September 8, 2025
The Honourable David Eby
Premier of British Columbia
PO BOX 9041 STN Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC V8W 9E1
Via email: premier@gov.bc.ca
On 4 September 2025, you issued a surprise statement calling for the cancellation or drastic reformation of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). The Migrant Workers Centre has also long called for significant reforms to this program, including the granting of permanent residence on arrival for migrant workers. However, instead of fighting for the rights of vulnerable migrant workers, your announcement unfairly blames them for the housing crisis and other government failures.
Founded in 1986, the Migrant Workers Centre (“MWC”) is a non-profit organization in BC dedicated to legal advocacy for migrant workers. MWC facilitates access to justice for migrant workers through the provision of legal education, advice, and full representation. The organization also works to advance fair immigration policy and improved labour standards for migrant workers through law and policy reform and test case litigation.
The Migrant Workers Centre was extremely concerned and disappointed by your statement, as it appears to be an abandonment of the workers’-rights principles that your party has long stood on. If your office is truly concerned with ending the exploitation and abuse inherent in the TFWP, there are concrete actions that your majority government can take right here in British Columbia to advance the rights of migrant workers and limit the powers of bad actors who misuse the program and abuse the workers within it:
- Support migrant justice groups in calling for permanent residence status for all. Lack of employment mobility and precarious immigration status create the conditions that incentivize bad employers to exploit migrant workers and drive down working conditions and wages (including through wage theft).
- Reform the Employment Standards Act and implement stronger protections for migrant workers:
- Increase the limitation period and recovery period for filing complaints. Currently, workers only have 6 months to file complaints about wage theft, and they can only claim up to a year of wages. Many migrant workers do not learn about their rights until it is too late, and many put up with exploitation and abuse for years because of their precarious immigration status.
- Implement overtime pay and hours of work protections for agricultural workers. There have been suggestions in the public discussion of this issue that there be carveouts for agricultural workers – who are some of the most exploited migrant workers in Canada – from any cancellation of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Currently, agricultural workers can work 16+ hour days, seven days a week, and are entitled to zero overtime pay. If you are worried about exploitation, then help end the institutionalized, exploitation of agricultural workers and the racist and discriminatory employment laws that enable this exploitation.
- End severance exclusions for construction workers. Currently, construction workers can be terminated without any notice or payment in lieu of notice. Migrant workers on employer-specific work permits cannot simply find alternate employment if they are terminated from a construction job.
- End harmful categories for care workers that exclude many from protections. Care worker categorizations result in many workers being excluded from overtime protections based on very minor and arbitrary differences in their jobs. For example, a live-in care worker who is paid by an employer directly might be entitled to overtime wages while a care worker who is paid through a government grant might not be entitled to overtime, even if both workers are performing the same job.
- Properly resource the Employment Standards Branch (ESB). The ESB is the only administrative tribunal we are aware of that does not provide interpretation services for complainants whose first language is not English. This is especially harmful considering the ESB is tasked with administering the Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act. The Migrant Workers Centre has filed a Human Rights Complaint against the BC Ministry of Labour for its refusal to provide interpretation to a worker who needs it to properly participate in the ESB investigation process; we will continue to file similar complaints while this problem persists.
The ESB must also be mandated to urgently process complaints from migrant workers given their precarious immigration status and limited employment mobility. Laws against retaliation mean nothing if it takes over a year before an investigation into that retaliation begins. - Properly resource the Human Rights Tribunal. Currently, the Tribunal takes about two years to even notify a respondent of the complaint, and the entire complaint process can take upwards of four years. These unjustifiable delays are a major impediment to access to justice and result in many migrant workers abandoning complaints or simply choosing not to file. It is heartbreaking that a migrant worker who has faced sexual harassment in the workplace will likely need to wait four years before getting any type of justice.
- Reform the Residential Tenancy Act. Increase protections for workers who live in accommodation provided by their employers. Care workers who live with their employers are completely excluded from section 48 protections and can be evicted without notice if they are terminated. Workers who are entitled to eviction notice only have 10 days to file a dispute if their employer breaks the law. Most migrant workers do not about their tenancy rights until it is too late and have no recourse if they are illegally evicted.
- Enhance rules for workplace safety. Migrant workers often put up with unsafe work conditions because of their precarious immigration status. Stronger rules need to be put in place to protect workers, especially regarding heat waves and wildfire smoke, and these rules must be enforced proactively.
We also call on your government to implement a dedicated WorkSafe BC team for migrant worker claims that approach claims with a trauma-informed, cultural sensitivity and is trained to understand the limitations of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and a migrant worker’s difficulty in asserting their rights. - Fund Legal Support. The province is responsible for many of the laws and practices that put the migrant worker community at risk, but the province provides very little funding to non-profits and community organizations to respond to the needs of the migrant worker community.
These concrete actions will reduce exploitation in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in a way that respects the dignity of migrant workers, rather than treating them as scapegoats. We would appreciate the opportunity to discuss these actions with you further so that we can work together in the advancement of all workers’ rights.
Sincerely,
Jonathon Braun
Legal Director
Migrant Workers Centre
302-119 W. Pender Street
Vancouver BC V6B 1S5
Email: jon@mwcbc.ca
Website: www.mwcbc.ca