Employment Minister Jason Kenney is seeking feedback on stricter penalties for employers who abuse the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
A discussion paper posted online Wednesday evening outlines proposals for stricter fines and a permanent ban on serious offenders.
The proposed changes were originally floated last spring as part of the government's budget implementation bill. The discussion paper provides more details on the process of suspending or revoking permits for companies that abuse the program would work, and calls for feedback on its plan from individuals and organizations.
The consultation period will run until Oct. 15, and after that the changes would be made through regulation and would not require further legislation in Parliament.
The rules will also apply to the Live-in Caregiver Program, according to the discussion paper. Reforms to that program are expected this fall.
The proposals come after an overhaul of the temporary foreign worker program last spring, which placed caps on the number of low-wage workers a company could hire and increased some fines and fees.
The discussion paper goes further, suggesting a minimum fine of $500 and a maximum of $100,000 for serious violations. 
"Penalty amounts would vary based on whether the employer is an individual or small business, or a large business or corporation, as well as the employer’s compliance history and the severity of the violation," according to the paper.
The proposals also include making offenders' names available on a public black list, and one-, five- and 10-year moratoriums on using the program.
Some stakeholders and critics said they are puzzled by the proposals, wondering why the government hasn't been taking such measures for years.
"This is the kind of thing they should have been doing right from the start," said Dan Kelly, head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, told The Canadian Press.
"My hope is that if they go down this road, maybe they can unwind some of the terrible reforms that they made in the summer that are unfairly penalizing companies that haven't done anything wrong."
Jinny Sims, the NDP's employment critic, raised concerns about enforcing the tougher rules.
"Despite their grand claims of reform, this paper reveals how pitifully little the Conservatives have actually done to fix the program," she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"The sanctions also depend on catching violators, and the discussion paper says not all inspections will involve a site visit, so once again they're going to rely on paperwork .... how do you judge from a piece of paper? It makes no sense."
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Transport Ministry cuts ties to border agency after migrant blitz

Transportation Minister Steve Del Duca has cut his ministry’s ties with the Canada Border Services Agency for the foreseeable future.

The office of Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca says the ministry "was not involved" in the federal border agency arrests in Toronto last month.
COLIN MCCONNELL / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
The office of Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca says the ministry "was not involved" in the federal border agency arrests in Toronto last month.
Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca has cut his ministry’s ties with the Canada Border Services Agency for the foreseeable future.
Del Duca spokesperson Patrick Searle said Thursday operational relations with the federal agency have been suspended while his ministry reviews a controversial incident last month when immigration officials rounded up undocumented workers during a roadside commercial vehicle check.
“There will no longer be blitzes with the CBSA as the review is ongoing,” he told the Star on Thursday.
“I have been told the review period should be wrapping up in the next few weeks,” he said referring the internal ministry probe.
On Aug. 14, Canada Border Services Agency officers used a commercial vehicle roadside blitz along Wilson Ave., between Jane St. and Hwy. 400, to arrest 21 undocumented workers.
Immigrant advocates and a critic denounced the province for playing along with immigration officials in what was supposed to be a routine roadside check.
In the meantime, No One Is Illegal, a migrant justice organization, has filed a complaint to the Ontario ombudsman urging a public investigation into what it says amounted to racial profiling, and anti-migrant detentions.
Ombudsman André Marin’s office confirmed that a complaint was received and that No One Is Illegal will be notified if the matter warrants an investigation.
The CBSA has said it is fairly routine to work with the Transportation Ministry and insisted it was invited after partner agencies “noticed that many drivers stopped during blitzes had immigration warrants.”
“As a result, it was determined that the CBSA’s presence would be beneficial in the processing of these individuals,” the federal agency stated earlier.
Searle countered that it was the CBSA that took the initiative “and they invited the OPP and they extended the invitation to the MTO (as well).”
The minister’s spokesperson was also insistent the ministry and the CBSA did not work in tandem but rather in two separate spot checks some distance apart and that the ministry’s only concern was the safety of commercial vehicles.
“The MTO was not involved in any of the CBSA (blitz),” Searle told the Star in an earlier interview.
Meanwhile, the federal Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness is making no apologies for the CBSA doing its job.
“We will not compromise the integrity of our immigration system,” Jason Tamming, a spokesperson Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Minister Steven Blaney, said in an email to the Star.

Comment:
"Everybody, except government, is a criminal

A couple of years ago, I had a pleasant conversation with Jason Kenney. We were talking about how best to verify the job skills and economic viability of foreign trades workers already in Canada.

I suggested to Minister Kenney that we simply follow the same process which has proven successful for over 100 years … ask reliable employers to give a job reference for an already well established worker.   

The Minister said that he did not trust employers.

I ask: “why not?”

He answered that “employers only give jobs and references to their friends and paisans “.

A couple of years earlier, Minister Kenney met with a few small Toronto area trades employers. He told the group that employers of Portuguese background are not reliable because they only hire Portuguese workers and won’t give a Canadian a chance.

Over the past 18 months, Kenney has confirmed his adversarial attitude towards small and medium sized trades business.

Today, September 26, 2014, the Minister put one more nail in his government’s relationship with small and medium trades business.

Business = abuser = fraud =criminal=shut down of the foreign worker program.

The point here is that Minister Kenney is allowing his personal vendetta against the market system to dominate good public policy.

When I was a young man, we had a name for government people who were driven by a visceral mistrust of small business … they were called “communist apparatchiks”.

When I was a young man, we had also a name for those who switched partners and, naturally, got paid for their efforts… they were called, among other things, fallen souls.   

Jason started off as a paid Liberal apologist. He became a paid Reform radical. Then a paid Alliance strategist, Now, he’s a paid Conservative statesman.

Who’s next? How much? What message?

Apparatchik + situational ethics+ 2015 election+ 2016 leadership campaign =
 killed foreign worker program= economic chaos"

Richard Boraks, Sep 26 2014