Temporary foreign workers: Your rights are protected (2024)

On this page

• Your rights
• Your employment agreement
• Access to health care services
  • Provincial or territorial health care insurance
  • Private health insurance
• If you’re injured or become ill at your workplace
• Health and safety at work
• Workplace free of abuse
• If you lose your job
• Changing employers
• Housing rights
  • Workers in the low-wage and primary agriculture streams
  • Workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program
  • Adequate housing
• How to get help
  • Reporting abuse
  • Changing jobs due to abuse or risk of abuse
  • Getting assistance from a support organization for migrant workers
  • Reporting a workplace health and safety problem
  • Reporting other employment problems
  • Employees working in the federally regulated sector
  • Protection and help for victims of human trafficking

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Your rights

In Canada, the rights of all workers, including TFWs, are protected by law. If you’re a TFW, you have the same rights and protections as Canadians and permanent residents.

Your employer must:

• give you information about your rights
• give you a signed copy of your employment agreement on or before the first day of work
• pay you for your work as stated in your employment agreement. This includes overtime work if it’s included as part of your agreement
• make reasonable efforts to provide you with a workplace free of abuse, including reprisals
• follow the employment and recruitment standards of the province or territory where you work
• get and pay for private health insurance that covers your emergency medical care until you're eligible for provincial or territorial health insurance coverage (consult the Access to health care services section for exceptions)
• make reasonable efforts to give you access to health care services if you're injured or become ill at the workplace

Your employer can’t:

• force you to perform unsafe work or work that your employment agreement doesn’t authorize you to do
• force you to work if you’re sick or injured
• pressure or force you to work overtime not included in your employment agreement
• punish you for reporting mistreatment, unsafe work, inadequate housing or for cooperating with an inspection by a government employee
• take your passport or work permit away from you
• deport you from Canada or change your immigration status
• make you reimburse recruitment-related fees they may have paid to hire you

Your employment agreement

On or before your first day of work, your employer must give you a copy of your employment agreement. It must be in English or French (your chosen official language while in Canada). Both you and your employer must sign this agreement. The employment agreement must refer to the same occupation, wages and working conditions as those outlined in your offer of employment.

Access to health care services

You don’t need your employer’s permission to seek health care. In most cases you don’t have to pay to see a doctor or for hospital care in Canada.

If you’re injured or become ill at your workplace

Tell your supervisor or employer as soon as possible and get medical attention as quickly as possible. Your employer must make reasonable efforts to provide access to a health care provider (like a doctor, nurse or pharmacist) by, for example:

• giving you time off to seek medical attention
• ensuring there is a phone available to call emergency services
• giving you information on what to do and where to go to get health care
• helping you get transportation to the health care provider

Your employer isn’t required to pay for your transportation to get to a hospital, clinic, doctor or other health care service. Consult the Private health insurance section for exceptions for seasonal agricultural workers.

You have the right to speak privately with a health care provider, without your employer.

Health and safety at work

Your employer can’t force you to do work that you think is dangerous. They can’t fire you or refuse to pay you. Your employer must look into any danger that’s reported in the workplace.

You have the right to refuse to do the work until you and your employer agree that:

• the danger is removed
• you have received the proper equipment and training
• the problem no longer exists

Your employer must:

• follow the employment laws
• train you to do your job safely, including how to safely operate any equipment or machinery
• give you protective equipment and appropriate training if your job requires you to use pesticides/chemical products. Your employer must not deduct any money from your pay for this equipment or training. You must learn to properly use this equipment

Most provinces and territories offer workers’ compensation benefits (payments to make up for lost wages) when workers are injured or sick because of their work.

• It’s against the law for your employer to stop you from making a workers’ compensation claim
• In some provinces and territories, employers must get and pay for workplace safety insurance. Your employer must not deduct any money from your pay for this
• If you and your employer disagree about a health and safety issue, report the situation to the workplace health and safety office in your province or territory (consult the Reporting a workplace health or safety problem section)

Workplace free of abuse

Employers must make reasonable efforts to provide a workplace that’s free of abuse. Your employer or anyone acting on behalf of your employer (for example, your supervisor) can’t abuse you, physically, sexually, psychologically or financially.

Abuse includes reprisals such as actions or threats of demotion, disciplinary measures or dismissal due to reporting your employer for non-compliance. Any behaviour that scares, controls or isolates you could be abuse.

Some examples of abuse:

• physical harm
• threats, insults
• forcing you to work in a way that’s unsafe or risky to your health
• unwanted sexual touching
• demanding sexual favours so you can keep your job or return the following year
• controlling where you can go or who you can see
• stealing from you
• taking any or all of the money you’re owed
• taking and refusing to return your passport, work permit or other identification
• forcing you to commit fraud
• firing, threatening or disciplining you for complaining about your working conditions or abuse or for participating in an inspection by a government employee
• firing you, making you or threatening to make you leave Canada or pressuring you to have an abortion if you’re pregnant

To report an abusive situation, contact the Service Canada confidential tip line at 1-866-602-9448. If you need help right away, call 9-1-1 or your local police.

If you lose your job

Your employer should provide reasonable notice before laying you off. If they don’t, they must pay you termination pay. The amount is based on how long you have been working and in which province or territory you’re working.

If you lose your job through no fault of your own, or if you leave your job because you’re being abused, you may qualify to receive Employment Insurance (EI) benefits.

For information about EI, visit the EI regular benefits page.

Changing employers

You're allowed to change employers. However, your work permit may only allow you to work for your current employer, so you may need to apply for a new work permit before you can start working for a different employer. Also, your new employer must get permission from the Government of Canada to hire you as a temporary foreign worker. They’ll need to have avalid Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA).

If you’re an agricultural worker under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), you may be able to change employers without getting a new work permit. To find out if you’re a SAWP worker, look at your work permit: the words "Approved MEX/CCSAWP employer only" will be written in the bottom remarks. Consult your signed employment contract on how your transfer across SAWP employers can be completed.

If you change jobs without following the steps above, you may be working without authorization. This can have serious repercussions and can result in a removal order, which means you must leave the country.

You can use the Government of CanadaJob Bankto search for jobs with Canadian employers who want to hire TFWs. The job posting will say if the employer has already applied for or received a positive LMIA. The employer needs this to hire a TFW.

Housing rights

How to get help

Reporting abuse

If your employer is breaking the rules of the TFWP, or is abusing you or someone you know, you should report it.

Call Service Canada’s tip line at 1-866-602-9448.

• This service is confidential. Service Canada won’t tell your employer you called
• You can talk to a Service Canada agent in one of more than 200 languages
• You can leave an anonymous message to report your concerns. All calls are taken seriously and may lead to an investigation

You can also reportabuseto Service Canada using the online form.