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Employers in Canada with foreign worker(s) employees hired under the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program must meet certain compliance obligations. One such obligation is to conduct an annual review of the salary being offered to foreign worker(s) on work permits issued under a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA). As part of the compliance obligations, employers are required to ensure that the salary being offered continues to meet the median or prevailing wage.

The Job Bank wages are adjusted yearly in the fall. This year, the Job Bank wage adjustment came into effect on December 3, 2024. Employers should therefore conduct a review of their foreign worker employees on LMIA based work permits and, should the foreign worker(s) wage fall below the prevailing wage rates, the wages should be adjusted and updated by January 1, 2025.

The prevailing wage can be reviewed on ESDC’s Job Bank website wage section by the applicable National Occupation Classification (“NOC”) code and the region of employment.

The Job Bank wage adjustment is a routine affair. Based on an initial review of the adjusted wage, it seems the percentage increase is somewhat of a mixed bag with some wage increases over 10% . This is not surprising given the government’s policy to minimize the number of temporary residents in Canada and the government recent and aggressive measures to essentially overhaul the LMIA program.

Recently, the government implemented several measures to minimize the use of the LMIA program. One such measure was increasing the provincial and territorial wage threshold for employers to be able to apply for a high-wage LMIA by 20%. This in conjunction with some other measures for low-wage LMIAs, as listed below, have made the LMIA landscape very challenging.

• Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) refusing to process LMIA applications for certain positions in the low-wage stream where the location of work is in a Census Metropolitan Area with an unemployment rate of 6% or more.
• Reducing the employment duration for low-wage LMIAs from two years to one year, with the exception of positions in the primary agriculture steam.
• Capping the proportion of temporary foreign workers in low-wage positions, at a specific work location to 10% of the employer work force from 20%. There are however certain exemptions to the cap as listed below:
  • The 10% cap does not apply to positions in construction; food manufacturing; hospitals; and nursing and residential care facilities specific to in-home caregiver positions. For these positions, the cap still remains 20%. The classification code for these sectors is determined by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Canada.
  • The cap does not apply to seasonal positions that are less than 270 days; on-farm primary agriculture positions; caregiver position for health institutions; positions in support of permanent residency and positions that are highly mobile (less than 120 days).

With these measures and others implemented throughout the year, the government’s mandate to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada is very evident. In this current environment, frequent compliance audits can be expected. Therefore, employers must pay attention to government announcements and undertake regular review to ensure that they are continuing to meet the various responsibilities that come with hiring foreign workers in Canada  As employers are looking at prevailing wages and adjusting them, it may be a good time to review other obligations as well.

If you have questions about employer compliance obligations, you can reach out to us for a consultation. Our Canadian immigration legal professionals can be reached by phone (416-368-1111) or via email: caruso@cilf.ca; fagan@cilf.ca; bonisteel@cilf.ca; ali@cilf.ca; mukherjee@cilf.ca; garciafialdini@cilf.ca.

Supplementing changes this year to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada, the federal government has now announced that the number of new permanent residents (“PRs”) from 2025 to 2027 is to be significantly reduced[1]. In 2023, the government announced that its goal would be 500,000 new PRs in the year 2025. Instead, the government now plans to have 395,000 in 2025, a reduction of 105,000. In 2026, the goal is 380,000 new PRs. In 2027, the goal is 365,000.

Last year in 2023, the number of new PRs was 471,771[2]. The decrease to 395,000 in 2025 represents a decrease of approximately 20% from that period.

Permanent residence has already become more competitive in 2024, with significantly higher points scores required for economic class applications compared to the period of 2020 to 2023 [3]. This means that companies will lose talent that have been trained and are productive workers. This could cripple some sectors like healthcare and construction. It will also pose greater challenges to Canadian companies in recruiting high skilled workers from abroad who may not want to relocate without a reasonable opportunity to become PRs.

