An Immigration Ministry briefing note said that temporary foreign workers account for nearly 19 per cent of Canada’s 16.5 million private-sector workers.
The briefing note, dated May 1, was first obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
“While temporary residents enrich Canada’s economy and social fabric, we have committed to reducing temporary immigration growth to better align the needs of our labour market, housing supply and community capacity,” reads the briefing note, entitled Temporary Resident Reduction.
The note also assessed the number of temporary residents to be at just over 3 million, including the more than 129,000 individuals who illegally overstayed their visas.
Additionally, that figure accounts for the 1.5 million work permit holders, including 644,000 study permit holders, 164,000 family members without permits of their own and another cohort of more than 280,000 asylum claimants who hold work permits.
Last fall, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced that Canada would scale back immigration levels of permanent residents to 365,000 people a year by 2027 in response to a growing sentiment that the Trudeau government had let in far more people than Canada can handle.
However, a recent study from the Fraser Institute found that 912,900 temporary foreign workers entered Canada last year alone.
A construction union called on the federal government to pause its Temporary Foreign Worker program in March amid U.S. tariff threats as a means to secure more employment for domestic skilled workers.
Ironworkers Local 97 in B.C. has long argued that the reliance on temporary foreign workers has stagnated and weakened “wages for everyday Canadians.”
The union has been petitioning the federal government for years to focus on bolstering Canada’s domestic skilled trades workforce instead of importing foreign labour.
“Every time we go out there, we think that they finally heard us and that they’re actually going to invest in Canadian workers,” Ironworkers Local 97 business manager Doug Parton told The Canadian Press at the time.
“But as soon as we leave there, it seems the program gets worse.”
In light of U.S. tariffs, Parton said his union called for an “immediate end” to the program, citing the added “uncertainty” it brings to the industry.
According to Parton, as the trade war with the U.S. intensifies, it’s more important than ever that jobs are given to “qualified Canadians,” instead of foreign workers who’ve been brought into the country to “fill gaps in the labour market.”