Temporary Foreign Worker Program Under Fire

VANCOUVER, BC, September 22, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ — The Vancouver Immigration lawyers at Sas & Ing recently discussed how Canada is reducing the number of foreign workers in Canada. On August 6, 2024, the Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, issued a statement in which he mused about reducing the number of foreign workers in Canada by prohibiting employers from certain parts of Canada from hiring low-wage workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). For more, go to https://canadian-visa-lawyer.com/temporary-foreign-worker-program-under-fire-government-moving-full-speed-ahead-to-reduce-number-of-foreign-workers-in-canada/

On August 20, 2024, Minister Boissonnault took the first such step by approving a temporary pause prohibiting employers in the Montreal economic region from employing workers earning less than $27.47 per hour through the TFWP. Only six days later, on August 26, he announced another series of policy changes that will make it more difficult for Canadian employers to hire low-wage temporary foreign workers across Canada.

2024 has seen a dramatic rise of a growing anti-immigration sentiment based on a widely held view that Canada is allowing too many people into the country amidst a housing and cost-of-living crisis. This comes on the heels of a period of unchecked immigration growth following the end of the global pandemic, as well as an unexpected war in Ukraine, which has significantly increased immigration levels overall.

The government is taking a public and aggressive stance against growing immigration levels, and the Minister’s latest announcement is intended to roll back COVID-era policies that were introduced to stimulate the economy after the end of the pandemic.

Effective September 26, 2024, the Government of Canada will reintroduce three policies restricting the ability of Canadian employers to hire low-wage temporary foreign workers, as follows:

Low-Wage Cap

Employers will no longer be able to have more than 10% of their existing workforce made up of low-wage temporary foreign workers. During the pandemic, all employers were allowed to hire up to 20% of their workforce through the TFWP, and some employers were even subject to a higher 30% threshold if they operated in high-priority sectors such as construction and health care.

The definition of a low-wage worker changes depending on the province. In British Columbia, the current high wage cut-off is $28.85, meaning that these new rules will affect any worker earning less than the wage rate. These changes will affect many employers and temporary foreign workers working in different fields, not simply those serving coffee or performing manual labour.

Shortened Work Permits

Canadian employers hiring low-wage temporary foreign workers will soon only be able to keep them on one-year work permits at a time. Put another way, newly approved low-wage Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) will now only lead to granting a one-year work permit to a foreign worker. Effectively, this means that any employer that wants to continuously hire these workers to fill labour shortages will need to be prepared to apply for new LMIAs every eight months or so since it can easily take 3-4 months for the government to approve one.

The message from the government is loud and clear: Canadian employers must find a way to hire from the Canadian labour market, including upskilling or re-training existing workers in the labour market to fill job vacancies, rather than relying on the TFWP.

Refusal to Process

The Government of Canada will refuse to process low-wage LMIAs made by employers located in metropolitan areas with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher, with exceptions being granted to employers working in high-priority sectors such as agriculture, food and fish processing, construction, and health care. Similar rules were previously in place but were revoked in 2022 during the post-pandemic recovery period.

As you can see, changes to Canada’s TFWP are occurring rapidly and with little notice. In August alone, the government made three announcements that had far-reaching consequences that would affect many thousands of employers and temporary foreign workers alike. All this forms part of the larger policy goal of reducing overall immigration levels in Canada, which represents a drastic reversal of previous government policy. Leaders are now publicly teasing further changes like amending rules surrounding the hiring of high-wage workers and possibly even reducing overall levels of permanent immigration to Canada.

These changes and rhetoric are familiar to immigration lawyers and others who have worked for a long time in this industry, but it feels like a tipping point has been reached. With only a month of warning, employers will have to adjust to this new reality and reassess their operations. What is their current level of reliance on low-wage temporary foreign workers? What is their appetite and ability to apply for LMIAs year after year? Similarly, low-wage temporary foreign workers must also reassess their circumstances, especially if their current permits will soon expire and employers will now have to apply for LMIAs under the new rules.

As experienced immigration lawyers in Vancouver, paring back on the TFWP will likely be short-lived, given longstanding demographic and economic forecasting. However, with an election looming in the future, such steps are unsurprising, and employers and workers need to be able to adapt to the current swing of the pendulum of changes to the TFWP.

To learn more about immigrating to Canada or to seek representation, contact the Vancouver immigration lawyers at Sas and Ing at 1-604-689-5444.

About the Company

Sas and Ing Immigration Law Centre has over 30 years of continued in-depth and comprehensive expertise in most aspects of Canadian Immigration practice. Sas and Ing have facilitated applications to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), Service Canada and Canada Border Services Agency. Catherine & Victor work closely with other lawyers specializing in Business, Employment, Tax, and Real Estate to provide comprehensive legal advice to companies and individuals as they navigate the regulatory requirements necessary for temporary or permanent establishment in Canada.

For additional information, please visit canadian-visa-lawyer.com or call (604) 689-5444

Sas and Ing Immigration Law Centre
Catherine Sas
(604) 689-5444
Company website: canadian-visa-lawyer.com

—
For the original version of this press release, please visit 24-7PressRelease.com here