These changes are not surprising. In the past few years, the government has made a number of reactive policy decisions that are shortsighted and reactive to public opinion.  This is just more of the same but on a much larger scale. . After very high immigration levels over the past few years, the government has reversed the course completely. It intends to allow for housing, infrastructure, and health and social services to catch up, and for the unemployment rate to be reduced, before moderately increasing immigration levels again. However, this reduction will also have negative consequences. The bottom line is that Canada has an aging population and workforce in which natural-born population growth cannot keep up with population decline due to deaths. Robust immigration policies focused on sustainable long-term growth are required for the population to be maintained and thus, for the Canadian economy to be competitive in the future. The maintenance of the number of people in the workforce is required to also ensure that the health and social service needs of the aging population can be met, with many in the workforce now reaching retirement age.

The government has projected that because of its change in policy, the overall population is expected to decline by 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026, before growing by 0.8% in 2027.

The government has also projected that the number of temporary residents in Canada, which is currently 3,002,090 as of Q3 2024 [4], will decline by 445,901 in 2025, by 445,662 in 2026, and will increase slightly by 17,439 in 2027. Again, with many temporary residents in the Canadian workforce, these declines will pose challenges to Canadian employers and to the maintenance of the workforce at large which provides the tax base to support the health and social services for Canadians. You can read about changes to temporary resident programs in our previous posts: https://www.cilf.ca/news/.

The government will continue to make it more difficult for many people to come to Canada and for many people to stay in Canada. During these challenging times in the Canadian immigration landscape, if you have questions about coming to or remaining in Canada for yourself or an employee, you can reach out to us for a consultation. Our Canadian immigration legal professionals can be reached by phone (416-368-1111) or via email: caruso@cilf.ca; fagan@cilf.ca; bonisteel@cilf.ca; ali@cilf.ca; mukherjee@cilf.ca; garciafialdini@cilf.ca.

[1]https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2024/10/government-of-canada-reduces-immigration.html

[2]https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240327/dq240327c-eng.htm

[3]https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operational-instructions-agreements/ministerial-instructions/express-entry-rounds.html#wb-auto-4

[4]https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710012101

As the federal government continues its drive to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada amidst continued high costs of living, continued housing unaffordability, and increasing unemployment, particularly amongst youth[1], it has announced new measures[2] to do so. The government target is to reduce the number of temporary residents from 6.5% of Canada’s total population to 5%.

Caps on International Students

As part of the overall plan, the government is clearly reducing the number of international students in Canada and implemented a number of measures earlier this year to do so. It introduced a cap to be distributed across the provinces and territories based on their population sizes. It also implemented a measure requiring study permit applicants to have more funds, at least $20,635, available to meet the cost of living in Canada. Yesterday, the government announced that it intends to reduce the number of study permits issued to 437,000 in 2025.

The government will allocate 12% of study permit spaces to master’s and doctoral students. Master’s and doctoral students will now also be required to submit a provincial or territorial attestation letter when applying.

Changes to Post-Graduation Work Permits

An announcement earlier this year confirmed those foreign students who graduate from a program under a Public College-Private Partnership are not eligible for Post-Graduation Work Permits (PGWPs). Yesterday’s announcement will require those who wish to apply for PGWPs to complete a designated English or French language proficiency test, which includes CELPIP, IELTS, PTE Core, TEF Canada, or TCF Canada, and achieve a minimum level of language proficiency. Graduates of universities will need to achieve a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) level of 7, which is roughly equivalent to an adequate intermediate level. Graduates of colleges will need to achieve a CLB level of 5, which is roughly equivalent to an initial intermediate level. This new requirement comes into effect November 1, 2024.

To help address labour shortages, particularly in the skilled trades, the government has announced that graduates of public colleges in fields where there are long-term shortages will now be eligible for PGWPs of up to 3 years.

