Trudeau announces Canada is cutting down on foreign workers (Reddit Reacts)

what's up guys welcome to the wolf of Young Street podcast my name is Victor I'm your host yesterday Justin tro made some big announcements today we're going to be dwelling on changes to the temporary foreign worker program I'm going to bring you those quotes and we're going to we're going to take some reactions uh that I've gathered off Reddit and we're going to try and try and piece together what this implies for the economy and for affordability and for some of the problems that Canada is currently facing but here are those quotes two years ago in the aftermath of the pandemic and facing severe labor shortages we adjusted the program for temporary foreign workers that's what the business Community needed that's what the business Community was asking for and at that moment in time those changes helped they helped the economy and they helped businesses make it through a challenging moment in our economic recovery but today's economy is very different from it was two years ago inflation has started to come down employment is higher and we no longer need as many temporary foreign workers we need Canadian businesses to invest in training and technology and not increasing their Reliance on lowcost foreign labor it's not fair to Canadians struggling to find a good job and it's not fair to those temporary foreign workers some of whom are being mistreated and exploited so I ask my minister to work on this over the summer and we are taking action we are tightening the rules and restricting eligibility to reduce the number of low-wage temporary foreign work workers in Canada with exceptions in certain industries like healthare construction and food security we'll also be looking at changes to the high wage stream of the program as part of The Minister's expedited 90-day review so to those who would complain about worker shortages here's my message there is no better time to hire and invest in Canadian workers okay so obviously that was what the what the Prime Minister said but what you didn't hear in that particular excert I just play you was the fact that there will be changes to the priment residence programs as well was something the prim sort of foreshadowed to be coming as well and apart from that you know that he essentially promised there will be more changes to immigration programs in Canada so let's let's kind of Zone in on this on this temporary foreign worker these temporary foreign worker restrictions I'm going to go through a little bit of history for you guys here so obviously this problem really became a a big thing postco so 2022 or maybe I should go back a little bit further um during covid what happened right we went into lockdowns in March of 20 2020 I want to say March of 2020 and what what what did this imply a lot of people lost jobs a lot of and we were kind of locked at home for a while so not producing anything and a lot of businesses shut down and all of that they Curr essentially stagnated now a lot of people will argue that it was suicidal for for for us to close down the country like that and and sort of argue against the merits of a lockdown now I'm not going to criticize the the Trudeau government for for joining as did a lot of governments around the world for joining lockdowns because we were dealing with a pandemic that we did not understand well enough at the time and essentially was really in the moment and and this is the difference here between a Critic and a person who is in the trenches I cannot criticize lockdown it was necessary at the time it was done but what that meant was essentially a stagnation of the economy now fast forward to 2022 October or so when we the when we reopened you know at this time vaccine that rolled out and people and we were finally confident that the covid the pandemic was under control and all of that stuff the task on the on the Trudeau government was to reopen in a way that avoids uh hat sheep on on on on on on the people now what that what that did was OB production needed to increase um really suddenly uh like basically going from a halt to like 100 in two seconds really obviously there was a lot of pent up demand that built up through Co think about how you fail coming out of lockdown the travel sector was one that really had that really felt this a lot where people were just like as soon as we were out of lockdown lots of people just wanted to travel because they had not been able to travel for two years or so there was increased demand for stuff and production needed to increase to meet some of the demands for Stuff essentially and at the time a lot of businesses were struggling to fill certain positions especially those low wage positions so for example in the agricultural sector so the government trudo the trudo Le government made a decision to to bring uh to allow more an influx of temporary foreign workers into Canada and what did that cause by for 2022 alone there were like there were about 415,000 temporary foreign workers brought into Canada 445,000 study permit holders were were approved and and came to Canada in 2022 2023 obviously that number was closer to like 800,000 the problem with bringing so many people to Canada in such a short period of time is the fact that well unfortunately we were not ready infrastructure wise in terms of housing in terms of services and healthc care and that kind of stuff to be able to accommodate these new arrivals and what did that do to housing for example suddenly you have this many people