Keep climate a national priority
Hope Lompe, who worked with Canada's National Observer over summer 2024 on a break from her journalism studies, has won a national reporting award. The 2024-25 Investintech-CAJ Journalism Scholarship recognizes data-driven work by a student journalist, and Lompe's work on foreign labour in the forestry sector was selected.
The reporting drew on national datasets, Freedom of Information requests and interviews to piece together a picture of a changing workforce — one that increasingly leans on foreign labour thanks to the federal government's relaxed policies for employers looking to obtain migrant worker permits in select sectors.
"I'm pleased to see Hope get some much-deserved recognition for this project," said Jimmy Thomson, editor-in-chief of Canada's National Observer, who worked with Hope on this story along with managing editor David McKie. "It was the capstone to an exceptional summer of work. She should be so proud of everything she accomplished here, and she's got a bright future in journalism."
Lompe's analysis found a more than fivefold increase in workers in forestry occupations who held permits through the temporary foreign worker program in 2023 over 2021.
The August story was published at a critical time for the sector. In July, one forestry employer in Port Alberni made headlines when a series of complaints resulted in the removal of 15 Vietnamese migrant workers from “inhumane” living conditions on the San Group mill site, including lack of running water, forcing them to wash in a nearby stream. Also in July, a United Nations special report described Canada’s temporary foreign worker program as “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” On Aug. 6, the federal government announced it will crack down on companies abusing the program and impose stricter regulations.
Lompe was also a recipient of the 2024 Jack Webster Student Journalism Award, with her CNO work cited in that honour as well.
You can read the full story here.
Comments
SO: We are clear cutting our watersheds with fellerbunchers and foreign temporary workers living in conditions that elicit the conclusion Canada's temporary workers program constitutes quite often a form of slavery???
These Corporate Climate Criminals are beyond belief....but the graph suggests they used the crisis of the covid epidemic to ditch Canadian workers for workers who had even less options in life. We should all be outraged........and ashamed.
We are now in an economic war with the epitome of the corporate bottom line.......but already, the lumber America says it doesn't need, and Canada believes it has to be able to 'export' cheaply...........is being produced to maximize profit for the few and guarantee lasting harm for the ecosphere.
Talk about a race to the bottom...with nothing in the wealth creation plan that suggests we'll be building affordable, net zero housing to last a century......anytime soon.........in this country built by hewers of wood and drawers of water. We won't be taking any of it back without a fight....
But thanks to this young woman for doing such a great job, so early in her career, to let us know the actual state of our forestry industry
How do we stop this trashing of everything we say we love?