Support migrant centric journalism today and donate
The Mexican President Vincente Fox has offered Canada a solution to the labour shortages it is experiencing, due in part to its aging population.
The president of Mexico did not give too much away, but said Mexican workers should be able to sign up with labour providers in Canada for specific time periods.
The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program allows Canadian farmers to recruit foreign workers on the condition they cannot find Canadians to harvest their crops.
Currently migrant farm workers are able to stay in Canada for 8 months of the year, and Fox would like Mexican guest workers to stay and work in the North American country for a similar period.
As Canada deports an ever growing number of illegal immigrants, Fox sees that the solution is to have their positions of employment replaced by Mexican guest workers.
Every day, Canada plucks illegal workers from the thriving underground economy and unceremoniously deports them. And every day, workers who often perform the same jobs as those deportees arrive, armed with temporary work permits to fill the vacancies, said Mr Mendoza an Argentinean guest worker.
Lorne Waldman, an immigration lawyer from Toronto said, the coming and going has disintegrated into a bizarre shuffle in which workers who have steady jobs and language skills are removed when their employers desperately need them.
Canada is the poorer as deportations head toward an estimated 11,000 in 2005-06. There has to be a better way to manage the immigration system, said Waldman.
