Canada has ended a temporary public policy that allowed visitors to apply for work permits from within its borders. The end of the temporary effectively bans people with visitor visas from applying for work permits from within Canada.
The policy that was set to end on February 28, 2025 has been terminated effective immediately in what the Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has termed as its effort to recalibrate the number of temporary residents in Canada and preserve the integrity of the immigration system.
“The IRCC is also aware that some bad actors were using the policy to mislead foreign nationals into working in Canada without authorization,” the IRCC said in a statement.
The IRCC has stepped up its measures to combat mass immigration that has been widely blamed by Canadians as a major contributor to the housing crisis and low job opportunities.
The Canadian government is also expected to stop the processing of of some Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) applications for some applicants under the Low-Wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) by September 26th, 2024.
At the same time, the immigration minister Marc Miller has also announced that the country might review its permanent resident immigration levels. He stated that there will be considerations about whether Canada should reduce its permanent immigration levels to a sustainable number.
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“Now it’s time to take a look at them and put real options on the table for the prime minister and for other cabinet ministers to look at, and not cosmetic changes simply to deal with public opinion. Real significant change,” the minister said in an interview with the Canadian news channel CTV News.
“60 per cent of our immigration is economically driven. That is probably unprecedented with countries that we compare ourselves to. But we have to see if we’ve done this in the right way, and if that growth merits to continue, needs to be paused or even reduced.”