The ability to apply for a work permit from within Canada has been discontinued as of August 28 for temporary residents in the country on a guest visa.
The goal of the August 2020 policy was to help Canadian tourists who were stranded at home due to border closures resulting from the COVID-19 epidemic.
They would not need to leave Canada in order to apply for a work permit under the scheme. Additionally, anyone who had held a work permit during the previous year but had converted to a “visitor” immigration status were qualified to “work lawfully in Canada while awaiting a decision on their new work permit application.”
The policy’s original expiration date was scheduled for February 28, 2025. However, as “part of our overall efforts to recalibrate the number of temporary residents in Canada and preserve the integrity of the immigration system,” Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said it is eliminating the policy immediately.
Applications filed in accordance with the rules before August 28 will still be processed, according to the Department.
Suppression of maladaptive behavior
The IRCC claims that knowledge of “bad actors were using the policy to mislead foreign nationals into working in Canada without authorization” is a contributing factor in the early rollback.
This is related to the department’s continuous initiatives to lower the number of temporary residents and fight pervasive immigration fraud.
For instance, it was discovered that 700 Indian overseas students were enrolled in Canadian universities last year as a result of forged admission letters from DLIs. A large number of them had no idea that their letters were fake.
As a result, the IRCC now mandates that DLIs confirm each and every acceptance letter within ten days of receiving an application from an overseas student. Additionally, it has limited the amount of foreign students that Canada would take in for the ensuing two year.
Significant adjustments to Canada’s temporary foreign worker thresholds
A week of significant adjustments intended at lowering Canada’s numbers of temporary foreign workers coincide with the expiration of the temporary policy permitting certain tourists to apply for a work permit.
By September 26, 2024, the Department of Labor Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) will no longer be reviewing applications for certain applicants under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) Low-Wage stream. This announcement was made on August 26. Applicants in Census Metropolitan Areas where the unemployment rate is six percent or greater will be impacted by this.
Additionally, the IRCC indicated that the maximum period of employment for workers in the Low-Wage stream would be lowered from two years to one year, and that firms in Canada would only be able to hire up to 10% of foreign workers under the TFWP.
Similar to today’s announcement, many of the aforementioned adjustments are reversals of immigration rules that were put in place during the pandemic by the Canadian government in order to address the country’s labor shortage. For instance, during the pandemic, the IRCC and Employment Social Development Canada (ESDC) together implemented interim measures that extended the validity of an LMIA to 12 months and permitted Canadian workers to hire up to 30% of their staff under the TFWP’s Low-Wage stream.
Following a joint press announcement by Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault last May, IRCC and ESDC started to rescind these pandemic-era restrictions.
Minister Miller made the historic announcement at the same press conference that the annual Immigration Levels Plan would now include temporary resident levels, a first for Canadian immigration history.
In Canada, immigration has emerged as a major issue. Much of this year has seen declarations about controlling and lowering the number of temporary immigrants living there. Minister Miller also declared this week that he intends to think about adjusting the number of permanent residents in Canada in the upcoming years.