Canada’s foreign worker problem – too much too fast, not built to last

By: Greg Staley

Written On: 2025-09-11

Work permits for the International Mobility Program, a program similar to the Temporary Foreign Workers program but with fewer restrictions, doubled under Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government over nine years. Over the last two years, that number has doubled again, with nearly 1.9 million permits being handed out in 2024.

According to Open Government data, the year before Trudeau was elected, the Harper government gave out 292,712 work permits under the International Mobility Program (IMP). By 2022, that number had more than doubled with 977,535 permits being handed out. The growth of the program exploded again the following year with 1,564,190 permits being issued. The next year’s growth was exponential again, with 1,892,660 work permits under the IMP program being issued in 2024. The current estimates of non-permanent residents in Canada sit at just under 3 million people (see chart below).

Source: Stats Canada

For context, the Conservatives have vowed to end the Temporary Foreign Workers program (TFW), which brings in significantly fewer workers to Canada every year in comparison. In 2022, 135,365 work permits were awarded under the TFW program; in 2023, the number was 183,275, and in 2024, the number of permits issued rose to 191,270. See the chart below for comparison.

Number of non-permanent residents in Canada as a percentage

The number of non-permanent residents in Canada is 7.1% of our entire population. In Ontario, 8.1% of the population is non-permanent residents, and in B.C the number is 9,1%. Currently, there are over 1.3 million non-permanent residents in Ontario alone.

Number of non-permanent residents by province and territory

Population growth breakdown

What happens when nearly 3 million people are in the country as visitors working?

Labour market Impacts aren’t being monitored

It would be comforting to think that the government of Canada is carefully monitoring the impacts of programs like the International Mobility program, but the government’s own reports tell a different story. They aren’t monitoring the impacts of these programs at all, and it’s assumed that all these foreign workers are beneficial for Canada.

According to a government report released in July of 2024, titled the “Evaluation of the International Mobility Program”, the “internal and external documents noted risk related to displacement and wage suppression,” and yet the Liberal government has allowed it to grow to levels never seen before. The report goes on to say that the “IMP is built on the assumption that benefits to Canada from the facilitation of select foreign workers exceed any potential harm to the domestic labour market.” However, the report continues by saying that the “document review and key information pointed out that labour market impacts are not monitored.” The takeaway is that the Liberals don’t have a leg to stand on when they say this isn’t impacting Canadians negatively.

The report also mentions that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) does not collect systematic data on the occupations or sectors of more than 80% of IMP participants. They aren’t even trying to keep accurate data, and Canadians are being hurt by their policies and incompetence.

Wage suppression of Canadians and Canadian youth struggling to find jobs

According to a document from the Bank of Canada titled The Shift in Canadian Immigration Composition and its Effect on Wages, the average wage gap in 2024 between Canadian-born workers and these temporary workers is 22,6%.

This means, on average that a foreigner is earning 22.6 percent less than their Canadian-born counterparts for similar positions. Now I’ll ask a straight forward question: If employers can fill positions with a foreign worker for 1/5th the amount of money, why wouldn’t they?

Many good Canadian business owners of course, will refuse to hire foreign workers but just as many businesses seem eager to take advantage of these programs and Canadians are suffering for it. Remember, there were roughly 3 million work permits awarded to foreigners through various programs like the IMP in 2024. That’s 3 million people or 7.1% of Canada’s entire population that is now competing with Canadians for jobs. Canada’s youth have been hardest hit by the vast numbers of foreign labourers flooding the Canadian job market in recent years. That’s because the industries these foreign workers most commonly take up are retail and food services (see chart below).

Non-permanent residents affect on housing costs

3 million non-permanent residents in Canada are competing for our housing as well. Simply put, that’s 3 million more people competing for housing and rental units, and this is bound to drive up the market. According to a document titled Immigration and Housing Prices Across Municipalities in Canada, immigrants arriving in the last 5 years have “accounted for 21% of the overall increase in median house values and 13% of the increase in median rents” in municipalities with a population greater than 100,000 people. In municipalities with fewer than 1000 people, immigrants to Canada accounted for an 11% increase in median house values.

We also compared the median rents in 3 major urban areas from 2021 and 2024. We looked at Brantford, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, and Toronto to see how much the average rent had increased. Although these numbers seemed on the low end to us, we have decided to include them to illustrate the point.

In Brantford, the average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment went from $1207 a month in 2021 to $1442 a month – an increase of 19.47% increase in 3 years. The story was similar in Toronto, with rents going from $1680 in 2021 to $1972 a month in 2024 – an increase of 17.38%. The story was the same but worse for the KW region with rents increasing from an average of $1349 in 2021 to an average of $1747 in 2024 – an increase of 29.5%. The influx of foreigners working in Canada has most certainly been a major contributor to these increases.

International students are here for citizenship not just an education

According to government data, only 5% of OWP holders (Open Work Permit) have no intentions of applying for permanent residency in Canada. The lion’s share of OWP permits belongs to International students. In essence, these students aren’t just here for an education; they’re using it as a path to Permanent residency in Canada.

Considering the rampant abuse of private schools that are referred to as “diploma mills”, one has to ask how many are legitimately attending school while here in Canada and how many are simply using that as a pretext to work in Canada and attempt to get their permanent residency?

Diploma mills as a way to work in Canada and get Permanent Residency?

According to one story in the Brampton Guardian, Brampton had up to 80 private diploma mill colleges using international students as an atm, according to Mayor Patrick brown. Even Federal Immigrant Minister Marc Miller has acknowledged the problem, calling some private colleges in Canada the “equivalent of puppy mills that are just churning out diplomas.” Alberta also issued a statement on the problem, mentioning 15 institutions by name that the Ministry of Advanced Education had issued compliance orders to for suspected rule-breaking.

In closing, the problem with foreign workers in Canada is much larger than the temporary foreign worker program. The International Mobility program and International students accounted for over 2 million work permits handed out in 2024, and in my view, this is simply not sustainable or healthy. The government isn’t monitoring the data on these programs to see the impacts on the labour market and Canadians are suffering as a result of these bad Liberal policies.

Wages are down, prospects for affording a decent home to rent or own are down but Carney thinks we may need more foreign workers, so I guess that’s elbows up?

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