published on 24 October 2024 @ 2:53 pm · COMMENT

Canadian Government Announces Further Restrictions to LMIA Eligibility

In recent months, Canadian government has taken decisive action to restrict access to Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs), including prohibiting applications from being processed for low-wage positions in areas with an unemployment rate of over 6%, and temporarily barring all applications from being processed for low-wage positions in the Montreal region. When these restrictions were announced, the government also committed to reviewing the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and making further changes to eligibility requirements if deemed necessary.

Based on these reviews, the Canadian government has now announced that the following further reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program will be put in place in the coming weeks:

• As of October 28, 2024, an attestation from a lawyer or Chartered Professional Accountant will no longer be considered sufficient proof of business legitimacy in an LMIA application; and
• As of November 8, 2024, the metric used to separate the High-Wage LMIA Stream and Low-Wage LMIA Stream will be the provincial or territorial median hourly wage plus 20%, rather than simply the provincial or territorial median hourly wage.

To qualify for an LMIA considering all the recently imposed restrictions, employers will now need to be able to demonstrate a history of ongoing operations and strong financial viability and offer a wage greatly exceeding the regional median wage. These changes further confirm the Canadian government’s intention to tighten Canadian employers’ access to foreign workers as an election year approaches.

filed under: IMMIGRATIONPERMANENT RESIDENCE