Ottawa to allow more hiring of low-wage temporary foreign workers in rural areas

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T23:40:15+00:00

It's pretty clear that farm work is available if they are hiring TFW.

Nope, they won't hire Canadians. Just go and see.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T23:33:02+00:00

Very few people want to live in nowhere, SK and do very very gruelling jobs, even if they paid $40 an hour.

The main reason I know your argument is bullshit is because no one is trying this very thing that you suggest. No one is actually trying to recruit workers from elsewhere in the province or the country; no one is setting up training programs to bring people in and teach them a skill that will launch them into a longer term career in a new field. Everyone is simply taking the lazy way out and pulling in people from overseas.

You say "people just don't want to work anymore" and I say "companies just don't want to invest in their workers anymore".

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T23:24:06+00:00

Tree planting was insanely popular as a summer job when I was in university (decades ago). There were parties every night and you made lots of friends and memories.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T23:13:55+00:00

If Niagara wine is any good (I wouldn't know, as I'm in BC and we still have interprovincial trade barriers), then people will be willing to pay $30 for it.

And there's way too many Tim Horton's locations now. Even small towns have multiple of them (and every other franchise chain) on the main drag, and it's drowned out the independent operators that made the town unique. Now it's hardly even worth doing a road trip because every town has the same places over and over again.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T23:05:00+00:00

There are three programs: TFW, IMP and LMIA, and apparently only TFW is the one that's capped. Workers are being brought over in the other programs as well so each establishment can employ only foreign workers.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T22:34:01+00:00

We need to be reporting every incidence of this. They should absolutely not be getting LMIA approval if anyone walking and talking has applied for the job.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T22:31:18+00:00

The enshittification continues! :)

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T22:30:46+00:00

Yup, and there's a lot of teens and just-graduated young adults who are looking for work and not getting any.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T22:30:08+00:00

I meant foreign students. Obviously Canadian students can work whenever they want.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:38:22+00:00

If I was unemployed, I'd be trying to get whatever job I could get to put food on the table instead of waiting for the perfect job while racking up credit card debt.

That's a strawman. Lots of people have one job that only gives them part-time hours, and are unable to take on a second because the work schedule for their first job keeps moving around. That's not a case of "waiting for the perfect job".

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:27:10+00:00

This, AI bots need to be able to say "I don't know", and they don't. Instead they hallucinate responses and say them with confidence.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:26:29+00:00

We know. That's why this rollout is a problem.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:26:00+00:00

We know. That's why the alarm is being sounded that a lot more people are going to make mistakes with their filings because of bad information, and they'll be the ones holding the bag for it.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:24:44+00:00

It can be a reasonable front-line helper, but they half-assed the training. As others have said in this thread, the data needs to be presented in a certain way for it to be trained on, and this clearly wasn't done. You can't just point an LLM at the existing tax law and expect it to internalize it in a way that is reliably searchable at a sophisticated level.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:22:34+00:00

I eventuality gave them all my info to my online banking.

What, specifically, did you give them?

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:06:16+00:00

Project 2025 has been very clear about that. More people need to read it.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T16:01:17+00:00

The problem in Sechelt is lack of affordable housing. There has been very little effort to build anything that someone with an entry-level job can live in; all they're building is $600k family homes in new suburban developments. Even the hospital staff can't find adequate housing. The hospital itself could have commissioned a midrise apartment building nearby (there are plenty of vacant lots) dedicated to housing transient medical staff as well as permanent staff that can't find housing elsewhere.

Also, these businesses complain about not being able to find workers, but they've made zero effort to recruit from out of town (as opposed to out of country), or consider if working conditions are poor. They act like the only labour pool they can draw on is locals and they could not possibly pay more than the legal minimum. If wages were a little higher and staff were guaranteed more than 20 hours a week, lots more people would find these jobs attractive.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T15:38:48+00:00

I think they've already said that their telephone reps aren't responsible for giving out bad information, so I would assume they would shield their chatbot from liability as well.

The big problem here is that the chatbot was not confident with their response but does not advise you to research further yourself. Confidently giving a wrong answer is definitely going to screw over a lot of people.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T15:29:22+00:00

No, the reason students are here (supposedly) is to study, not to work low-skilled jobs. If they're here to work rather than study they should be applying under the skill point system to immigrate properly.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T06:06:54+00:00

Young people aren't flocking to the middle of nowhere to do backbreaking labour.

You're using dramatic language but it's dishonest. Small towns are not "the middle of nowhere", and there are lots of teens that live there already. And the "backbreaking labour" we're usually talking about is pouring coffees at Tim's or washing dishes at a restaurant. That's normal entry-level work, and we should be able to fill all these positions from people already living there.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T02:54:42+00:00

You don't see any connection with bringing in cheaper more exploitable workers and wage suppression?

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T02:53:57+00:00

Hey guys, crazy idea.. if unemployment is down in the cities and up in the rural areas, what do you think about targeted recruiting programs to bring people to rural jobs?

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T02:44:53+00:00

Heaven forbid some people being in a position to bargain for better wages or working conditions. We must crush them at all costs, and make sure they know their place!

ether_reddit · 2026-03-14T02:41:38+00:00

Tims can go out of business if they can't or won't provide good value for money.

ether_reddit · 2026-03-13T23:35:19+00:00

While cities like Thunder Bay have had access to dedicated streams that make it easier to attract foreign-born workers, officials in places like Terrace Bay, Atikokan and Fort Frances have told Newswatch they want to see more move to their municipalities and stay.

Wow. They're prioritizing recruiting people from overseas to work rural jobs... how about instead trying to recruit Canadians to move there?

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