Excerpt: "For the past 50 years, the Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) program has supplied Canadian employers with low-cost migrant labour. Temporary work permits are well known in the agriculture, home and health care sectors. Child care has more recently joined the list, with governments in Quebec and Nova Scotia actively recruiting early child educators (ECEs) from overseas, along with a massive surge in requests from employers to hire foreign-trained staff. Worker advocates charge the sudden expansion will take pressure off governments and child care providers to address low wages. For the first time ever the early childhood workforce has some bargaining power thanks to federal investment and agreements with the provinces and territories to lower parent fees and expand access. ECEs are in high demand, but rather than negotiating with provinces to increase earnings to attract and retain educators, Ottawa has loosened the rules which curbed TFW abuses and expanded the number of migrant workers that employers can hire."