Ottawa yet to launch program announced last year that would grant permanent residency to low-wage workers

Globe and Mail

2 days ago

More than a year after announcing a new immigration stream that would have granted permanent residency to low-wage workers already in Canada, the federal government has yet to move ahead on formally launching the program – suggesting that Ottawa could be backing away from the plan altogether.
The plan targeting low-wage workers was informally announced in April 2024, through the Canada Gazette. Consultations were set to begin last year on amending immigration laws to admit a 'new permanent economic class of workers in TEER 4 and TEER 5 jobs.'
But the program was not included in July's version of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada's forward regulatory plan, which details coming changes to federal immigration rules and programs over the next three years.
Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities, or TEER, is a job categorization system used by the government for immigration purposes. TEER 4 and TEER 5 workers usually have either a high-school diploma or no formal education at all, and examples of their occupations include delivery service drivers, caregivers, food production and retail workers.
IRCC spokesperson Sofica Lukianenko said in a late July e-mail to The Globe and Mail that the department will 'continue to examine the role of immigration in meeting labour market needs at TEER 4 and 5 occupations.'
She did not specify whether the program was still being considered by Ottawa, or whether it had been shelved indefinitely.
Cancelling the program – which IRCC had billed as a pathway that would replace stand-alone pilot programs and provide a single mechanism to select economic immigrants in 'essential-skilled occupations' – would close off a clear path of access to permanent residency, or PR, for workers in low-wage jobs.
Ms. Lukianenko said foreign workers in TEER 4 and 5 jobs already have a number of options for permanent immigration pathways, such as the new Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots (which pledge to grant PR to approximately 5,000 caregivers annually) and a new agricultural workers pilot program that the government intends to launch this year.
The most popular way of obtaining PR in Canada as an economic migrant is through the Express Entry system, a program that uses a scorecard to rank prospective immigrants based on skills and education level. Foreign workers in low-wage occupations often fail to meet criteria that would give them enough points to eventually garner PR.
Many try their luck through the pilot programs or various provincial immigration programs such as the Atlantic Immigration Program and the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program. But these programs have changed over the years, prioritizing skilled workers in the trades, graduates of Canadian institutions and French-speaking immigrants, leaving low-wage foreign workers with few options for direct paths to PR.
Migrant rights advocates have long campaigned for this class of workers (many of them who enter the country through Ottawa's Temporary Foreign Workers program) to be given a clearer path to working and living permanently in Canada.
They argue that the splintered nature of Canada's immigration system – with frequent changes in policy priorities, and the creation and termination of various streams – indirectly contributes to the growth of the undocumented population, as workers move in and out of jobs in an attempt to qualify for one of numerous programs, often overstaying their visas.
Marina Sedai, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and former chair of the Canadian Bar Association's immigration section, said she was not surprised the TEER 4 and 5 program was not on the list of regulatory initiatives recently announced by IRCC.
'The Liberal Party adopted several conservative measures before the election to regain ground in the polls at the time, asserting that students and workers had to be cut to protect the housing and job markets,' she said.
Public sentiment toward immigrants has become less friendly over the past two years, fuelled by concerns over housing prices and the overall cost of living.
The government is trying to dramatically reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada, which had burgeoned in number over the past five years owing to immigration-friendly policy changes during the pandemic. Temporary residents currently make up about 7.1 per cent of the total population. The government is aiming for a target of 5 per cent by the end of 2026.
Scrapping an immigration program that would grant PR to low-wage workers would be a wise move if the government's larger goal is to increase gross domestic product per capita through prioritizing higher-skilled immigrants, argues Mikal Skuterud, a professor of labour economics at the University of Waterloo.
Prof. Skuterud was highly critical of the TEER 4 and TEER 5 pathway plan when it was announced last year, telling The Globe at the time that it would suppress wages and undermine public support for immigration. He said Ottawa intended to launch the program to hedge against the growing problem of visa overstayers, as offering foreign workers currently in Canada a direct path to PR en masse would reduce both temporary resident and undocumented populations.
Ravi Jain, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer, said Canada's temporary resident population has increased so drastically over the past decade that it is unsurprising how federal immigration goals might have shifted.
'It is very much my sense that they do not want to create a 'low-skilled' pathway right now,' he said.