Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's call to scrap Canada's temporary foreign worker (TFW) program would put many small businesses at risk of shutting down, according to a business owner in Sudbury, Ont., who has participated in the program for almost 20 years.
This week, Poilievre called on the governing Liberals to cancel the program and replace it with a separate, standalone program to address labour shortages in agriculture.
Canada already has a separate immigration stream for farm workers, however, called the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.
So far this year, 33,722 temporary foreign workers have entered Canada, according to the office of Immigration Minister Lena Diab.
The 105,000 permits that have been issued so far this year include extensions for people who are already in the country.
Diab's office told CBC News that 125,903 fewer new temporary workers arrived between January and June 2025 compared to the same period last year.
"It is a very exploitative system that has allowed corporate elites to profit off of driving wages down and driving jobs out," Poilievre said of the program at his press conference on Wednesday.
According to Statistics Canada, the youth unemployment rate -- for people between the ages of 15 and 24 -- reached 14.6 per cent in July, the highest rate since September 2010 (excluding the height of the COVID-19 pandemic).
Robert Brouillette, the president and CEO of Y International in Sudbury, has participated in the program since 2006. Through his business Brouillette helps other employers navigate the system and attract foreign workers.
He said employers in the north that need tradespeople are particularly struggling to find workers.
"We just don't have the people," he said.
"So I think a part of the young people not being able to find employment is, 'Have they gone into the in-demand sectors?"
Even if young people are available to work in the trades, he said, smaller employers often don't have enough licensed tradespeople to train apprentices.
In Ontario, an apprentice training to become an electrician must be paired up with an experienced journeyperson, for example.
Brouillette said to hire a temporary foreign worker a company must first prove it made every effort to hire a Canadian first.
That means posting job listings to the federal government's job bank for at least 30 days.
He said the federal government uses a matching system that tracks relevant resumes posted to the site, which is meant to prevent employers from listing jobs without conducting any interviews.
Brouillette admitted there are employers that abuse the program, but scrapping it altogether isn't the answer.
Instead, he said the government should improve checks and balances to ensure employers have exhausted all other options before qualifying for the program.
Anthony Lawley, president and CEO of the IVEY Group in Sudbury, helps employers, especially in northern Ontario's mining and forestry sectors, recruit international skilled trade workers.
Can they fix a Caterpillar 795 haul truck that's an AC drive ultra-class? No, they can't.
Lawley said one of his mining clients is looking to fill 67 positions and can't find enough Canadians with the experience and skills needed to fill those roles.
"They're doing national recruitment and marketing campaigns to source people from Newfoundland [which] has the highest unemployment rate in Canada right now," he said.
"And frankly, they're just not able to do it."
Lawley said the foreign workers program is necessary for certain trades, where companies can hire more experienced workers who, in some cases, can train young Canadians entering the workforce.
"The argument when it comes to the youth is they're saying, 'Well, yeah, they're available to work,'" he said.
"But can they fix a Caterpillar 795 haul truck that's an AC drive ultra-class? No, they can't. They don't have the experience to do this work."