Media

Contacts

Canada / Ontario
Syed Hussan
Executive Director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
+ 1 416 453 3632 | hussan@migrantworkersalliance.org

For contacts in different regions or to join our mailing list, email info@migrantrights.ca

Our Demands

Migrants, including temporary foreign workers, refugees, refugee claimants, international students, and undocumented people, are being blamed for crises we did not create.

Housing costs, low wages, healthcare strain, and food insecurity are the result of decades of underinvestment, corporate profiteering, and government choices. Cutting immigration will make these crises worse. Forcing migrants out means fewer care workers, fewer food workers, fewer construction workers, less public revenue, less consumer spending, and more instability for everyone.

Migrants are the solution. People already here are caring for families, growing and delivering food, building homes, studying, paying taxes, and keeping communities running.

We demand rights, not cuts.

1. Status for all

The problem

Canada has built an immigration system that keeps millions of people temporary or undocumented, even when their lives are already here. People work, study, pay taxes, build families, care for communities and fill essential jobs for years while still being denied the right to access basic services which only permanent resident status guarantees. Temporary status gives employers, recruiters, landlords, schools, and the government too much power over people’s lives.

What migrants are demanding

Give permanent resident status to everyone already here, including workers, students, refugees, families, and people without status.
Let people become permanent residents when they arrive, instead of waiting for years in fear or being rejected or deported.
Drop arbitrary caps that trap people in temporary status or force them to become undocumented.
Never shut people out because of wage level, job, schooling, language test score, permit type, age, or where they live.
Count all work and all studies toward permanent residence, including low-wage, part-time, seasonal, gig, unpaid, cash, and student work.
Remove credential and licensing barriers that keep internationally trained workers from working in the jobs they are qualified to do.

2. Renew permits. Protect students. Stop changing the rules.

The problem

Many migrants came to Canada under rules that promised a future. International students, in particular, paid high tuition, learned French, worked, filled labour shortages, and planned their lives around pathways to permanent residence. Now the rules are changing after people have already made those choices, and expiring permits are pushing people out of jobs, out of status, and out of Canada.

What migrants are demanding

Renew and extend permits that expired or are expiring between 2024 and 2027 so no one is pushed out of status because of delays, caps, or changing rules.
Honour the rules people relied on when they studied, worked, learned French, or built a life in Canada.
Let every international student get a work permit after graduating, whatever they studied.
End limits on how many hours students can work.
Give open work permits to people waiting for permanent residence.

3. End closed permits that trap migrants with one boss

The problem

Closed work permits tie a migrant’s job, income, housing, and ability to stay in Canada to one employer. When a boss controls someone’s permit, it is dangerous to report wage theft, unsafe housing, racism, sexual harassment, injury, or abuse. Sector-only permits still keep workers trapped.

What migrants are demanding

End closed permits, employer-tied permits, and sector-only permits.
Give all temporary foreign workers open work permits as a step towards permanent residency.
Let migrants change jobs freely without risking deportation or losing housing.
Provide legal aid, relocation support, and job transfer support when workers need to leave a bad job.
Protect workers who are blacklisted, fired, or sent home for speaking up.
Give permanent residence and protection to workers who report abuse, wage theft, or unsafe conditions.

4. Status for care workers who care for our families

The problem

Care workers look after children, seniors, sick people, disabled people, and families. Many are doing essential work while stuck on temporary permits, separated from family, or pushed out of status. Care programs have been capped, delayed, closed, and designed around employer control.

What migrants are demanding

Reopen the care worker permanent residence program with no caps and no deadlines.
Give permanent residence to all care workers, including home care workers, personal support workers, early childhood educators, cleaners, security guards, administrative staff, and other care-facility workers.
Include care workers regardless of current immigration status.
Remove job offer, education, language, continuous-work, credential, and licensing barriers.
Give care workers’ families open work and study permits right away.

5. Status for the farm, food, and fishery workers who feed us

The problem

Migrants grow, harvest, pack, process, transport, deliver, cook, and deliver food. The food system depends on them, while many are kept in low-wage jobs, tied to employers, housed in overcrowded bunkhouses, charged unfair deductions, and forced to return season after season without a secure future.

What migrants are demanding

Give permanent residence to all food-chain workers, including farm, greenhouse, fish and seafood processing, aquaculture, delivery, trucking, grocery, restaurant, and undocumented workers.
Reopen and expand the food-sector pathway to permanent residence for all.
Remove job offer, education, and language barriers.
Guarantee safe housing with privacy, locks, heat, clean water, and no overcrowding.
Pay fair wages with guaranteed hours and no unfair deductions.
Let seasonal workers return without needing a boss’s invitation.

