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The National Farmers Union is the latest group to voice opposition to the polarizing federal Bill C-2, The Strong Borders Act.
The NFU is urging the federal government to withdraw Bill C-2, which it says will jeopardize the safety and rights of migrants and refugees and threaten agricultural production.
One of the main reasons the NFU marks this as a pressing issue is the far-reaching effect and serious new powers to officials and ministers who oversee immigration in Canada, noted the organization’s James Hannay.
“The ability to change, modify or cancel immigration documents, including work permits and visas, is pretty serious,” he said
“That’s a pretty large increase in power. And as mentioned in our media release, the cases under which those powers can be invoked are termed as being in the public interest.”
The breadth of situations that come under the banner of public interest also creates many concerns for the organization. This is especially prevalent for farmers and farm workers, as 25 to 30 per cent of the Canadian agriculture workforce consists of migrant workers, he added.
“You can create a very volatile environment if you can use those powers to cancel work permits for these migrant workers who have historically been, in many cases, mistreated or subject to a lot of abuse.”
He says these powers, which have not yet been defined, could exacerbate the situations that some migrant workers already face.
“A big piece of this new law is that law enforcement can now have warrantless access to particular types of information if they have a reasonable level of suspicion.”
“That can include things like electronic communications or messages or other personal information that some other civil rights and liberties groups have highlighted as being an issue as part of Bill C-2.
“They say that some of these new provisions in Bill C-2 could have impacts on our Charter rights or have the ability to infringe on them. That’s quite concerning for us.”
Hannay told The Observer that these new provisions and resultant uncertainty might discourage migrant workers from coming to Canada.
“There are issues with the current state of Canada’s migrant worker programs. We are reliant on market work coming to Canada to fill the jobs in the agricultural sector, and we need to make sure that these people feel welcome and that they feel safe doing their work.”
Currently, there has been no clarification on how these new powers could affect the Temporary Foreign Workers program, and farm groups are awaiting details.
“I think really what we’re looking for in the NFU is for temporary foreign workers to have a clear pathway to permanent residency status,” added Hannay.
“If they’re filling jobs that we deem are crucial, and I think are important for feeding Canadians and people around the world. Then they should have the rights and privileges allowed by permanent residency status and not feel like they’re in a very volatile space where they can have their status or rights revoked.”
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