coming needing a place to live they got to live somewhere right this many foreign workers arriving who have to live somewhere but we don't have adequate supply of housing to cater to that rapid increase in population well that unfortunately if you remember your high school economics there's a lot of Demand with a lot of people arriving not enough supply of housing prices go up and hence we land in this particular point in time where there's an afford ability problem with regards to housing and even like and with regards to jobs we end up in a situation where because these uh businesses that I spoke about earlier are able to fill in um they're able to fill in these positions with lowincome earners essentially with with the foreign workers there's not a lot of encouragement to increase wages as much so now the other thing was with um with inflation again bringing in so many more people in such a short period of time what that does is well again that demand is up with Demand Being up and Supply not being able to match that prices go up so prices of goods and services go up and with prices of goods and services going up the wages have not been able to keep up and when the wages are not able to keep up and the prices of goods and services continue to go up what do you have infl inflation inflation inflation inflation and that number peaked at around 8.1% sometime in June of 2022 inflation housing crisis then you add thr on problems like the strain on on public services on health care and education systems you see why a lot of people and obviously this has coincided with a lot of um loss of Goodwill for the Trudeau government unfortunately this is where we are um we're currently in the middle of an affordability crisis and a housing crisis as a first step the Trudeau government uh reduced the number of uh study permits new study permits issued by 35% compared to 20123 but obviously that has not been enough and clearly you know the Trudeau government has had its critics because of this this policy over the last two years hence their move towards restricting even f the temporary resident migration to Canada so I've hit the streets and by streets I mean Reddit uh to see so kind of fill the P of Canadians and I'll bring you some quotes here and some opinions that people have shared online so this this this particular thread comes from U the subreddit Canada politics uh the title of this thread is Trudeau announces reduction in temporary foreign workers suggests more immigration changes to come and I I'm just going to go through the top comment here and and maybe a few more further down before it gets toxic the top comment here comes from Dan so shout out to you danu person says here are the words of the guy I voted for as a result of haper era Politics the number of short-term foreign workers in Canada has more than doubled from 141,000 in 2005 to 338,000 in 2012 there were nearly as many temporary forign workers admitted into the country in 2012 as they were permanent residents so at this rate by 2015 temporary foreign worker entries will outnumber permanent resident entries this has all happened under the conservatives watch despite repeated warnings from the liberal party and from Canadians across the country about its impact on middleclass Canadians it drives down wages and displaces Canadian workers that sounds like a wise guy but ironically this this quote was actually said by Justin Trudeau in 2014 it's it's it's interesting in in light of current events Justin Trudeau criticizing the Harper government for doing exactly what uh the Trudeau government did in 2022 essentially accepting an unprecedented number of of of temporary foreign workers okay so and just to to round up to comment here after massively expanding far beyond the Hara area numbers I hope that 2024 Justin Trudeau takes a page from 2014 Justin Trudeau to actually ramp it down but I fear it may be another performance so that was the comment by danu and then so sort of a follow-up comment by Canadian troll toll that says JT so Justin Trudeau is a classic politician says one thing does another does another thing and says the opposite and he says P POV so PP is will probably be the same I don't know how you guys tell me how you guys feeling about this this about the next election obviously we're a year out Justin tro is going to going up against against Pier po are you guys optimistic about if you don't go with Justin Trudeau for example are you optimistic about Pier po have you guys let me know so the next comment here is from Polo conak uh the person says they should also beef up the cbsa show that you're serious about immigration reform give the agency that has oversight on it on this more tools to actually enforce the rules that is true that's a fair point to make so uh the last comment I'm going to take here is from 1 percentage 3943 and the person says liberals only chance of staving off a bad loss is getting Super Active about curb migration and start building like crazy is that possible almost certainly not but I am certain there's a lot of people looking for any excuse not to vote conservative obviously this person is conservative at heart before we go I won't go further down the the timeline here with the comments because you know I think I think we've we we we've touched the cream of the crop there uh the next sub I thought I the next subre I thought I hit was our Canada so this one was posted by useless political hack on R Canada on the S in R Canada and the sub is titled many gaps remain in the Liberals new