Imagine a society where a ruling elite can hardly be bothered to work. The elite worldview holds that only certain “higher” preoccupations are fit for them. They abhor heavy or manual labour and are embarrassed by visible evidence of industry. Such pursuits are entrusted only to a specific class of people who live far away—either in a foreign country or in the peripheries of large cities. Either way, such labourers have no stake in the society that they serve. Even those who technically live among the elite are paid little, have no influence over government, are not permitted to organise themselves, and are bound to a single master.
What sort of society would this be? Would it be one like Rome or the American South with its vast underclass of slaves, or more like Sparta with its serf-like order of “helots,” midway between slaves and citizens? Perhaps the migration of poor Englishmen to serve in the tobacco fields of the Virginia Company comes to mind. Or would we think of the British use of indentured Indians on sugar, tea, or rubber plantations throughout the empire?
The answer should be “all of the above,” because those examples all fit the description to one extent or another. Not all are equally objectionable or evil, of course. And yet, all are so bad that most of us probably like to think that that elite anti-work attitude and contemptuous exploitation of others are ancient injustices that we’ve overcome.
But if we thought so, we would be wrong.
Canada has built seemingly an entire economy on exploiting cheap, foreign labour through the so-called Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) and the International Mobility Program (IMP). These are two slightly different programs that allow foreigners to work in Canada, and most go to Ontario. Contrary to its name, there is nothing “temporary” about the TFWP. Its original purpose was to remedy proven labour shortages while Canadians were hired and trained to do the jobs in question. The IMP allows international students to work—with or without a proven labour shortage—while they are studying in Canada.
The results of the TFWP and IMP are deplorable. The TFWP allows foreigners to be recruited abroad in vast numbers, brought to Canada, housed in degrading conditions, paid the minimum wage, forced to work long hours, forbidden from joining a union, and required to work for only one employer. The IMP is somewhat more flexible. The problem with it is well illustrated by the phenomenon of diploma mills. These are fly-by-night “schools” professing to impart some credential or other, but which are really in the business of recruiting “students” from abroad simply to exploit their labour on virtually open-ended work permits granted through the IMP.
