When the RBC "temporary" foreign worker scam hit the fan a few months back, the Harper gang made a lot of noise about drafting "reforms" to the TFW plan. Not that anyone truly believes that these rabid anti-worker ideologues were serious about actually reforming anything, but politics being what it is, Harper & Co. found it necessary to at least blow some smoke up the nation's tailpipe on the matter.
Here's one way to avoid reforms; just fob the entire program off on the provinces or territories! Yes, the government of the Yukon now has carte blanche to bring in as many foreign workers as they'd like! The northern territory has a population of roughly 36,000, of whom over a thousand are unemployed. The Yukon also has one of the highest costs of living in Canada, which has resulted in relatively high wages being required to lure Canadians to the north.
The genius of the TFW program is that you can lure Mexicans and Guatemalans and Filipinos to the north for a lot less than you can get Canadians there. Canadians have come to expect certain amenities like indoor plumbing and a roof that doesn't leak and expect a paycheque that will make that happen.
The Yukon download is just a trial balloon, but if it goes unopposed there you can expect the Harper gang to download its responsibilities for workers onto larger territories and provinces.
In a country with 1.5 million unemployed and millions more underemployed there is no excuse for importing labour other than driving down the wages and living standard of Canadian workers. That's what Harper's corporate constituency wants and that's what they're getting.
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