restrictions on temporary foreign workers clearly and the top comment here is is from pudra and it says this program should not be able to be used in urban areas for low skill jobs this program was originally made to bring in high-skilled people who had skills we need then it opened own up to a low skill version to help organizations in rural areas since they actually have low labor pools and no one is going to move to a rural area to work a seasonal job good point these are also for sectors that are actually important to society like food production the fact that a effing team Hortons in a major city can use this program is so stupid if people aren't willing to work at a place let that place die maybe we don't need a the Starbucks and teams on every corner if you can't even get Canadians to work there that's a that's a really uh tough perspective here I don't know if if I if I have the heart to let Starbuck and Tim Hortons Die My Guy my lady but yeah to it is own yeah um obviously someone replies here to that comment pink ping pong tits ppong tits replies to the comment I just read saying now there's no need except in the of doctors and that has to do with and that has to do more with Canada restricting the number of doctors it graduates doesn't it I have relatives with degrees in computer science it and various Science degrees who are struggling to find adequate work in our region yet there are thousands of students in the region all to eventually compete for the same jobs this is the classic you know taxi driver who is is actually an engineer problem that we have in Canada or a person working or person working a service job who is actually a doctor from wherever from wherever they came from not being able to work in that profession this a it's a classic problem we've had in Canada for quite some time HRA replies pingpong tits here says there's an absolutely huge need in healthcare and construction I agree we're bringing in way too many of the wrong people and then someone replies uh guilty fishing guilty fishing 8229 repli there's never been a huge need in healthcare they just need to open more spots in schools to train domestic do doctors and nurses we set impossibly high standards that combine this with extremely low number of training spots for Canadian registered nurses domestically they turn around and import tens of thousands of LPN from the Philippines with far worse education to try and make up the difference okay I don't know that that is entirely true but we get the point and obviously pingpong tits was not going to be outdone here so person comes back in and says I know someone who tried to get into the nsing program in our area but there's no spots available as they are filled with International students so yes at least some people are getting in they make more money training some people as opposed to others maybe anyways so that that there's a lot more further down that that line of conversation that I don't think I want to follow here um let's see maybe see maybe there there is there might be there might be some gold mines down here um actually some someone called Spectre ballistics basically says here there was never a label shortage for low skill Auburn jobs just to pay shortage and to to which uh the user XX hams XX from Prince Edward Island says I bet if you raise Tims pay1 $ an hour you'd you'd seem quite you see quite the Improvement in the applications even then that's barely enough to survive and HRA who who seems very invested in this particular conversation goes on to say yeah exactly you can't find employees in an Alburn area it's because your job isn't attractive you should then as a business make that job offer more attractive instead they just get to go no one's applying let's fly someone in okay so actually thought I'd address this particular point that that that people make about the fact that a lot of companies who choose to fly people in as temporary foreign workers should just you know increase their wages and all of that good stuff increase their wages to make the job more attractive so Canadians want to do that there was a good point somewhere within that conversation obviously not a lot of Canadians would be open irresp of whatever the wages are to move to to the middle of nowhere so there's that problem but in an area where where again it's not a shortage of people there's people around why don't they just increase wages well see here's the thing with increased Wages that's that's the price of doing business right yeah you you can pack it onto the business's bottom line but what a lot of people don't understand is that yes now the now the the company is starting to is inuring more cost and that cost will flow to the price of things so because of more wages are you willing to ACC accommodate paying $2 for your $1 coffee because all of these prices this increased cost of production of business we always get passed on to the consumer now you could argue that obviously um in the last two years grossers have made year on year year-over-year profits alltime their you know alltime highs in terms in terms of like their profit margins they should be able be able to conveniently fund wages while still keep pric is low well we all know these guys find a way to always pass the cost to Consumers it's just the unfortunate truth so are you willing to pay are you willing to pay more that's my question for you so the last subre I thought I hit real quick here talk about some highlights it is the subreddit Canadian and the title of the of the thread here is