OTTAWA — Just a few days after the federal employment minister announced a moratorium to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program, restaurants are scrambling to deal with government investigations and staff shortages, reports CBC News.
McDonald’s was recently the subject of a CBC News investigation that centered on a franchisee in Victoria, B.C. accused of favouring foreign workers over Canadian applicants. In a recent conference call recording published by the news outlet, McDonald’s Canada CEO John Betts responded to the recent investigation. “This has been an attack on our brand. This has been an attack on our system. This is an attack on our people. It’s bullsh** OK! I used those words when I described my conversation with the minister last week. He gets it.” The company said it has initiated a third-party audit to examine the use of its program.
The moratorium is casting a shadow over independent restaurants and smaller restaurant chains, who told CBC of their recent staffing woes. Calgary’s Globefish restaurant said last week’s announcement means it will be forced to shut down the restaurant one day a week because of staff shortages. “Throughout three locations, 30 per cent of our workers are foreign workers, and we depend on them quite a bit,” said Amane Kanai, manager at Globefish. “I do hire people [locally] but then they get another job, an office job, in the oil field — it’s big in Alberta.” [cbc.ca]
