Good Enough to Work, Good Enough to Stay: Fixing Canada's Immigration System with Pablo Godoy

Perspectives: A Journal of Political Economy and Social Democracy

After a long summer break for the Perspectives Journal Podcast, we’re back! With the problematic Temporary Foreign Workers Program in the news, as well as growing anti-immigrant sentiment across Canada and other Western countries, we kicked off this season asking what’s behind this narrative, who’s to blame, and what the working-class is doing to fix this problem.

While the mainstream media casts blame on governments, there isn’t much direct criticism for the companies and industries actually exploiting these migrant workers. Also absent from the mainstream narratives on immigration are the voices of labour unions, and migrant workers themselves.

The Perspectives Journal Podcast spoke with Pablo Godoy, Regional Director, Western Provinces and Emerging Sectors for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Canada (UFCW Canada) on how the temporary foreign workers program has come to be so problematic, what needs to be done to fix Canada’s immigration system, and what labour is doing to act now while the federal government and industries sit on their hands, and let anti-immigrant sentiment ferment.
See also:

• Broadbent Fellow Ethel Tungohan's work on 'Care Activism' that shows how migrant care workers are organizing for a better care economy, featured in Perspectives Journal.
• The latest story from PressProgress' Labour Reporting Intern, Nadia Khan, on how Wage Inequality for Racialized Workers in Canada Reflects Lower Union Representation.
• Remarks by Simran Dhunna, an organizer from the Naujawan Support Network, speaking at the Broadbent Institute's 2024 Progress Summit on how migrant workers are organizing against wage theft and exploitation.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.