Question Period Notes
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Public reports, statements, and articles have suggested there are gaps in worker protections under the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program.TFW Program employers must adhere to all employment and occupational health and safety laws applicable in their jurisdiction, as well as additional working conditions established in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations.
Prospective employers are required to submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), prior to being permitted to hire a temporary foreign worker.
The LMIA evaluates whether there is a valid justification and a genuine need for the employer to hire a temporary foreign worker. It also acts as the first safeguard for worker protection by reinforcing Program requirements relating to wages and working conditions.
The TFW Program has an employer compliance regime designed to verify whether employers are adhering to program conditions and hold employers accountable for their treatment of workers.
In 2024-2025, ESDC conducted 1,435 employer compliance inspections; of which 10% of employers were found non-compliant. Penalties more than doubled from about $2M to $4.8M, and 36 employers were banned from the TFW Program - a threefold increase from the previous year.
In 2024-2025, ESDC received over 14,000 tips and is currently on pace to exceed this figure in this fiscal year.
Additionally, the Migrant Worker Support (MWS) Program supports temporary foreign workers in Canada to understand and exercise their rights. Budget 2024 committed $41 million to extend the MWS Program until March 2026.
The MWS Program currently funds 10 community organizations who redistribute funding to over 100 sub-agreement holders. Funded organizations reported over 970,000 service interactions with individual workers between January 2023 and September 2025.
Claims are circulating that the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program is contributing to high unemployment rates across Canada, especially among youth.
The TFW Program requires prospective employers to submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), prior to being permitted to hire a temporary foreign worker.
The LMIA evaluates whether there is a valid justification and a genuine need for the employer to hire a temporary foreign worker.
Employers are generally required to demonstrate that they have made efforts to recruit Canadians and permanent residents before applying.
Temporary foreign workers hired through the TFW Program account for approximately 1% of the total Canadian labour market, and about 10% of non-permanent resident volumes.
The national unemployment rate is 6.8% as of December 2025, down from 7.1% in September 2025, and remains among the highest monthly rate since January 2017 (excluding the COVID-19 pandemic).
Youth unemployment (ages 15–24) reached 13.3% in December 2025, down from 14.7% in September 2025, which marked the highest level since 2010, outside of pandemic years.
There is erroneous media reporting stating that Canada has ended the wage assessment as part of the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) application and Canada will just use the wage indicated on the application. A series of tightening measures were implemented by the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program since 2023. These measures are enhancing program integrity, restricting access to the Program, and are reducing employer reliance on temporary foreign labour.
These measures have not resulted in any changes to wage requirements.
All prospective employers are required to submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), prior to being permitted to hire a temporary foreign worker through the TFW Program. As part of the LMIA assessment, verification is undertaken to confirm that fair wages will be offered.
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) is responsible for issuing LMIA decisions and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is responsible for issuing work permits.
TFW Program employers are required to pay, as a minimum, the prevailing wage for the occupation. “Prevailing wage” is defined as the highest of:
The regional median hourly wage for that occupation, as posted on the Government of Canada’s Job Bank;
A wage that is within the wage range paid to the employer’s current employees working in the same occupation and same work location, with the same skills and years of experience; or
The wages as defined by other publicly available labour market information that is considered to be a reliable source.
Employers are also required to annually review and adjust these wages to ensure that they continue to reflect updated regional prevailing rates, as published on Job Bank.
What is the Government of Canada doing to help grow the housing workforce? Canada is facing a housing crisis, requiring millions of new homes in the coming years. To meet affordability and demand, the residential construction industry must add 187,300 workers by 2034, factoring in retirements.
Recent CMHC projections confirm a national ~2% decline in home prices in 2025, driven primarily by U.S.–Canada trade tensions, economic uncertainty, and slower population growth. These pressures are prompting both buyers and developers to adopt a “wait‑and‑see” approach.
Despite temporary relief, Canada faces a significant and accelerating construction labour shortages across residential, commercial, industrial, and infrastructure construction, with shortages forecasted to grow 13% annually between 2026 and 2045.
The construction sector overall accounts for over 7% of Canada’s GDP, employing over 1.6 million people in 2024and is made up mostly of small businesses (e.g. 60% of industry firms are micro businesses consisting of fewer than five employees).
The sector’s workforce included 20.2% newcomers in 2025 (lower than the share in the overall labour force at 28.3%) and had a higher representation of Indigenous workers than the overall labour force (4.6% vs 3.4% in 2025).
Canada’s construction labour force is increasingly strained as large‑scale infrastructure and industrial projects draw on the same skilled trades needed for housing; worsening shortages in residential construction where skilled‑trade vacancies have grown by 11% annually since 2017.
The residential construction workforce includes skilled trades occupations, such as approximately 30 Red Seal trades (e.g. bricklayers, carpenters, construction craft workers, electricians, gasfitters, painters and decorators, plumbers, roofers) and other skilled occupations (e.g. framers, draftspersons, door and window installers). However, much of the home building and renovation workforce is not unionized (excluding Quebec and the Greater Toronto Area) and is outside of Canada’s apprenticeship systems, with general labourers and construction trades helpers accounting for approximately 25% of the construction labour force (there are over 250 occupations in this ‘catch all’ classification).
What is the federal government doing to support early learning and child care?
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