Canadian jobs for Canadian workers.
Mississauga, ON – Today, the Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the Official Opposition, and the Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner, Shadow Minister for Immigration, announced their plan to tackle the Liberal unemployment crisis by permanently scrapping the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program and immediately ending new permits.
“Prime Minister Carney has failed to meet his own already excessive immigration targets and now he’s on track to issue the highest number of TFW permits ever in a single year,” Poilievre said. “It’s time to take decisive action to protect our youth and workers.”
Under the Liberals, too many corporations are relying on cheap foreign labour while Canadians pay the price. Recent data shows a 7.4 percent increase in Employment Insurance requests since Carney took office (504,110 in March to 541,430 in June), while almost 400,000 Canadians have been searching for work for over two years – outside of the pandemic, this is the highest share of long-term unemployment since February 1998.
Youth employment is at its lowest in more than a quarter-century (outside the pandemic), while an oversaturated job market continues to suppress wages even for the gainfully employed. Companies like Tim Hortons, the once beloved coffee shop that gave a first paycheque to countless Canadian teens, have hired an almost unimaginable number of TFWs – 1,131 percent more for Tim Hortons over just four years alone.
“We know why a foreign-owned mega chain wants to be greedy – it’s good for their corporate profits – but our immigration system doesn’t exist to pad their bottom line,” Poilievre said. “That’s why the government should immediately stop issuing new TFW permits, and end this wage-suppressing, opportunity-stealing program.”
“Not long ago, young Canadians could gain vital skills in entry-level jobs, earn enough to pay for school, and build a future,” said Rempel Garner. “In return, employers built a skilled domestic workforce. But the Liberals broke that deal, leading to staggering youth unemployment and heartbreaking stories of graduates sending hundreds of resumes without a single callback.”
Over the last decade, TFWs have ballooned to almost two percent of our total private sector workforce. The impact is dramatic, considering that nearly three-quarters of these temporary immigrants earn less than the median income and exert downward pressure on wages.
That’s as Canadians struggle with an unemployment crisis that CIBC says matches “levels typically only seen during recessionary periods.” In June 2009, the height of the Great Recession, 684,200 Ontarians were out of work, 16,300 fewer than the 700,500 reported this July.
Yet, we are still bringing in record amounts of predominantly low-skilled foreign labour. Carney’s government has issued 105,000 new Temporary Foreign Worker permits in the first six months of 2025 alone. Despite a promised cap of 82,000, the Liberals are on track to issue the most TFW permits ever.
“As Canada’s economy slides into recession, productivity hits rock bottom, and AI disrupts the job market – all while we grapple with housing and healthcare crises – Canadian youth are trapped,” Rempel Garner added. “They can’t buy homes or start families without good-paying jobs, but they can’t get those jobs without experience, lost to competition from temporary foreign labour.”
Under this urgently-needed plan, the Temporary Foreign Workers program would be permanently abolished with a separate, standalone program for legitimately difficult-to-fill agricultural labour. 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.
It’s time for Canadian jobs for Canadian workers. If Mark Carney is serious about fixing the immigration system his party broke, he would immediately enact these reforms. Conservatives will always fight to protect our youth and all Canadians from reckless policies that lock them out of work and suppress their wages.