Canada must end the temporary foreign worker program, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on Wednesday.
“It’s time to take decisive action to protect our youth and workers,” Poilievre said, with a press release urging the government to “immediately stop issuing new TFW permits, and end this wage-suppressing, opportunity-stealing program.”
“Under this urgently-needed plan, the temporary foreign worker program would be permanently abolished with a separate, standalone program for legitimately difficult-to-fill agricultural labour,” Poilievre said.
“For ultra-low-unemployment regions, there will be a transition period of, at most, five years while the program winds down, but no new permits will be issued anywhere in Canada.”
His proposal comes amid growing scrutiny of the temporary foreign worker program and concerns about whether access to less expensive labour through the program can hurt the potential for wage growth in communities.
The federal data shows Canada set a target to admit 82,000 new arrivals through the temporary foreign worker program this year.
Last year, the federal government announced it was introducing restrictions to the program.
The government said it will refuse applications for low-wage temporary foreign workers in regions with an unemployment rate of six per cent or higher.
A low-wage job is defined as one that pays below the median hourly wage in the province where the job is located.
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For employers, there will be a cap of 10 per cent of employees coming from the low-wage stream of the TFW program and a reduction of the maximum duration of employment from two years to one, according to the Employment and Social Development Canada.
Poilievre said youth employment in Canada was “at its lowest in more than a quarter-century” outside of the pandemic.
Canada’s latest immigration levels plan aims to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers from 6.5 per cent of Canada’s population to less than five per cent by 2026.
Ottawa also has a cap on the number of international student permits it issues. Last year, it vowed to further reduce the number of study permits from 485,000 in 2024 to 437,000 this year.
Government figures indicate that Canada’s temporary resident population is set to decline by 445,901 in 2025, and 445,662 in 2026, followed by “a modest increase of 17,439 in 2027.”
Speaking hours after Poilievre’s announcement, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the Temporary Foreign Workers program “has a role” to play in Canada’s economy and the government was working to ensure it worked effectively.
“We will be discussing how well the Temporary Foreign Worker program is working and how our overall immigration system is working,” Carney told reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Toronto on Wednesday.
He added that the government was taking “clear steps to adjust” the immigration system.
Migrant rights group Migrant Workers Alliance for Change accused Poilievre of “whipping up xenophobia, scapegoating migrant workers for problems created by corporate profiteering and government inaction on housing, jobs and wages.”
“If he truly wanted to end the exploitation of migrants and truly wanted to welcome immigrants to build lives in Canada, he would be demanding permanent resident status for all,” said MWAC executive director Syed Hussan.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said Poilievre’s recent statements on immigration contained “inaccurate or incomplete information.”
“The Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program is designed to be responsive to changes in the labour market and to allow employers in Canada to hire foreign workers when qualified Canadians or permanent residents are not available to fill job positions,” the department told Global News in an emailed statement.
To qualify for the TWF program, an employer must apply for Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to hire a foreign worker to fill labour or skills shortages on a temporary basis.
However, Global’s reporting found that experts have concerns about how employers use the system. Some economists have been concerned that the temporary foreign workers program gives employers permission to rely on cheap labour and even deliberately supress wages to deter local candidates.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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