The rash of deportations of Filipino temporary work­ers in recent months once again puts the focus on the plight of this marginalized sector. Last November, fired Den­ny worker Alfredo Sales, has to leave before winning his case against his employer for Employment Standards violations. Just last week, the so-called ‘Three Amigos’ from Winnipeg left Canada af­ter having lost their appeal to stay after being caught working ‘illegally’ for work­ing without proper papers. Later, another worker will have to leave after losing his labour arbitration case. He has been without status for months but waited out his case.

These are just some of the cases that have come to light or to the media, but there is no doubt that hun­dreds if not thousands more have gone without notice. These deportations are no longer news for those who have followed this prob­lem. Some ask if there is anything the city could do to ‘improve’ the program. Therein lies the futility of try­ing to grapple with the issue. It is not a question of im­proving a flawed program, for no amount of tinkering will ever improve it.

Politicians at all levels have endeavoured to fix the problem - from the federal move to ex­tend the time limit to provincial assurances of enforcement of labour standards. Municipal politicians seem to be on the tail-end of all the political posturing that hap­pens whenever these cases come to light. It must be pointed that the Foreign Temporary Worker Pro­gram (FTWP) was specifically modeled after the infamous Live-in Temporary Program (LCP) for domestic workers. The LCP has been and contin­ues to be criticized as a ‘rac­ist’ policy since its beginnings many decades ago. Yet, the government of Canada and the Philippines (the No. 1 supplier not only of LCP’s but also of FTW’s) touts the program as a model in the world. Apparently, no country allows temporary workers to apply for immigrant status af­ter a certain period of time.
It was not too long ago when former Philippine Labour Min­ister and now Supreme Court Justice Arturo Brion made a speech right here in Vancouver extolling the virtues of the pro­gram prior to signing a Memo­randum of Agreement with the provincial government to supply foreign workers to the province.

Those were the heady days of the 2010 Vancouver Olym­pics when everybody wanted to rush to complete the infra­structure for the games. The giants of the construction in­dustry and hospitality indus­try needed anyone that could pick a shovel or balance a tray to capitalize on the millions of dollars that flowed into Van­couver.

The solution?
Fast track the immigration process so that these work­ers can come on a ‘temporary basis’ in time to work on the projects. If the projects did not go through or were cancelled because of the recession, away they go to their countries of origin. Or in the alternative, just to survive, work in the un­derground economy accept­ing less than minimum wage working for unscrupulous employers who are more than willing to exploit them.

The bait?
Promise them landed immi­grant status after two years of work as long as they continue to work under the same em­ployer. Exactly the same ‘pie in the sky’ that lured thousands of Fil­ipinas to come to this country to toil under slave-like condi­tions in the hope that they can apply for landed status and let their families join them. Which for most of them ended up like tear-jerker movies.

The only exception for the TFW’s is that they don’t have to live-in their employers homes - a small concession from the model given that these workers are not ‘caregivers’ who must be at the beck and call of their employers 24 hours a day.

And so we are again given the spectacle of poli­ticians who are desperately looking for solutions and are asking you and me for input. As for me, I don’t have anything to offer anymore. I have come to accept that no party and no poli­tician have the political will to tackle the issue head-on. As long as we have countries like the Philip­pines willing to ‘export’ their people to countries like Canada willing to ‘ex­ploit’ the misery of workers without borders, the prob­lem will remain. Like the proverbial ‘poor’ these temporary workers will always be with us.

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