of labour trafficking in the country, due in part to Canada’s flawed Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Labour trafficking is a form of human trafficking in which individuals are coerced to work against their will. Currently, there aren’t many reports of labour trafficking in Newfoundland and Labrador but advocates say that’s not because it isn’t happening. With rural areas prone to exploitation of foreign workers, who number in the thousands here, advocates say the province needs to follow the lead of other Canadian jurisdictions and legislate specific protections.
It’s a reality the province’s new premier, Tony Wakeham, doesn’t appear prepared to confront.
During his Nov. 25 state of the province address before business leaders in St. John’s, Wakeham acknowledged the importance of workers in the province, saying he is “proud to be a pro-trades-union premier” who will “always stand up for our workers in the trades.”
After the event, The Independent asked the premier whether his government would create legislation to protect the rights of migrant workers in the province. He was non-committal. “I think that’s an important issue right across the country, and that’s something that I certainly want to be engaged with,” he said, stopping short of any commitment to concrete actions.
Temporary foreign workers need more than interest and concern, says Dolores Mullings, a professor with Memorial University’s School of Social Work. “Being concerned is not enough. You have to have actions behind that.”
Labour trafficking reports on the rise
A new report from the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking claims the organization saw a 317-per cent increase in reports of suspected labour trafficking in the country in 2024, compared to the annual average of 24 cases reported to the centre’s hotline between 2020-2022.
The organization defines labour trafficking as a form of human trafficking where “violence, threats, lies, debt bondage, or other forms of coercion [are used] to force people to work against their will” in any number of industries.
“Migrant workers are made vulnerable by structural inequities built into the Temporary Foreign Worker Program,” says Julia Drydyk, the Centre’s executive director. “When employers seize on those vulnerabilities, it creates the conditions in which exploitation can take hold.”
In 2023 the United Nations called Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.”
Drydyk says while the Centre’s new report documents fewer calls from the Atlantic provinces—under 10 per cent of the national total—migrant workers are particularly vulnerable in rural areas, “where we’re finding industries that are bringing in temporary foreign workers,” and where it’s more difficult for organizations or awareness campaigns to reach workers.
Due to its stagnant and aging population, Newfoundland and Labrador relies heavily on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program across many sectors, including the seafood industry and the healthcare and hospital sector.
Advocates, people with lived experience, and community members have been calling for reforms to the program for a long time but “governments aren’t really necessarily listening,” says Mullings, or they have deflected responsibility to the federal government.
Migrant workers fill labour shortages in sectors like seafood processing, agriculture, construction and healthcare. They contribute to the provincial economy, and to growth in rural communities where populations are in decline.
Despite their positive contributions, they still face a common perception that they are here to steal locals’ jobs. “Almost like people don’t understand or don’t have any sense of gratitude or care that they’re contributing to the running of this province,” says Mullings.
“When people sit with me or speak to me, and I see tears, or I hear the worry, or I hear the isolation and the desperation, [it] breaks my heart. It really, it really breaks my heart, and I feel that governments can do better.”
From proactively enforcing existing protection laws, to providing stable funding for community organizations working to end exploitation and abuse of migrant workers, there are many actions the provincial government can take to support migrant workers.
In 2018 the Canadian Council for Refugees graded Newfoundland and Labrador a ‘D’ for its legislative protection of migrant workers, noting a lack of migrant worker-specific legislation in the province’s Labour Standards Act. The centre also gave the province a ‘C’ for enforcing legislative protections, saying labour standards legislation is “generally enforced reactively, when a complaint is received.”
The council says complaints-driven monitoring is “not effective, since workers often don’t have the information on how to make a complaint, and are frightened of the very real ramifications of making a complaint.”
Community organizations need support
Non-profit organizations and agencies that provide critical services to migrant workers need stable funding from the provincial government, Mullings says.
According to the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, legal assistance is the most frequently requested form of support by migrant workers.
The Public Legal Information Association of Newfoundland and Labrador is the province’s only non-profit that offers legal support to newcomers, including temporary foreign workers.
Maria Mulcahy, the project coordinator for the association’s legal clinic, says migrant workers face labour exploitation at an “alarming” rate in the province. She says migrant workers often come to Newfoundland and Labrador without knowing their legal rights, a situation that becomes more challenging when workers are tied to their work permit and housed by their employers.
“If anything goes wrong or they do face exploitation or harm, it’s like they could lose their job and also their home,” Mulcahy explains.
Most temporary foreign workers who come to work in the province are constrained by a closed permit, meaning they cannot work for any employee except the one who initially brought them to Canada. Their health insurance is also linked to their employment.
This exacerbates an already-uneven power imbalance between the employer and worker. In 2014, Canada suspended the work permit of the owner of a Greco Pizza and Jungle Jims in Labrador after migrant workers reported abuse, including being forced to live in a split-level residence with more than two dozen other workers.
Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission Executive Director Carey Majid says while the commission has seen an increase in calls from foreign workers, many of them ultimately don’t file a complaint. “Many do not proceed through the human rights complaint process, even if we have jurisdiction to support them, out of fear of retaliation or immigration related consequences,” Majid explains.
Mulcahy says the province needs to reduce migrant worker exploitation and address the vulnerability that prevents workers from seeking help. She would like to see more funding for organizations like hers so they can offer better and specific services to those being exploited.
“It’s really important to emphasize how having a precarious immigration status creates vulnerabilities in so many other areas of your life, like employment, like housing, like healthcare, all of these things,” she explains.
Mullings says temporary foreign workers would benefit from the kinds of settlement services offered to refugees and permanent residents, through which they could find help with housing, accessing healthcare, understanding their legal rights, and integrating into the community. Existing federal funding rules prevent organizations from providing these services to temporary foreign workers, a gap some provinces have begun to fill — but not Newfoundland and Labrador.
Provincial governments must make the application process for organizational funding more efficient, Mullings says, explaining groups shouldn’t have to “jump through hoops” in order to fund basic resources.
Mulcahy says provincial leaders can also advocate to the federal government for better measures to protect migrant workers in Newfoundland and Labrador. “They do have their voices and their positions, and they do have their power.” She would like to see more long-term or permanent immigration options, especially for the most vulnerable. “We see folks falling through the cracks of programs that are designed to protect them, or designed to support them or provide options for immigration for them,” Mulcahy says.
Looking to other provinces
Newfoundland and Labrador can also look to other Canadian jurisdictions, says Mullings.
British Columbia and Prince Edward Island have introduced laws to help safeguard migrant workers from exploitation. PEI’s new Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act bans recruiters—agencies which help employers find workers abroad—from charging foreign workers recruitment fees, and from withholding workers’ official documentation and passports.
If the PEI government determines workers are being mistreated, it can suspend a recruiter’s or employee’s license or penalize them for misusing the program. Recruiters have been caught charging migrant workers seeking employment in Canada excessive fees even though it’s illegal to pass fees onto the worker.
If the province wants to continue hiring foreign workers, it needs to “protect the human rights” of those workers, Mullings says. “Because migrants’ rights are human rights.”
