Stephen Harper didn’t hide what he thought of working people. His government waged attacks against collective bargaining. They tried to force unions to develop overly bureaucratic measures to make their finances public to non-members. They resisted and dismantled social programs that help people, even if they had few or no benefits through their work. And they oversaw changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program that threatened the livelihood of as many as 70,000 workers.

When he was elected in 2015, Justin Trudeau promised a new era of cooperation with workers. He has been friendly with labour leaders. He has tried to show that he can work with business and labour. He has gone to union conventions to promote his party’s agenda. His reception has been generally positive.

But in October, the honeymoon ended. While at a young workers’ conference, Trudeau faced his first, direct protest.

As we say good riddance to 2016 and look forward to 2017, Trudeau’s approach to workers will help voters gauge just how feminist, progressive, and worker friendly he really is. Will he keep his promises to working people? Here are five issues to watch for 2017.

Canada Post

When Harper cut door-to-door mail delivery in 2014, he sent a signal to Canadians: public services, even long-standing ones, can be eliminated. Shrouded in a discussion about modernization (even though the corporation continues to be profitable), the Conservatives used Canada Post as a proxy to wage an attack on good jobs and collective bargaining.

The Liberals promised to restore door-to-door mail delivery. They negotiated a contract with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in December 2016, and sent the question of door-to-door delivery to a committee where Liberals members held the majority. The committee recommended expanding Canada Post’s services and agreed that daily delivery should continue. They didn’t recommend postal banking, a service that would offer Canadians basic and cheap banking services. The NDP issued its own report, criticizing the committee for this oversight.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has been calling for an overhaul to Canada Post for years. They envision an organization that can undercut the high costs of banking, dispense medical marijuana, and deliver food to Northern Communities, among other services.

If the Liberals are interested in sustainably transforming Canada Post, CUPW’s recommendations should be considered carefully. But their committee report suggests that they prefer to limit the scope of Canada Post’s mandate, which will surely result in more job losses, worse service and even the demise of the postal service itself. What will the Liberals ultimately decide?

Phoenix payroll system

The federal government is the direct employer of hundreds of thousands of workers. Due to the implementation of the Phoenix pay system, 82,000 workers have had problems with their pay, in some cases not being paid at all. More than one year after the Liberals took office, there were still 200,000 transactions that had not been completed, and 18,000 workers who still had problems with their pay.

According to the Public Works and Government Services website, as of January 11, there was still a backlog affecting 8,000 workers.

The new pay system was implemented six months into the Liberals’ term. Even though this decision was made prior to their election, the way in which they’ve handled it has been a disaster. How much longer will workers have to manage with these problems?

Bill C-27

On October 19, the Liberals introduced legislation that would amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, called Bill C-27. It would give employers the option to not fund employer’s contributions for pension plans. This opens the possibility for employers to reduce benefits, even retroactively.

The change would apply to Crown corporations and federal public sector employers. The Canadian Labour Congress called the legislation “a betrayal,” that “was even rejected by the Conservatives.”

Removing the legal requirement that corporations fund their pension contributions would threaten billions of dollars in pension money. That’s money that older Canadians rely on to buy food and pay for housing costs. 

Childcare

During the 2015 election, the Liberals rejected the NDP’s plans to create a national childcare system. Instead, they implemented individual fixes, such as offering families more money through a universal child benefit.

Of course, when there’s no childcare available, more money available for families doesn’t quite fix the problem.

In late December, a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report showed that childcare costs are climbing and families are increasingly desperate. When parents can’t find childcare, their ability to hold a full-time job is threatened.

The Liberals have promised a pan-Canadian framework, but work hasn’t yet started on the framework. In 2017, this will be a critical policy area that Canadians should watch. Will the framework create enough spaces? Will there be a cap placed on fees? Will they deliver before the next election, or will the results of this work be put towards voters at the next election?

