responding to real worker shortages

I have to disagree. And I'm as left as they come by the way. I don't blame immigrants for wanting to come her to make a better life. I blame the corporations for taking advantage of that and the government for rubber stamping LMIA applications.

We'll take my little nothing town for example. Swift Current, Saskatchewan. According to the LMIA map available here, we have 84 approved temporary foreign workers, mostly in coffee chains, convenience stores and gas stations.

Meanwhile, as a retail manager, I get five or six resumes a week from people who are either a) naturalised immigrants b) Canadian by birth, or c) folks who have just recently finished up their own TFW "contract" for lack of a better word.

So the way that LMIA works is that the business owner "applies" to the federal government and makes the case that they need to get a cheap overseas labourer because there isn't any local person available to do the job. So in a town of 15000 people, there aren't 84 unemployed people looking for part time work? I know for a fact that that's not true because I get them applying here all the time.

The fact is, these corporations apply for an LMIA because they don't have to pay them more than the bare minimum for an "x" amount of time. Then when that time comes up, rather than giving our raises, they don't give them raises, forcing them (who are now effectively naturalised) to go find another job, freeing the corporation up to apply for ANOTHER LMIA, which gets rubber stamped.

Like I said, I'm as left as they come. This country is made by it's immigrants. It's rich because of our multicultural history. Immigration is a great thing. Hell, I'm a first generation Canadian. But the temporary foreign worker program is just a way for companies to use indentured servitude to create a "service class" made up of immigrants.