What is the temporary foreign workers program? Mark Carney says he won't be scrapping it
Mark Carney has said no to scrapping temporary foreign workers program, after Pierre Poilievre called on the federal governmen t to eliminate it due to spike in Canadian youth unemployment rates, saying “ it’s time for Canadian jobs for Canadian workers. ”
The federal opposition party had picked up a somewhat unexpected ally in B.C. Premier David Eby, who told the Canadian Press on Thursday that the program should “ be cancelled or significantly reformed .”
The NDP Premier said some of the province’s fiscal challenges are tied to “very high unemployment rates” among youths as a result of the TFWP and the international student program.
Meanwhile, the prime minister maintained the program has a role in our system but that it needs to be more focussed. “When I talk to businesses around the country their No. 1 issue is tariffs, and their No. 2 issue is access to temporary foreign workers,” Carney told reporters.
But what is the temporary foreign worker program? And why does it need to be fixed or eliminated? Here’s what to know.
What is the temporary foreign worker program?
The TFWP allows Canadian employers to hire foreign nationals for temporary work when no qualified Canadians or permanent residents are available.
Employers can hire individuals through one of six streams: high-wage workers, global talent stream, in-home caregivers and foreign academics, low-wage workers and seasonal agriculture workers. The latter two represent the bulk of TFWP permits issued by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), the government agencies that operate the program.
How did the program change under the Liberal government?
After going mostly unchanged for almost 30 years, the program’s scope was expanded under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2002 with a low-skilled pilot project allowing people to be hired for lower-skilled occupations that dominate the current program.
After reports of employer abuse and high unemployment, the system was overhauled in 2013 to require a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) and place restrictions on how many workers an employer could use.
LMIA is an application to ESDC by an employer that shows a need in the labour market and proves they can afford to pay the worker.
Before he was elected as Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau had criticized the program.
“Temporary foreign workers program lowers Canadian wages and exploits vulnerable people,” Justin Trudeau, then leader of the Liberal Party, posted on X in 2014, tagging prime minister Stephen Harper’s governing Conservatives. “It needs to be fixed.”
#CPC temporary foreign workers program lowers Canadian wages and exploits vulnerable people. It needs to be fixed.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 6, 2014
But when COVID-19 led to labour shortages, the Trudeau government loosened the rules to allow higher caps on low-wage hires from 10 to 20 per cent — 30 per cent in some sectors — and extended the maximum employment length from one year to two.
Ottawa reversed those regulations last summer and said it would begin refusing to process LMIAs in the low-wage stream for major cities with unemployment over six per cent, excluding seasonal and non-seasonal jobs in food sectors, as well as construction and health care.
Wage thresholds, used to determine the need for an LMIA, were increased in June.
How many temporary foreign workers are in Canada?
According to Statistics Canada , TFWP and the IMP, “have expanded rapidly in recent years, with the number of temporary residents working in Canada more than doubling in a decade, rising from 356,000 in 2011 to 845,000 in 2021.”
The agency also notes that the share of temporary foreign workers arriving under the TFWP is considerably less than those arriving under the IMP, and that it’s fallen from just over one in three in 2011 (35 per cent) to one in six in 2021 (15 per cent).
In Feburary 2024, ThinkPol reported data that showed the number of TWFP permits issued steadily increasing since 2019, when 73,355 were awarded, almost 20,000 more than the previous year. By 2022, that number had ballooned to a record 119,235, only to be eclipsed in 2023 when IRCC reported 184,008.
A Statistics Canada study of 2021 tax data showed that approximately 1 in 25 people working in Canada in 2021 were temporary foreign workers (4.1 per cent), up from 1 in 50 a decade earlier (1.9 per cent).
Why is the program linked to rise in unemployment rates?
Poilievre cited Statistics Canada data that shows youth (15-24 years old) unemployment hit 14.6 per cent in July, the highest since September 2010, not including the pandemic years. The employment rate for the cohort was at 53.6 per cent in July, the lowest since November 1988, also not including 2020 and 2021.
