GRSJ224/Canada Federal Skilled Workers Program Victimizes And Discriminates Against Visible Minorities

Canada’s Federal Skilled Workers (FSW) Program: Discriminates and Victimizes Visible Minority Immigrant Workers

OVERVIEW

For over forty years, Immigration Canada’s “skilled-based immigration policy” is biased against visible minorities, women, and applicants from non-European countries. For too long, Canada’s economy has depended on attracting immigrants to settle and work in this country either as cheap sources of labour or as skilled workers to fulfill gaps in the labour market. This need for

foreign supplies of labour to keep the economy operating has been in conflict with Canada’s desire to preserve this nation’s “whiteness.” Nevertheless, Canada’s existing “Skilled Workers’ Immigration” policy is used to attract applicants who have post-secondary education, marketable skills, and relevant work experience. However, once in Canada, far too many immigrants, especially visible minorities from non-European countries, are told their foreign qualifications are worthless here and they must retrain or accept low-paying jobs far below their actual credentials.  In terms of human costs, this deskilling of highly educated, skilled professionals who immigrate to Canada has been found to negatively impact too many visible minorities (especially non-white women) at the “axis of gender, race, ethnicity, class and citizenship.”

The Federal Skilled Workers (FSW) Program

Out of the 230,000+ immigrants who arrive every year, over 46 percent are professionals and technical workers lured to Canada by the FSW program’s promises of good jobs with high pay.  Despite being well-respected, highly skilled, well-compensated workers in their own country, several studies have found the persistent existence of a wide income gap between immigrant workers compared to native Canadian workers. Even though many well-educated immigrants arrive in Canada with university degrees, several years of relevant work experience and strong work ethics, these positive attributes are often not enough to guarantee them decent jobs commensurate with their qualifications. The ugly truth, they soon learn, is that once they arrive in Canada after qualifying on Canada’s points-based immigration policy, there exist several barriers to overcome before they can find their dream Canadian job in their field. The biggest obstacle is the refusal of the Canadian government to recognize foreign credentials even from highly respected

universities in other countries. New immigrants arriving in Canada provide the country with a supply of well-educated, skilled workers, but they are then told they need to re-qualify and retrain at Canadian institutions in order to work in their field. The reality is that Canada does a far better job attracting skilled-worker immigrants to come to Canada than the government does supporting those immigrants once they arrive.    

Wage Statistics (Immigrants vs. native Canadians)

2016 Census data from Statistics Canada (2018) confirms there is a significant wage gap between immigrants and native Canadian workers. Statistics show that equal or higher qualifications will guarantee immigrant workers who are visible minorities and/or women will be treated equally by Canadian employers or the Canadian government. Chinese women professionals (as well as men) who immigrated to Canada were found to be significantly under-employed in mediocre/menial jobs after leaving their high status jobs in China. The same is true for many other groups of visible minority immigrant workers. Their low wages are due to low marginal returns on their foreign education and discriminatory wage practices by Canadian employers who know that many immigrants whose foreign credentials are unrecognized in Canada are desperate to find any job to support their families.

Immigrants’ Gendered Wage Discrimination

In fact, Census 2016 statistics proves that for immigrant workers, just as with native Canadian workers, there exists a very real, statistically proven gender-based income bias. Based on tax-return filings, female immigrant workers who have lived and worked in Canada for at least 10 years earn only 69% of what male immigrant workers earn, whether they were citizens (f$28,100 vs. m$40,500) or non-citizens (f$21,600 vs. m$31,200). These statistics, though, prove what an advantage it is for immigrants to qualify for Canadian citizenship after they move to this country, if for no other reason than to improve their earnings potential in a labour market where citizenship status is an intersectional force of oppression and discrimination.  

Racialized and Nationalistic Wage Discrimination

Of course, due to racialized and nationalistic wage discrimination, both female and male immigrant workers earn far less than their native Canadian counterparts, regardless of their qualifications. At the intersection of race and citizenship status, wage discrimination results in unfair wage gaps between equally qualified immigrant and native Canadian workers. Among immigrants who arrive outside the FSW program, race discrimination in the form of greatly reduced employment opportunities and lower wages is even worse. Unskilled, “economically unproductive migrants”, political refugees, and asylum seekers all face even greater barriers to successful assimilation, social acceptance, and economic success. Whereas skilled worker immigrants and investor class immigrants generally arrive in Canada with significant resources allowing them to survive financially for a time, refugees and asylum seekers often arrive virtually penniless. Their poverty increases their difficulties adjusting to life in Canada compared to wealthier immigrants as they add another intersection of oppression (poor/low social status) to their situation.    

State-Sponsored ‘Bait & Switch’

Canada’s immigration policy can, therefore, be categorized as a state-sponsored form of “bait and switch” that “tricks” highly skilled workers into leaving their home countries and immigrating to Canada based on promises of good jobs and brighter futures. Unfortunately, for far too many visible minority immigrants (especially women), Canada’s refusal to recognize their foreign credentials leave them either unemployed or frustratingly under-employed at low-paying, menial jobs which many native Canadians do not want to work at. Instead of a better life for themselves and their families, skilled worker immigrants learn the harsh realities of life at the intersections of multiple forces of oppression, including racism, gender discrimination, citizenship status, and social status after entering Canada’s FSK program.