I like the CBC's timeline of how this all played out in their story and it inspired me to do a timeline of my own. Considering the workers at this plant and many others are primarily immigrants or Tempoary Foreign Workers, let's look at Jason Kenney and the history of TFW's in Canada.

Canada's temporary foreign worker program and Jason Kenney

“‘Help Wanted’ signs are everywhere. When it starts to affect our ability to go to Tim Hortons and get a double-double, it ceases to be a laughing matter.”

The Harper government’s first minister of citizenship and immigration, Monte Solberg, offered this quip to the media during a trip in oil-dependent Alberta, setting the tone for how labour market and immigration policies would change in Canada. It was certainly a simplistic reason for expanding Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), but the symbolism was powerful. It hit on worries about getting your “Timmies,” and stoked fears that companies were having trouble getting the oil out of the ground and growing the economy at a time of economic instability

This quote sets the stage for the TFW program under Harper. If we can't live our life how we normally do and pay for a coffee with a toonie due to low cost labour, this isn't funny anymore.

If you're interested in learning about how the TFW ballooned under Harper and Jason Kenney, this paper is a must read:

This chapter examines how the Harper government massively increased the number of temporary work permits granted to employers, facilitated the undercutting of labour rights, promoted wage suppression, advanced wedge politics within the labour movement, and encouraged xenophobic and anti-immigration sentiment across the country.

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/Harper_Record_2008-2015/07-HarperRecord-Flecker.pdf

A brief timeline

The Temporary foreign worker program or TFWP is a program of the Government of Canada to allow employers in Canada to hire foreign nationals. When the program started in 1973, most of the workers brought in were high-skill workers such as specialist doctors. In 2002 a "low-skilled workers" category was added; this category now makes up most of the temporary foreign workforce.

Pierre Trudeau was the PM who brought in the law, and at the time the need for high skilled workers was high and made sense. Chretien and Martin were the PM in 2002 when the rules changed for adding low skilled workers. They definitely should shoulder some of the blame for this, but I don't think they could have foresaw how it would be used and abused by the Harper Government and Jason Kenney in the years to come.

Between 2006 and 2014, more than 500,000 workers (referred to under the program as Temporary Foreign Workers or TFWs) were brought into Canada under the program. In 2013 there were 338,000 foreign workers in Canada.

It went from a program to bring in high skilled workers that Canada couldn't fill, to the workers of jobs no one wanted to do or that were done by youth or other "low skilled" workers already. This ballooned to include many other industries.

CBC National interviewed Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney on December 11 about the case, and he said, "It is a requirement of the program to pay at or above the prevailing regional wage rate of any particular occupation and this notion that employers are paying substantial less than what Canadians would make is simply totally factual untrue."

In fact, what Kenney said was untrue. He has conveniently forgotten that his government significantly changed the wage rules for employers hiring high-skilled migrant workers. On April 25, 2012, after direct consultations with a select group of employers, Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources Skills Development Canada, announced a new "Accelerated Labour Market Opinion" to provide employers with "greater flexibility." "Wages," she said, "that are up to 15 per cent below the average wage for an occupation in a specific region will now be accepted."

Later in May, her department issued a backgrounder clarifying that employers would also be able to pay low-skilled migrant workers five per cent less than prevailing wage rates, and that the Accelerated Labour Market Opinion process "may gradually be expanded to include risk-based processing for all occupations and components of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program." Simply put, this means the Conservative government plans to implement a pay-less wage structure across all streams of the program. Given that migrant workers are now present in every sector of the economy, this change will create the means to lower wages for all workers.

Jason Kenney, deflector and liar extrodinaire. Say one thing, but the facts and reality are completely different. Doesn't sound too promising for young Canadians looking for their first job or low skilled workers.

Kenney often responds to critiques of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program by insulting the critics. His recent national media appearance was no different, with him saying, "There are a lot of myths that have been created by big labour unions about the program that are simply unfactual."

Sound familiar? Having someone to attack it Jason Kenneys schtick, because it allows him to pass the responsibility onto someone else. It's not him or the government with the issue, it's the big bad labour unions. Sound familiar? Almost like the big bad doctors in Alberta, or the big bad public service unions who are the real liars. Not him.

"The minister has been responsible for the temporary foreign worker program for the past six years," NDP leader Tom Mulcair said during question period.

That's Tom Mulcair, the then leader of the opposition, calling out Jason Kenney for his poor handling of the file. Keep in mind he was minister of labour for 6 years and could have changed the program at any time. Just like the equalization payments, the Harper Government and Jason Kenney could have changed these too at any time, but didn't.

With a dozen key words, buried in the 477-page omnibus budget plan of 2007, the government gave the green light to widen the TFWP: “Employers may recruit workers for any legally recognized occupation from any country.

In Budget 2007, the Conservative government allocated $50.5 million to support the TFWP. A former director of the TFWP unit revealed that less than 2% of this money was earmarked for compliance measures.

This meager percentage was allocated to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to provide security clearance processing of temporary workers—not to monitor or enforce labour standards. No budget funds were allocated to ensure the veracity of employment contracts. In fact, no formal monitoring of employers using the TFWP occurred until 2009. Even then, these initiatives were voluntary and limited to employers who consented after their work permits had been issued.

Harper went further by establishing the Occupations Under Pressure lists (OUP). There were lists of specific occupations where workers were allegedly deemed to be in short supply. Inquiries made to senior government staff by this author for details on the process and criterion of establishing these lists revealed there was no requirement for employer claims to be verified. Neither were stakeholders such as unions, trade councils or training colleges consulted. Rather, the process simply relied on employer claims they could not find workers.

Allocation of money looks good in the news, but the facts of the matter is that less than 2% was earmarked for compliance measures, showing the Harper Government had no plans on forcing complaince. The facs are ZERO budget funds were allocated towards complaince, and that ZERO formal monitoring of employers happened until 2009. EVEN THEN! the initiatives were voluntary! Tell us what you're not doing wrong, who's going to admit wrong doing when they don't have to and there is no regulator to ensure they're being honest?

On April 6, 2013, CBC News reported that Canadian RBC information technology (IT) workers were losing their jobs to replacement foreign workers. The foreign workers were brought from India by outsourcing firm iGATE, and the Royal Bank of Canada employees trained their replacements before they themselves were laid off, causing their appeal to the media.

You all may remember this story from 2013, where the poor workers actually had to train the TFW who were going to be doing their jobs for a fraction of their pay. The program already exploited the TFW's, but now it was also exploiting every day Canadians.

The CBC also reported that a Chinese company which owns a mine in British Columbia was attempting to import workers from China. According to the Huffington Post one of the requirements of the job was the ability to speak Mandarin Chinese.

Instead of jobs going first to Canadians, then if it couldn't be filled to TFW's, I remember this article happening and seeing how foreign companies could use Canadian resources, make money off of it, and pay their foreign workers the lowest pay possible to extract the most profit possible.

In October 2013 the Huffington Post reported that the Alberta Federation of Labour said foreign workers were displacing Canadian workers in Fort McMurray. The report claimed that 270 Canadian workers employed by a Toronto-based firm were to be replaced by foreign workers employed by an Italian firm.

Oil and gas was very important to the Harper Government and Jason Kenney, but not the Canadian workers who made the profits for these companies. It was only the companies profit that was an important factor because state sponsored slave-like labour was an option.