Grassroots migrant groups across BC condemn David Eby’s recent comments calling for the termination of the temporary foreign worker program without any consideration about what happens to workers in the program. This is not the first time David Eby has shown callous disregard for migrants’ well-being.
In 2019, Eby reported victims of fraud by a provincial government employee to the Canada Border Services Agency resulting in the deportation of victims. Since 2023, David Eby has repeated racist tropes blaming migrants for the housing crisis in an attempt to shift eyes away from his own policy failures.
“If David Eby actually cared about stopping the exploitation and abuse inherent in temporary foreign worker programs, he would be joining migrant-led groups in calling for permanent resident status on arrival for all. Instead, he joined Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney in attacking migrants,” Cenen Bagon, member of the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers and Caregivers Rights. “There is now clearly an established pattern of David Eby intentionally ignoring migrant needs and rights.”
In 2024, the federal Liberal government introduced an Immigration Levels Plan that would result in expirations of at least 2.3 million work permits in the next two years while at the same time, slashing permanent residence levels. Migrant justice groups are already seeing the results as every day, migrant workers and their families are losing their status without any alternatives.
“If David Eby is truly leading a party who works ‘hard every day in making life better and more secure’ for all B.C. workers and their families, he would be fighting for stronger protections for migrant workers and the rights of migrant workers to organize and stay without fear of deportation,” says Ingrid Mendez, Executive Director of the Migrant Workers Centre.
Instead Eby has blatantly ignored the recent UN Special Rapporteur commenting on the disturbing conditions for those in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program including not being able to negotiate their own working conditions, debt bondage and horrific housing conditions. Both Eby and Poilievre have viewed this stream as separate and a viable temporary migration path to keep exploiting farm workers disregarding Professor Tomoya Obokata’s statements “that this workforce is disproportionately racialized, attesting to deep-rooted racism and xenophobia entrenched in Canada's immigration system.”
Migrants are not allowing themselves to be scapegoated. Migrants and social movements are uniting on a broad joint action on September 20, 2025 to Draw the Line on inequality, exploitation and injustice in over 40 cities in Canada: https://drawtheline.world/canada
Groups endorsing this release include the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers' and Caregivers' Rights, Migrant Students United Vancouver, Sanctuary Health and the Migrant Workers Centre.
