🇨🇦 Case 4: The Canadian Case

In Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) facilitates the entry of foreign nationals who wish to work temporarily in Canada, through two main streams: the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (employer-specific work permits), and the International Mobility Program (open work permits). Through IRCC’s Global Case Management System, IRCC collects a number of socio-economic variables on work permit holders that allow for monitoring and reporting program impacts by gender and diversity. These variables include gender, age, country of birth, country of residency, official language, language spoken at home, and family status.

For 2021–22, there are two areas to highlight. The Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers (OWP-V) program contributes to the Gender Results Framework pillar on eliminating gender-based violence (GBV) and access to justice. In particular, access to justice is a key point for OWP-V holders, as the work permit helps to facilitate temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in leaving abusive employment and gives them the ability to work for another employer, without compromising their authorization to work in Canada.

Specifically, for the OWP-V holders, qualitative and quantitative data on gender, age, country of citizenship, ability to speak in English/French, prior work permits, and location of work (in Canada) is collected. This information is used to inform program management and policy work. Significant data analysis has been conducted to better understand program barriers for clients and to identify opportunities to improve the OWP-V program for clients, including the development of training to support immigration officers when assessing applications for the OWP-V.

In addition, in 2018, IRCC launched the Visible Minority Newcomer Women pilot to improve the employment and career advancement of visible minority newcomer women in Canada by addressing the barriers they may face, including gender- and race-based discrimination, precarious or low-income employment, lack of affordable childcare and weak social support. As part of the pilot, the Canadian government will provide funding of up to $7 million for new, innovative programmes and services to support women from visible minorities in gaining access to the labour market and to build capacity of smaller organizations that serve or are led by women from visible minorities.