Temporary Foreign Worker Program

The changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program that were brought on by Harper’s Conservatives are only now coming to bear, and how Trudeau and his ministers reform the program will have important implications on hundreds of thousands of workers and their families.

As most of these workers fall under provincial labour jurisdiction, the big question is: will Trudeau allow more of these workers to immigrate to Canada and work here as citizens? How will they reduce exploitation?

Already, they’ve scrapped a rule that forced Temporary Foreign Workers to wait for four years to come back to Canada after having completed a four-year work period. As they campaigned to “fix” the program, ensuring that workers can find paths to permanent residency or citizenship will be critical.

Photo courtesy Instagram/justinpjtrudeau.

The changes allow agents of  Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), the branch of government in charge of the program, to enter the premises of any business employing TFWs and search without a warrant.

Harper’s government has been reviewing the TFWP for some time, and have made other changes in the past few months: the workers must now be paid the “prevailing wage,” where before employers were permitted to pay TFWs 15 percent less than their Canadian co-workers. This decision, made in April, infuriated businesses and opponents, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said it would push labour offshore.

Stephen Harper has made much of the issues surrounding the TFWP, particularly after the subject entered the limelight, with RBC under fire for outsourcing labour this spring. The program, designed to fill positions when Canadians are not available to work, provided cheaper labour before the change required employers to adhere to the prevailing wage. However, this latest amendment has consequences far beyond the program itself.

HRSDC officials can now enter any business they suspect of fraud relating to the TFWP—like businesses suspected of employing undocumented foreign workers, or misreporting their use of the program. Officials are also permitted, under the new rules, access to all documents on the premises—essentially, to search without a warrant.

In their report on the change, the Globe and Mail interviewed Richard Kurland, an immigration lawyer practicing in Vancouver. “This is a civil liberties grab,” Kurland said to the paper.

It’s a tough call: both the wage change and the new policing policies are arguably beneficial for temporary foreign workers, and will prevent at least some of the worst aspects of the previous policy—systemic (and often encouraged) exploitation that benefits business at the expense of poorly paid imported labour with very few rights in this country.

But since when does Stephen Harper care about the rights of foreign workers? The TFWP and the outsourcing of labour are hot topics for Canadians these days—some are concerned about exploitation, treatment, and rights, but many are more afraid of being replaced by cheaper labour. For many people, the most damning part of the RBC fiasco was the company’s audacity in demanding Canadian workers train the outsourced staff set to replace them. The story made headlines across the country, playing on recession-era anxieties about the dwindling job market—and this latest reform seems more tacked on to the end of that outraged bandwagon and less a result of finally listening to the years of activism surrounding TFW rights.

Harper’s positions just don’t add up. His interest in the rights of foreign workers over the profits of Canadian businesses is stunningly out of character. While it will force employers who participate in the TFWP to subject to random audits, raising the standards of TFW rights immeasurably and with good reason, it also gives officials powers they have in no other branch of government, powers to enter premises unannounced, take photos and videos and seize documents. It’s hard to trust motives. Instead of wage raises, will we get deportations? Abuses of power? Degradation of privacy?

A spokesperson for Justicia For Migrant Workers, a Canadian non-profit and advocacy group, says this is precisely the concern. “While theoretically inspections may improve some work places,” says Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with the group. “There are many more issues that may arise from federal officials entering workplaces. Will these regulations be utilized by the Canada Border Services Agency (in collaboration with Citizenship and Immigration Canada) to undertake more immigration raids on migrant worker communities?”

The change sets a troubling precedent: The rights of foreign workers are a noble cause, and Harper has used that noble cause to his advantage—a smokescreen to introduce policies open and available to government abuse without, as Ramsaroop says, addressing the fundamental problems with the TFWP.

“There are numerous issues that could have been undertaken by the federal government to protect the rights of migrants,” he says, “Including addressing recruitment fees, providing workers the ability to apply for residency to Canada, and ensuring their human rights are respected. These regulations do not address any of these concerns.”