Open Work Permits for Spouses or Common-Law Partners of Workers

Eligibility of spouses of foreign workers to work in Canada will be limited to those who are working in management or professional occupations or in sectors with labour shortages. Details have not been provided yet, but this could have potentially far-reaching consequences, with many foreign workers choosing to come to Canada to work only because they knew their spouses would be allowed to work as well. As they say, “the devil will be in the details”.  It is possible that eligibility could be limited to TEER 0 (managerial) or TEER 1 (usually requiring a university degree) occupations, but until we receive details from the government, it is difficult to know how significant this initiative will be and how it might impact employers and families. It is also unknown which sectors will be designated as those with labour shortages, but occupations recently being targeted for the purpose of permanent residence are likely to be included; healthcare occupations; science technology, engineering and math occupations; trade occupations; transport occupations; and agriculture and agri-food occupations.

Open Work Permits for Spouses or Common-Law Partners of Students

Earlier this year, the government limited the eligibility of open work permits for spouses of international students to those in master’s and doctoral programs only. The government has now announced a further limitation. Specifically, open work permits will now only be available to spouses of those international students enrolled in master’s and doctoral programs that are at least 16 months in duration. Spouses of students in master’s degree programs which are only 12 months in duration will no longer qualify for an open work permit.

An Era of Fewer Immigrants

After record temporary resident and permanent resident levels in 2022 and 2023, the government is clearly focused on reducing the number of temporary residents in Canada. To achieve this, clearly fewer temporary residents, whether foreign students or foreign workers, will be admitted in the first place.  Yesterday’s announcements will certainly have a cooling affect on the popularity of Canada’s foreign student program and potentially the ability of companies to attract foreign talent to Canada. It is unlikely that the permanent resident targets will be significantly reduced when immigration levels are announced on November 1, since another reason to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada is to ensure they are able to transition to permanent resident status.  Unfortunately, though, some foreign students and foreign workers already in Canada will not have a path to permanent resident and will likely elect to leave Canada.  Over the next few years, we can expect fewer overall numbers of temporary residents in Canada.

The government’s policies will make it more difficult for many people to come to Canada and for many people to stay in Canada. Many thousands of temporary residents and employers will be affected by these measures. If you have questions about remaining in Canada for yourself or an employee, you can reach out to us for a consultation. Our Canadian immigration legal professionals can be reached by phone (416-368-1111) or via email: caruso@cilf.ca; fagan@cilf.ca; bonisteel@cilf.ca; ali@cilf.ca; mukherjee@cilf.ca; garciafialdini@cilf.ca.

[1]https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240906/dq240906a-eng.htm?indid=3587-2&indgeo=0

[2]https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2024/09/strengthening-temporary-residence-programs-for-sustainable-volumes.html

The Government of Québec, with the cooperation of the Federal Government, has announced that beginning September 3^rd, 2024, there will be a six (6) month pause of low-wage Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) applications in the Montréal region. Low-wage LMIAs are applications where the wage for the position falls below the provincial median wage, which is $27.47 per hour in Québec.

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) under which LMIA applications are assessed has come under increased scrutiny and criticism for various reasons, including fraud and misuse, poor working conditions, abuse of workers, a housing crisis in much of Canada, and inflation in the past few years that significantly raised the cost of living. In addition, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery recently released a scathing report in which the low-wage and agricultural-stream LMIAs were said to be a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery” due to many reports of poor working conditions, abuse, wage theft, and a system in which employers effectively have control of workers’ immigration status[1].

Québec is the only province in Canada which requires temporary and permanent residents to be approved through an additional process administered by the province. This announcement, in addition to the implications on the TFWP, may be a sign that further control of immigration is being provided by the Federal Government to Québec.

Earlier this month, the Federal Government also announced they are considering further measures to address concerns over the TFWP:

• The 20% cap of temporary foreign workers for each employer will be consistently enforced.
• LMIA applications in high-risk areas such as the low wage and agricultural streams will be scrutinized further and employers with workers in these streams will be subject to rigorous government inspections.
• LMIA fees may be increased.
• Regulatory changes regarding employer eligibility may be implemented with factors such as a minimum number of years of business operations or a history of lay-offs.