trude those cut to the foreign worker program does not go nearly far enough and I just go through the top comment here someone says this person in baky 12 says must be an election coming up to which there there's a reply from just incredible 240 that's a great name person says election is over a year away if we want to see significant change we'll have to wait until the campaign starts next summer and baky 12 comes back strong here says the only change I want to see is him gone to be honest I'm hoping to find some gold mines here within the comment try to see see through a bit of a bit of toxicity can be a bit difficult you you know um so okay yeah so I I found a comment here that I want to read so nle exchange says actually ask a valid question what amounts to corporate tax cheats are not through those fault look to groy corporations yeah you you as I just mentioned not too long ago um a lot of these grossers you know the Canadian Superstore lbl is is the name of the parent company Walmart are basically having record profits the last two years despite your cost being high so maybe it's worth looking at corporations but obviously um you cannot really excuse the Trudeau government from this because it is on them to try and go after these corporations if necessary in order to keep cost low for Canadians so irrespective of whether it is directly their fault or not they're still responsible it's just the way it is right so and and Sprout asaurus Rex replies that from Nole exchange saying I mean the federal government did not remove the cap on lmis when unemployment went over a certain percentage which definitely helped create some of the issues with lmia you aren't wrong that a lot of the issues are not based on any federal policy changes just provincial government companies and schools taking advantage at every turn to exploit existing policies to the breaking point and a person with this really funny username I think white women are hot says government Capp study permits at diploma Mills and basically put them out of business overnight they are equally to blame so I guess that's the other thing that people don't understand as well about about like temporary uh about some of these temporary visas right um a lot of people don't realize the role that students pay in keeping your institutions your universities afloat it is a fact for every single School in Canada that International students pay at least times three if not times four of what domestic students pay now that accounts for a lot of money when you when you really put it together when you you really put it together that is really how the go the these institutions are able to pay for certain infrastructure are able to create certain diverse programs that cater to not just International students but also cater to domestic students as well with the new C and the new restrictions on on study pmids well these universities are going to have to figure out what to do about funding so that's just just something I thought i' would bring up um and the last the last bit of reaction I'll take here is from PM me your biver tals is the username here this these usernames already are just so hilarious and this person says there are 1 million uh temporary foreign workers in Canada cutting 65,000 makes no difference in total there are close to 3 million temporary residents in Canada not counting the estimated half a million illegal immigrants um to which there's a reply from that hyphen equipment 3792 saying CIBC in my hometown had a line out the door yesterday morning of immigrants opening new bank accounts what the f is going on right and _ significance 49 40 says they get access to every to to Services before Canadians do I don't know that's true buddy but obviously you can see that lots of Canadians are frustrated with with with um with the affordability crisis with the housing crisis with the difficulty accessing Services obviously if you've been to an ER lately you see that there's quite a long way time to access all these servic and obviously these problems have been leveled at the feat of the Trudeau government to which with an election coming up no less the Canadian government is doing their utmost to try and reverse some some of their earlier decisions now I think this is a start I actually think this is a good idea TR government is doing the right thing here obviously their initial idea with increasing foreign workers was done with the economy in mind with Canadians in mind now the execution of that has clearly come back to bite them in the butt but they're doing the right thing they're doing the right thing they made tough decisions when they had to and right now also they're making a tough decision in the face of of growing public frustration it remains to be seen how they how they proceed and if this changes the public sentiment towards trudo okay so there you go those are some reactions from Reddit on the newly announced restrictions on the temporary foreign worker program in the future I'll be doing other reactions to some of some of the decisions that trudo government is currently looking to make to the immigration policies and some of the other policies that they discussed for example in the same um announcement uh Justin Trudeau announced uh 100% tariff on EVS coming from from China now there's been a Fallout out of that but we'll react to that in a different video so thank you so much for tuning in today you guys if you're new around here don't forget to subscribe down below I'll see you on the next one thank you for listening