As political calls to cancel or restrict Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) intensify, migrant workers and their allies are delivering a unified message to Parliamentarians: changes to the TFWP and other migrant labour programs must be firmly grounded in human rights.
Migrant workers, civil society organizations, labour unions, and grassroots organizers have launched National Days of Action to demand that the government respect migrant workers’ dignity and rights by granting them open work permits, which allow workers to freely change jobs. Currently, under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and other programs, closed work permits tie workers to a single employer — a system that fuels widespread exploitation and abuse.
- Take action: Tell Canada to stop abuses against migrant workers
- Related: Abuse is systemic in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program, Amnesty International finds
For years, migrant workers, labour, community and international organizations, Parliamentary and Senate Committees, and even a UN Special Rapporteur have sounded the alarm on the harms of closed work permits. Politicians are acknowledging the harms workers face, but their proposals stop short of addressing a root cause: employer-tied permits. What’s needed is a rights-based framework that guarantees mobility, dignity, and equal protection for all workers.
The 2025 National Days of Action for Migrant Workers’ Rights come at a critical moment. Political leaders across the spectrum, including B.C. Premier David Eby and federal Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, have called for the abolition of the TFWP but suggest that migrant workers still be used for agriculture. However, the primary sector of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is the agriculture and agri-food industry, demonstrating that their calls are not aimed at meaningful change.
The initiative launched Monday evening on Parliament Hill with a symbolic action: migrant workers and allies encircled themselves with a chain symbolizing the confinement of the closed work permit system, holding signs bearing powerful quotes from workers who have endured abuse in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. By breaking through this symbolic chain, participants sent the message that the government must protect the dignity and safety of all workers and uphold everyone’s right to freely change jobs.
Throughout the two-week campaign, supporters across the country will call for action from the government, by signing petitions and postcards, calling and meeting with their MPs, building solidarity at community events, and raising public awareness through the arts with theatrical plays, a film screening, and booths at events. The coalition behind the National Days of Action is calling on all political leaders to meet this moment with courage and vision — to replace systems of exploitation with structures that respect every person’s right to safety, dignity, and decent work.
Endorsing organizations:
- Amnesty International Canadian Section (English-Speaking)
- Amnistie internationale Canada francophone
- Association for the Rights of Household and Farm Workers
- Au bas de l’échelle
- Canadian Council for Refugees
- CALACS de l’Est du Bas Saint-Laurent
- Campagne québécoise pour la régularisation et la justice migrante
- Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking
- Centrale des syndicats démocratiques (CSD)
- Comité d’action contre la traite humaine interne et internationale (CATHII)
- Comité d’aide aux personnes sans statut
- CSN (Confédération des syndicats nationaux)
- CULTURELINK Settlement services
- FCJ Refugee Centre
- Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ)
- Fédération des maisons d’hébergement pour femmes (FMHF)
- Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ)
- Illusion Emploi de l’Estrie
- Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC-CTTI)
- International Migrants Alliance – Canada (IMA)
- International Migrants Alliance Canada (BC Committee)
- Legal Assistance of Windsor
- Ligue des droits et libertés (LDL)
- L’Observatoire pour la justice migrante
- Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre
- Migrante Alberta
- Migrante Ottawa
- Migrant Workers Centre BC
- Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal
- National Farmers Union (NFU)
- New Brunswick Refugee Clinic
- Réseau d’aide aux travailleuses et travailleurs migrants agricole du Québec (RATTMAQ)
- Romero House
- Solidarité populaire Estrie
- Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI)
- The Refugee Centre
- United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)
Background
Civil society, grassroots organizations and unions have denounced the exploitative nature of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for many years, and organized to push the government to change it. In 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery published a report calling for an end to closed work permits and access to permanent residency for migrant workers in the program. In January 2025, Amnesty International published a damning report about human rights abuses endured by migrant workers in Canada, also calling for the abolition of closed work permits and their replacement by open permits, among other recommendations which echo the positions of civil society organizations.