Given the negative media attention that the TFWP has received in the last few months, it would not be surprising to see similar changes coming to other provinces or such changes, expanding into other areas of the program.  Additionally, such announcements and the negative press do have an impact on decision makers so we can expect to see stricter processing of LMIA applications. The speed at which these changes are being announced will have significant impact on businesses that need to rely on the TFWP for talent.  The changes to the TFWP are ongoing and consequences of non-compliance with the conditions of the TFWP can be significant. If you have any questions about these measures or employer compliance inspections or need guidance on other options to fill you labour needs, feel free to reach out to us for a consultation. Our Canadian immigration legal professionals can be reached by phone (416-368-1111) or via email: caruso@cilf.ca; fagan@cilf.ca; bonisteel@cilf.ca; ali@cilf.ca; mukherjee@cilf.ca; garciafialdini@cilf.ca.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/09/canada-anchor-fight-against-contemporary-forms-slavery-human-rights-un

To prevent the spread of dog-borne rabies in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”) has announced new requirements for dogs entering the United States that will take effect on August 1, 2024. Even though Canada is listed as a country which is dog rabies-free or low risk by the CDC, new requirements will still be implemented that will greatly affect Canadian dogs and their owners who wish to travel stateside. The new requirements essentially amount to a “Doggie Passport”, so you should expect delays at the border as US border officials adjudicate on these new requirements.

We’ve summarized these requirements below. Please keep in mind that these requirements apply only to dogs that have been in dog rabies-free or low-risk countries for the 6 months, such as Canada, prior to entry to the United States. These rules apply to Service Dogs as well as to Americans returning to the United States with their dogs after visiting these countries, including Canada.

• Must be at least 6 months old;
• Must be microchipped;
• CDC Dog Import Form – Must be completed and the receipt provided to airline officials and/or United States Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) officials upon entry to the United States;
• Option 1
  • Completion of the Certification of Dog Arriving from DMRVV-free or Low-Risk Country into the United States form; and
    • This form is valid for 30 days after it is issued.
    • It is valid for a single entry if it does not contain information about rabies vaccination.
    • It is valid for multiple entries if it contains information about rabies vaccination, for the duration that the rabies vaccination is valid (usually 1 to 3 years).
  • Veterinary records (including microchip number) for the previous 6 months.
• Option 2
  • Completion of the Certification of Foreign Rabies Vaccination and Microchip form; and
    • This form is valid for 30 days after it is issued.
    • It is valid for a single entry.
  • Valid rabies serology titer; OR
  • Veterinary records (including microchip number) for the previous 6 months.
• Option 3
  • Foreign export certificate which includes the dog’s age and microchip number that has been endorsed by the dog’s official veterinarian; and
    • This form is valid for 30 days after it is issued.
    • It is valid for a single entry.
  • Veterinary records (including microchip number) for the previous 6 months.

The Canadian government is advocating for a blanket exemption from these requirements for Canadian dogs, but as of now, come August 1, 2024, these requirements are on track to being implemented.  The Government is also hoping the US authorities will at least offer Canadians a grace period of a few months before the law is enforced, so that dog owners who are not compliant will not be turned back at the border, but instead given a waring to comply.

The requirements around entry and return to the United States will vary depending on where the dog has been in the last 6-months, especially if the dog has been in a high-risk country or if the dog has a foreign or US administered rabies vaccine. As such, travellers are encouraged to check CDC’s website (see link below) to avoid any surprises at the border https://www.cdc.gov/importation/dogs/enter-the-us.html#cdc_generic_section_3-requirements-for-foreign-vaccinated-dogs-that-have-been-in-a-country-with-high-risk-of-dog-rabies-within-6-months-before-entry

The new requirement will certainly cause additional delays at the U.S. Canada land borders, as border officials get up to speed with the new requirements.

At CILF, we will continue to keep track of developments in the United States that may affect Canadians and their pets at the border.