Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that his government will reduce the number of low-wage temporary foreign workers businesses are able to hire and that it is considering lowering the number of permanent residents Canada admits, calling on employers to hire Canadian workers instead.
“We will have, with today’s changes, about 65,000 fewer people participating in the temporary foreign worker program,” said Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault speaking to reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Halifax.
The federal government said it will refuse applications for low-wage temporary foreign workers in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher for most sectors.
It also announced that employers in most sectors will be limited to hiring a maximum of 10 per cent of their workforce from the temporary foreign worker program going forward, down from 20 per cent.
Workers hired through the low-wage stream will be able to work a maximum of one year, down from two years.
The changes to the temporary foreign worker program will come into effect on Sept. 26 and workers in health care, construction and food security sectors will be exempt from the changes, Trudeau said.
Trudeau told reporters that his government loosened the rules to help businesses facing labour shortages recover from the pandemic.
But the economic situation is different now, he said, and Canada “no longer needs as many temporary foreign workers.”
When the federal government eased restrictions for the program in 2022, Canada had nearly one million job vacancies across the country and the unemployment rate dipped to a record-low of 4.9 per cent.
Job vacancies have decreased significantly since then and the unemployment rate is climbing as high interest rates restrict economic growth. The unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent in July.
“We need Canadian businesses to invest in training and technology, not increasing their reliance on low-cost foreign labour,” Trudeau said at a press conference.
“It’s not fair to Canadians struggling to find a good job, and it’s not fair to those temporary foreign workers, some of whom are being mistreated and exploited.”
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said “there are more measures to be announced” in the future.
When asked about changes in the number of permanent residents Miller said “options are currently on the table,” but “it’s not a discussion that’s been had by cabinet yet.”
The government’s announcement comes after a UN official in a final report doubled down on his criticism of Canada’s temporary foreign worker program as “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery,” earlier this month. Tomoya Obokata, the UN’s special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, stressed that granting migrant workers permanent resident status is necessary to end ongoing exploitation.
Chris Ramsaroop, an activist with Justicia for Migrant Workers, argued that the government’s announcement is a “knee jerk response” to criticism of the federal program, which falls short of protecting temporary migrant workers, most of whom work in the agriculture sector, which remains unaffected by the changes.
“The federal government has overwhelmingly failed to protect migrant workers and rather than addressing the exploitation, they’re blaming the workers themselves,” Ramsaroop said. “Agriculture, construction, and health care — the industries that employ the largest number of temporary foreign workers — will continue the status quo.”
Ramsaroop expressed concern that these changes could result in the deportation of thousands of migrant workers who are currently filling labour gaps, warning that the government might “criminalize and vilify this population of migrant workers who have only been trying to work and earn decent wages here in Canada.”
Demand for temporary foreign workers in Canada has surged in recent years. Employers were given the green light to hire almost 240,000 temporary foreign workers in 2023, according to data from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) — more than double the number in 2018.
According to public data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 183,820 temporary foreign worker permits became effective in 2023. That was up from 98,025 in 2019 — an 88 per cent increase.
The TFW program is intended as a “last resort for employers to fill jobs for which qualified Canadians are not available,” according to ESDC. But critics say jobs across all sectors — including agriculture, health care, food-service and construction — are increasingly being occupied by a precarious and vulnerable workforce simply to keep wages low.
As the program expands, so have the number allegations of abuse and fraud — to the point where earlier in August Boissonnault declared that the “abuse and misuse of the TFW program must end,” and promised more stringent oversight to keep “bad actors” in check.
With files from The Canadian Press
