Global Trade Alert

Effective from 1 January 2009, the shortage list for temporary foreign worker ("Regional List of Occupations under Pressure") has been deleted. Instead, employers who seek to higher foreign personell are subject to new minimum advertising rules. Depending on the skill level,employers must now advertise a new job for up to three months before they may seek permission to higher a foreign worker.
 
On 9 October 2009, the Canadian Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney proposed a series of changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
To "advance the protection of foreign workers" the minister proposed the following three changes:

• a more rigorous assessment of the genuineness of the job offer;
• limits to the length of a worker's stay in Canada before returning home; and
• a two-year prohibition from hiring a temporary foreign worker for employers found to have provided significantly different wages, working conditions or occupations than promised.

Specifying the second provision, the ministry is reported to consider a maximum duration of four years for foreign work permits. Workers who have worked in Canada for this maximum period would not be eligible for work in the country for the following six years.
 
The proposals were approved on 1 April 2011.