Poilievre said the majority of program participants work low-wage positions, putting them in direct competition with Canada’s youth and working class and ultimately driving down wages for everyone.
“The Liberals promised they would cap the temporary foreign worker program at 82,000, but in the first six months, they’ve already handed out 105,000 permits,” he said at a news conference .
LIVE: End the Temporary Foreign Worker Program https://t.co/HIpEhxJ4Df
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) September 3, 2025
“If they do the same number of permits for temporary foreign workers in the next six months that they did in the last six, they will break the record again with over 200,000 temporary foreign workers coming in to take jobs when our own young people are facing record unemployment.”
Poilievre said he wasn’t trying to demonize the workers, who he said “are being taken advantage of by Liberal corporate elites who want to use them to drive down wages.”
“The Liberals have to answer why they’re shutting our own youths out of jobs and replacing them with low-wage temporary foreign workers from poor countries who are ultimately being exploited.”
Immigration Minister Lena Diab wasn’t available for comment, but a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) — which oversees the program in conjunction with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) — said some of what Poilievre said was “inaccurate or incomplete.”
The 82,000, they said in an email, represents the number of new individuals expected to arrive under the TFWP and the 105,000 includes permit extensions for people already in Canada.
“They do not represent new arrivals to the country.”
The spokesperson said 33,722 new workers came to Canada via TWFP in the first six months of 2025, accounting for “roughly 40 per cent of the total volume expected this year.”
When combined with the 85,512 people admitted through the International Mobility Program (IMP) — a separate stream — 125,903 fewer new temporary workers arrived between January and June 2025 compared to the same time in 2024.
The Conservatives are proposing an immediate end to the program with no new visas issued for temporary foreign workers and winding down existing permits “until the program is entirely eliminated.”
When did the temporary foreign worker program start?
Originally called the Non-Immigrant Employment Authorization Program (NIEAP) when it was formally established in 1973, TFWP allowed employers in non-agricultural and domestic sectors to bring in foreign workers where no Canadians were available.
Prior to the NIEAP, Canada had a bilateral agreement in place with Jamaica, and later other nations, to bring in foreign workers under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) founded in 1966 and which exists within the TFWP today.
How does the temporary foreign worker program operate?
Employers seeking to hire a TFW must first obtain a positive LMIA from ESDC, who will evaluate regional labour data, wages, working conditions and recruitment efforts, after which it can offer the job.
The potential worker then has to apply for a work permit, usually for a specific employer. All that’s left is for the worker to show up and do the job for the permit’s duration.
What have critics said about the temporary foreign worker program?
In 2023, United Nations special rapporteur Tomoya Obokata was invited by the federal government to study the program. After visiting major cities over two weeks, he concluded that the TFWP is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.”
“I am deeply disturbed by the accounts of exploitation and abuse shared with me by migrant workers,” he said .
“I urge the Government to bring forward legislation requiring Canadian companies to implement mandatory human rights due diligence, and expand the independence, powers, and mandate of the (Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise).”
My end of mission statement is available in full. My sincere gratitude to the Government of ???????? for its invitation, courtesy and full support, as well as all stakeholders I met during my mission. I look forward to continuing our dialogue. https://t.co/3f7HiStCIm
— UN Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata (@TomObokata) September 6, 2023
As reported by Financial Post and multiple other media outlets, some employers and some immigration agents exploit the system by illegally selling LMIAs to prospective immigrants. The asking price could be anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000, but immigration consultant Kanwar Sierah told the Post he’s “heard of LMIAs being sold for $70,000.”
Bloomberg reported that a government-commissioned investigation it viewed found some people were being charged up to $180,000.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act , “No person shall … import, export or deal in such a document.”
In 2021, Canada’s Auditor General Karen Hogan issued a report that found Ottawa failed to protect the workers during the pandemic because ESDC inspections “provided little assurance that the health and safety of temporary foreign workers were protected.”
“These findings point to a systemic problem across the department’s inspection regime that needs immediate attention,” Hogan said at the time. “It’s long past time to fix the situation for temporary foreign workers in Canada.”
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