Alexander Brown calls for sweeping immigration reforms, advocates for youth
Alexander Brown, a Juno News host and the director of the conservative taxpayer advocacy group the National Citizens Coalition, called for a range of immigration reforms.
Alexander Brown, a Juno News host and the director of the conservative taxpayer advocacy group the National Citizens Coalition, called for a range of immigration reforms, blasting the federal government for not prioritizing Canadian citizens and youth with its immigration policies.
During a House of Commons’ immigration committee hearing on Tuesday, Brown laid the blame for Canada’s high unemployment, failing healthcare system, poor housing market and low public opinion of Canada’s immigration system at the feet of the Liberal government.
“We need to get this fixed, to borrow from a terrific Jamie Sarconic column, turning down the taps won’t unflood the basement, and all we’ve done is turn down the taps,” Brown said during his testimony Tuesday. “On the temporary foreign worker and international mobility program front, …it wouldn’t be wrong to view these programs as distortionary government subsidies or welfare for unproductive businesses. The effects disproportionately harm younger Canadians who are priced out of the labour market.”
He said that bringing in low-wage international workers through the temporary foreign worker and international mobility programs, while unemployment and particularly youth unemployment is high, is harmful to both Canada’s youth and foreign workers themselves.
“Given that temporary workers overwhelmingly earn less than the median wage, and yet we’re constantly hectored about labour shortages and Canadians’ unwillingness to do certain jobs, it shouldn’t take much intellectual effort to see that use of foreign labour and the difficulties of employing younger Canadians are two sides of the same ugly coin,” he said. “Foreign workers are more cooperative, because they are bound to their employers like serfs, and they face barriers to joining unions.”
He added that the UN branded Canada’s “abuse” of its foreign worker programs as “contemporary forms of slavery” for a reason.
Brown, on behalf of the National Citizens Coalition, called on the Liberal government to abolish the temporary foreign worker program, “for all but the hardest-to-fill” jobs such as seasonal agricultural workers and construction engineers.
His advocacy group wants safeguards in international student programs to lower permanent-residency levels, further strengthen deportation policies, “prioritize high-value students,” and reinstate a points-based immigration program to ensure that only high-quality immigrants come to Canada.
Conservative Immigration critic Michelle Rempel-Garner noted that many Canadian youth are concerned as their first job opportunities “evaporate” due to businesses’ reliance on temporary foreign workers.
When asked if his organization is hearing these concerns from Canadians, Brown said that students were approaching him during a visit to the University of British Columbia and several told him they’ve sent out “hundreds of resumes” and still struggle to find a job.
“We have an obvious issue,” he said. “Former Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge warned us that the last thing we want is a bunch of low-productivity businesses hanging on because we provide them with cheap labour. Not only is it bad for Canadian productivity, but there’s also a big risk that it contributes to wage suppression and job displacement for Canadian workers.”
Rempel-Garner proposed incentivizing workers already in Canada to move to areas in need of labourers rather than to densely populated areas with high unemployment. Brown agreed.
“My concern, first and foremost, and I appreciate the concerns of others, is that the Canadian workforce is Canadian jobs. It’s our record and continued unemployment,” Brown said. “ I’d love for the best in B.C. to be working in Quebec right now. I don’t want there to be shortages anywhere. But we have a massive backlog of unemployed young Canadians, of unemployed Canadians, that we surely need to continue to give the first crack to.”