Employment and Workforce Development Minister Randy Boissonnault will tell business associations Tuesday that the government is considering a refusal of temporary foreign worker (TFW) applications under its low-wage stream, his office told CBC News.
This applies to jobs that pay below the median hourly wage in each province and territory. This varies by jurisdiction, ranging from $24 per hour in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, to $39.24 per hour in the Northwest Territories.
“I’ve been clear over the last year, abuse and misuse of the TFW program must end. The health and safety of temporary foreign workers in Canada is a responsibility I take very seriously,” Boissonnault said in a statement.
“Bad actors are taking advantage of people and compromising the program for legitimate businesses. We are putting more reforms in place to stop misuse and fraud from entering the TFW program.”
More than $2 million in fines were issued under the TFW program in the 2023-24 fiscal year. This represents a 36 per cent increase over the prior year.
Immigration, lawyers, agencies and consultants have been raising the alarm over bogus labour market impact assessments (LMIA) being sold for tens of thousands of dollars.
These documents are what employers submit to the federal government when looking to hire a TFW to show they could not find a qualified Canadian within 28 days to fill a job. The standard processing fee for this file is $1,000 and is supposed to be covered by the employer.
Canadian businesses were given the green light to fill roughly 240,000 jobs with temporary foreign workers in 2023, more than twice as many as they were a half-decade earlier. CBC’s Paula Duhatschek looks at the divided opinions and experiences behind the surging numbers.
At the meeting with industry associations, Boissonnault’s office says the minister outlined a number of measures that are being implemented to curb abuse of the system.
This includes applying stricter oversight in “high-risk areas” when processing LMIAs, possibly increasing LMIA application fees and enforcing “consistent application” of the 20 per cent cap policy for TFWs.
The amount of TFW applications being approved has grown significantly in recent years. Last year 239,646 were approved, more than double the rate of 2018 with 108,988. In 2022, 222,847 applications were approved, an increase of over 89,000 from the previous year.
Agriculture continues to be the sector using the most TFWs, but several have seen major increases since 2018. These industries include nurse aides, food service support jobs like counter attendants, and construction.
A report from a trade union group argues B.C.’s construction sector is too reliant on temporary foreign workers. It says that’s bad for local workers’ wages and the rights of workers from abroad. As Liam Britten reports, one foreign worker in Vancouver is calling for more rights, and a chance to become Canadian.
One in 10 temporary foreign workers made less than $7,500 annually in 2019, according to a Statistics Canada report published in May.
More to come.