6. Guarantee decent work, fair pay, and safe homes

The problem

Migrants often pay into the same systems as everyone else while being denied the same rights. Many face wage theft, unsafe work, overcrowded housing, recruiter fees, false promises, and deductions that take back their pay. When bosses break the law, workers rarely get paid back.

What migrants are demanding

Set a federal wage floor of at least $20 to $25 an hour for temporary foreign workers.
Guarantee at least 40 hours of work per week.
Stop deductions for employer controlled housing, fees and services.
Set enforceable housing standards for employer-controlled housing.
Ensure migrant workers can join unions and bargain collectively.
Guarantee paid sick days and full care if workers are injured.
Create real enforcement systems where workers and community organizations can file complaints, trigger inspections, receive decisions, and get wages and damages paid back.
Regulate recruiters, ban recruitment fees and false promises, and hold employers responsible for the recruiters they use.

7. Guarantee healthcare and benefits migrants pay for

The problem

Migrants work, pay taxes, and pay into public systems, but many are denied the healthcare and benefits they help fund. People are blocked because of immigration status, waiting periods, employer interference, expired documents, confusing systems, or because they return home after their contract ends.

What migrants are demanding

Give healthcare to everyone in Canada, regardless of immigration status, and end waiting periods for coverage.
Give migrant workers public health coverage and health cards on arrival, unlinked to employers.
Stop employers from controlling medical appointments, records, or test results.
Restore full refugee healthcare and reverse the new fees.
Cover medication, mental health care, reproductive and sexual health care, care after workplace injury, and the full cost of burial or bringing a worker home if they die.
Let migrants access Employment Insurance, pensions, sickness, maternity, parental, retirement, disability, and survivor benefits they pay into, including from outside Canada.
Make benefits, tax filing, child benefits, and tax credits accessible without fear, with interpretation, plain-language information, and alternatives to online-only applications.

8. Stop detentions, deportations, and surveillance

The problem

Detention and deportation punish people for the same immigration system that made them precarious. Families are separated. Children are harmed. People are deported while applications are still waiting. Workers are afraid to report abuse because their status can be used against them. Expanded surveillance and information-sharing make schools, hospitals, workplaces, and public services dangerous for migrants.

What migrants are demanding

End all deportations.
End all immigration detention.
Stop deporting people with pending humanitarian applications or risk assessments.
Shut down the immigration-enforcement tip line.
End immigration enforcement partnerships that turn police, labour departments, public services, and community institutions into tools of deportation.
Stop collecting and sharing immigration status information to punish people who report abuse, wage theft, or unsafe work.
Guarantee legal help and access to a lawyer for anyone facing detention or removal.

9. Protect refugees and people seeking safety

The problem

People fleeing war, persecution, climate disaster, gender violence, and state violence need protection. Canada is making it harder to make refugee claims, turning people away at the border, refusing visas, separating families, and giving the government more power to cancel people’s permits without a fair hearing.

What migrants are demanding

Repeal the new law that blocks refugee claims and lets the government cancel people’s permits without a fair hearing.
End the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States. The United States is not safe for refugees.
Expand government-assisted refugee resettlement.
Resettle people fleeing war and displacement, including from Sudan and Palestine, in coordination with their own communities.
Protect people who have no country by giving them a way to stay.
Reunite refugee families quickly.
Guarantee fair hearings, appeals, legal aid, healthcare, and work and study permits for people seeking protection.

10. Keep families together and protect women, queer, and trans migrants

The problem

Immigration rules separate families and force many migrants to depend on a boss, spouse, or sponsor for status. This creates danger, especially for women, queer, and trans migrants who face higher risks of violence, exploitation, isolation, and punishment when they try to leave abuse.

What migrants are demanding

Let migrants live with their loved ones.
Give spouses, children, and chosen family work permits, study permits, healthcare, benefits, and permanent residence.
Widen who counts as family so real families are recognized.
Drop the income requirement that stops many migrants from sponsoring family.
Protect people forced to depend on a boss or spouse for immigration status.
Make sure every child can go to school, see a doctor, and access services, regardless of their parents’ status.
Protect migrant women, queer, and trans people from violence, abuse, exploitation, and deportation.

Read the full policy memo

For the full policy memo with specific demands, program details, and implementation proposals, read the complete document.

Open the full policy memo