The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has reached out to each of Canada’s 308 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the hopes of shedding light on the benefits of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) to small businesses.
The CFIB sent each MP a copy of Making it Work: Real Stories of Small Business and Foreign Workers, a compilation of stories of small businesses that depend on the TFW program.
The TFW program has received some negative press recently in the wake of reports that a major Canadian bank had used the program to outsource jobs overseas. CFIB president Dan Kelly said, however, that although some larger companies may abuse the system, it is still an essential program for many small businesses.
“We want to avoid a classic ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ scenario,” said Kelly. “While the program may have been misused by a few large companies, small firms use it to fill in gaps where no Canadians are able or willing to work.
“These are stories of need, not greed.”
The report features stories of small businesses across the country from a number of different industries, and all have the theme of having the need to fill positions in order to protect the existing jobs in these small businesses.
