As a response to an ever increasing number of temporary foreign workers in Canada, one BC group is proposing to let them in as permanent residents straightaway when they land.

The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) highlights the following statistics:

In 1986 120,074 temporary foreign workers were in the country, by the year 2000 this increased to 177,781 and by 2010 the number increased to 432,682. That is a 140 percent increase during the 2000s alone.

The proposal, in reaction to statistics like this, and the practical implications of having so many temporary foreign workers here that are not given the rights and responsibilities of permanent residents, is being made by the Fort St. John’s chamber of commerce in British Columbia.

As the CCPA indicates, temporary foreign workers are filling a wide spectrum of positions in Canada, ranging from university professors and similarly specialized professionals, to athletes and performing artists, to low-wage service workers.

According to ABN-CBCNews.com, a Filipino online news source, Mable Elmore, a member of the group making the proposal, said:

“Allowing temporary workers to come in and be granted landed status, that’s going to bring benefit to British Columbia, and also deal with the huge social cost that Filipino families suffer – long separation, difficulty to be brought back together.”

Elmore said the chamber of commerce hopes to propose legislation along the lines of accepting more people into Canada as permanent residents, not as temporary foreign workers, although there has been no indication that any such legislation is being officially considered currently.

Temporary workers are admitted on the condition that their employment does not impede that of Canadian citizens and permanent residents, or provides a significant benefit to Canada's economic or cultural wellbeing.