We have a variety of open work permits today. We have open work permits, for instance, for the postgraduate work permit program or for spouses of foreign workers. With an open work permit, an individual can work in any occupation for any employer and in any location. There are no restrictions on them whatsoever. If the purpose of bringing temporary foreign workers to Canada to work in specific occupations is to address labour shortages, an open work permit does not meet the goal.
The issue with closed work permits is the inability of a foreign national to move from employer to employer, particularly in a circumstance when they are being abused. The sectoral work permits present a compromise, an ability to continue to have a program where individuals are working in a particular occupation but where, by the same token, they are not being left in the position that their ability to remain in the country and their livelihood are completely tied to one employer.
Also, under the open work permit scheme, nothing about what the employee is being paid gets tracked. With closed work permits, there's either an LMIA backing them up or something called the “Employer Portal”, where employers have to go to put in an offer of employment that sets out all the terms and conditions. From there comes the ability of the government to conduct inspections. If you have completely open work permits, there is no entry of that information anywhere. Those are not subject to the current inspection regime, so those employers would no longer be subject to any inspection of how they are treating their foreign workers.