OTTAWA

The Conservatives didn’t invent the temporary foreign worker program but they are now wearing it.

Under their watch the program has mushroomed and so have the abuses. They have proved woefully unable to police the program.

The program has also exposed the darkest instincts of too many small Canadian businesses, the same businesses this government claims to champion.

They have shown no hesitation in uprooting Canadian workers and replacing them with temporary foreign workers, finding the latter more compliant and less likely to push for those highly inconvenient things like better hours, better pay and days off.

The Conservatives have now done what seems to be the impossible — cutting hours for Canadian workers, setting the stage for the ill-treatment of temporary workers, further alienating the labour movement in this country and fielding complaints from small businesses who play by the rules who say those rules are too onerous.

In reality, the program either needs a complete overhaul, with caps put on the number of temporary workers in this country, or it should be scrapped and replaced with new immigration rules.

Its legitimate value has now been deeply sullied by those who won’t play by the rules.

The tipping point may have come this week with the television pictures of a weeping Sandy Nelson, a 58-year-old Weyburn, Sask., waitress tossed from her job after 28 years and replaced by a temporary foreign worker.

“How can that be right?’’ she told the CBC. “They are not Canadian. I am Canadian.’’

She was turfed after almost three decades of loyal service. Her employer at Brothers Classic Grill and Pizza said he was playing by the rules.

That’s hard to see — the first rule of the program, clearly stated on the website of Employment and Social Development Canada is “Canadians must always be first in line for available jobs.’’

In response to abuses in the past, Employment Minister Jason Kenney enacted a number of changes to the program effective at the start of this year.

No longer could the foreign workers be paid as much as 15 per cent below accepted market rates, they had to be proficient in English or French, and the company hiring them would have to show that they have a plan to find qualified Canadians for the job in the future. The onus to prove there is no Canadian available is exhaustive.

It allowed Kenney to “black list” those who have skirted or broken the rules and gives the government stronger powers to perform on site inspections.

Despite all that, employers still find a way to exploit or simply cheat.

Most of the information is so far anecdotal, most of it unearthed by the CBC, involving fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s and Dairy Queen.

But it has also involved oilsands workers in Alberta, laid off in favour of workers imported from Croatia, and a contentious British Columbia case of a mine which claimed the need for Chinese-speaking employees.

Most of the recent cases involved young workers and, in the food service sector at least, the debate is now a broader one over the number of young Canadians who will actually do these jobs and the manner in which they comport themselves once they have them.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business will tell you that Canadian applicants for work in the service industry will not work as hard, will push for more holiday time or time off, don’t always show up for work, don’t smile enough, and essentially don’t want the jobs because they find them demeaning after graduating from university. In other words, they would have you believe that our level of university graduation, which is higher than in countries where the temporary workers are from, is hurting small business.

Paying better wages for flipping their cheap burgers doesn’t seem to enter any discussion.

What employers appear to be doing, at least in these recent cases, is purposely talking down Canadian employees or creating conditions which will force their departure so they can try to make the case for lower-paid, harder working temporary foreign workers.

So far, the Kenney blacklist includes three McDonald’s in Victoria, Jungle Jim’s in Labrador and The Boathouse in Fenelon Falls. The Weyburn allegations are under investigation.

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These would be good restaurants to avoid. If they can’t play by the rules, they shouldn’t be patronized.

But Kenney has to prove he can police his program, by imposing real penalties, not suspensions. Without that, the abuses will continue and the program’s credibility will continue to crumble.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

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