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Youth unemployment in Canada is on the rise, while employers have secured government approval to import more than 1.4 million temporary foreign workers since 2019.

Those approvals come through the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) process, which requires employers to demonstrate they could not find a Canadian or permanent resident to fill a position before hiring abroad.

Federal immigration officials just said the Liberals are planning a new taxpayer funded international advertising campaign to bring more foreign nationals to Canada to work.

They're doing this the middle of a youth jobs crisis and a recession. pic.twitter.com/mAOop0yls2

— Michelle Rempel Garner (@MichelleRempel) June 8, 2026

Data compiled from Employment and Social Development Canada records show the program has expanded far beyond its original scope of addressing genuine, short-term (and often seasonal) labour shortages as immigration surges nationwide.

From a pre-surge baseline of 82,396 approvals in 2019, positive LMIA positions exploded to a peak of 345,281 in 2023 – more than four times higher – before easing slightly to 228,074 in 2025 as Ottawa attempts to tighten the rules.

Notably, pre-2019 averages hovered between 60,000 and 70,000 per year.

Tim Hortons franchisees rank as the largest food service user of this program, with roughly 2,400 approvals.

The chain has faced sharp criticism for lobbying the government to raise the low-wage cap, as the once-iconic Tim Hortons brand fades from a symbol of Canadian pride into something increasingly recognizable.

In an attempt to save face, last month the company announced plans to hire 10,000 locals and cut temporary foreign worker use by half, yet it continues to recruit endless TFWs nationwide.

The bigger picture lies beyond any single chain.

Maple Leaf Foods leads LMIA approvals with more than 3,200 approvals, followed by participants in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and major players in food processing, retail, and logistics.

The dominant occupations are overwhelmingly low-skill and low-wage, including general farm workers, food counter attendants, harvesting labourers, light-duty cleaners, cooks and transport truck drivers.

Agriculture and food services account for the bulk of volume through the low-wage and agricultural streams, which operate with minimal caps. Ontario alone holds 412,300 approvals, accounting for nearly 30% of the national total. British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta aren’t fall behind. In fact, these four provinces represent more than 80% of all approvals across Canada.

Every one of the 1.4 million positions represents an employer certification that no suitable Canadian or permanent resident was available. At these numbers, that seems more like a rubber-stamp policy failure than a genuine labour shortage.

It’s also left workers caught in a system that ties their status to their employer and leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, including LMIA fraud that has not only become rampant but is also well-documented.

After all, the program was designed for targeted, seasonal needs, but has instead become a structural feature of entire industries that have grown accustomed to importing labour instead of raising wages or investing in domestic training.

With youth unemployment on the rise and social pressures mounting, the scale of these approvals has many Canadians wondering if various immigration programs are still serving their original purpose or whether they’ve quietly become a de facto policy of replacing and displacing young Canadian workers.