At a forum in downtown Vancouver on Saturday, August 10th, the West Coast Domestic Workers’ Association (WCDWA) presented findings and recommendations from its new report, “Access to Justice for Migrant Workers in BC.” The report addresses a wide variety of inequities and forms of discrimination that are intrinsic to the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), along with the program’s successes. It also includes specific stories of abuse and injustice experienced by people in BC employed under this program. Next to Ontario, BC employs the second-highest number of TFWP workers in Canada.

Participants at the forum included a number of individuals employed under both the Live-In Caregiver Program and agricultural worker streams of the TFWP, as well as representatives and advocates from a number of organizations involved in migrant labour issues. Other participants included Vancouver-Kensington MLA Mable Elmore, Lorene Oikawa, Vice President of the BC Government Employees Union, Judith Diesta from the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers’ and Caregivers’ Rights, Lucy Luna from the Agricultural Workers Alliance, and Al Li Lim, Staff Lawyer and Executive Director of WCDWA. Following the WCDWA’s presentation, participants engaged in a roundtable discussion on the issues addressed in the report, including how to better serve needs of people who are employed under the TFWP.

To read “Access to Justice for Migrant Workers in BC,” please click here.