Trudeau Liberals announce cuts to temporary foreign workers program

Starting in September, the Canadian government will begin cutting the number of low-wage, temporary foreign workers it will allow into the country.

The Trudeau Liberals made the announcement Monday morning in Halifax, during its end-of-summer cabinet retreat, marking a pivot away from a pandemic strategy of flooding the labour market with low-wage temporary foreign workers, in the face of acute labour shortages.

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Trudeau spoke to reporters Monday about the governments plan to tighten the tap and reduce the flow of migrant workers and emphasized the need for Canadians to have access to these kinds of jobs.

“We need to keep making sure that we are responding to the needs of Canadian businesses and to the needs of the economy in general and that is why we are constantly adjusting," said Trudeau.

With the labour shortages easing, the Liberals argue the Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) Program is getting in the way of Canadians accessing those jobs and the population is putting a strain on social services.

Sean Fraser, the Liberal housing minister, says the changes made Monday could potentially reduce the pressure on tens-of-thousands of housing units right across the country.

"We are no longer dealing with the same labour shortages that we were dealing with even just a couple of years ago and so too, the policy landscape has to shift," said Fraser.

Starting in late September, the Trudeau government will begin denying applications for low-wage temporary foreign worker positions in cities with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher.

Exceptions will be granted for jobs in the food, agricultural construction, and health-care industries.

However, employers will be limited to hiring a maximum of 10 per cent of their workforce through the program, which is down from 20 per cent.

Halifax-based immigration lawyer Elizabeth Wozniak says these adjustments bring the program back in line with pre-pandemic levels.

“You shouldn’t need to have temporary foreign workers in perpetuity," said Wozniak. "It’s meant to be a stopgap kind of thing like during the pandemic when there was a huge labour shortage.”

Recent data from the federal Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship shows a surge in temporary work permits, with 697,760 issued between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, 2023, compared to approximately 274,690 during that same period in 2022.

Wozniak stressed that foreign workers shouldn’t be blamed for broader social issues like unemployment and lack of housing.

“Really it’s at the government's control to moderate the amount of immigration that comes into the country and I think also it’s unfair to blame the people that are already here and to effectively pull the rug out from under them," said Wozniak.

Trudeau said the Liberals will continue to monitor the labour market and signalled it's likely more changes will come to the low-wage foreign workers program, as well as to the high-wage foreign workers program.

“We’ll also be looking at changes to the high-wage stream of the program as part of the minister’s 90-day expedited review,” said Trudeau who offered a message to employers.

“There is no better time to invest in and hire Canadian workers."