B.C. building trades unions are enjoying a major win in the battle over the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program, after the Federal Court approved their request for a judicial review of the program, announced by unions Friday.
The call for the review was triggered by HD Mining's hiring of 200 Chinese miners to work in a B.C. coal mine, which the unions say was unjustified and asserted that there were qualified Canadian workers available to fill these positions.
"What this means is that for the first time in Canada, the cornerstone of the temporary foreign worker program will be reviewed in a public court hearing with critical federal government documents open to full scrutiny," said the building trades' legal counsel Charles Gordon.
"This clearly means that if the unions' arguments are accepted that the LMOs [labour market opinion studies] that allowed HD Mining to bring Chinese workers to Canada were flawed, they could be set aside by the court."
Gordon said the review will lead to the federal government being required to disclose the documents that it used as a basis for determining that HD Mining was unable to find Canadian workers to fill the positions.
Brian Cochrane, business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115, said the decision will put the entire TFW program under scrutiny for the first time.
"We have said from day one that not only were the HD Mining TFW permits wrongly granted, but that this entire program is unfair to Canadian workers," Cochrane said.
"Now we will have a window into how the federal government grants permits bringing hundreds of thousands of TFWs to Canada and we believe that will force major changes to the program."
The review will take place from April 9 to 11.
