Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), have proposed an amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR), which would provide increased employment mobility to certain foreign workers under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). The proposed amendment was published on June 22, 2019, in Part I, Volume 153, Number 25 of the Canada Gazette.
Under the TFWP, to hire a foreign worker, employers must obtain an approved Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) from ESDC, pursuant to which IRCC issues a work permit. The current program only authorizes the issuance of an employer-specific “closed” work permit. Foreign workers are, therefore, completely dependent on the employer noted on the work permit. Should a foreign worker wish to leave the current employer to take up new employment, a new LMIA and work permit would currently be required. This is a costly process, requiring a great deal of time and effort. Moreover, the costs and effort would primarily be required on the part of the new employer, which only makes finding such an opportunity more difficult.
As a result of the above, the TFWP in its current form, grants a great deal of power to employers. As many foreign workers are unlikely to find another employer willing to navigate the process of obtaining a new LMIA, these workers have little option but to endure difficult employment conditions. Considerations such as these have prompted IRCC and ESDC to propose the change.
The proposed amendment would introduce LMIAs and work permits that are occupation-specific instead of employer-specific. Occupations in Canada are defined and organized in accordance with the National Occupational Classification (NOC), which assigns each occupation a four-digit NOC code. Pursuant to the proposed amendment, the new LMIAs (and the resulting work permits) would instead be specific to a particular NOC code, and not to a specified employer. This would afford foreign workers increased employment mobility by allowing them to change employers without first obtaining a new LMIA or work permit, so long as they remained in the same occupation. This would remove the most significant barrier to finding suitable alternative employment, as new employers would not be burdened with the cost, time and efforts required to support a new LMIA application. With this barrier removed, the effect would be to restore some power to foreign workers, allowing them increased opportunity to leave undesirable employment situations.
Notably, the proposed change to the TFWP would not affect all streams of the LMIA. Instead, it is intended to target two LMIA streams that are used to employ the most vulnerable of temporary foreign workers; the Low-wage Stream and the Primary Agriculture Stream.
The High- or Low-wage Streams of the LMIA are defined by reference to a provincial or territorial median hourly wage, as published by ESDC. By way of example, the Ontario median hourly wage is currently CA$22.50. Therefore, positions in Ontario that offer a wage at or above the median hourly wage are processed under the High-wage stream, while positions offering a wage lower than this are processed under the Low-wage Stream.
As its name suggests, the Primary Agriculture Stream is used to employ foreign workers on a farm, nursery or greenhouse. Such employment will involve one of the following: the operation of agricultural machinery; obtaining raw animal products for market; or the processing of raw products, the planting, care, harvesting or preparation of crops, trees, sod or other plants for market.
The two above LMIA streams are primarily used to employ low-skilled foreign workers, as these positions require little-to-no education and provide workers with minimal wages. As a result, the proposed amendment to the IRPR should provide increased employment mobility, and therefore, power in the employer-employee relationship, to the most vulnerable of Canada’s temporary foreign workers.
It remains to be seen whether IRCC and ESDC will move forward with the amendment, and whether there is any appetite to provide similar changes for the LMIA streams used for more highly-skilled foreign workers.
