Canada suspends issuing work permits to foreigners

Mexico City. The Canadian government has suspended the issuance of work permits for foreigners in response to harsh criticism of the country’s immigration policy, the magazine reported on Friday. Forbes.

This measure adopted by the Canadian authorities, which had already been implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, aims to limit the number of foreign workers participating in the Canadian economy, as well as to have greater control over people who request asylum in the country, reported the CBC network.

This policy came into effect in August 2020, designed to help foreign tourists who were in Canada and were unable to return to their places of origin due to the border closures brought on by the health emergency. Since then, 6,549 people have applied for work permits under the program made available and of these, 4,761 were authorized.

Canada initially announced that work permits for foreign visitors would cease to be authorized in February 2025, but Canadian authorities unexpectedly cancelled this measure last Wednesday “to recalibrate the number of temporary residents in Canada and preserve the integrity of the immigration system,” the Ministry of Immigration said in a statement.

In recent months, rising costs of living, limited access to affordable housing and high unemployment rates among new immigrants have sparked protests across various sectors of Canadian society demanding changes to Canadian immigration policies.

In response to requests from the local workforce, the government decided to change the regulations for authorizing asylum applications, imposed limits on the number of active foreign students in the country, and announced substantial reductions in the foreign temporary worker program with the aim of reducing the proportion of foreign temporary residents in relation to the total population from 6.1 to 5 percent.

The number of temporary foreign residents in Canada is 2.8 million people as of today, a figure that doubled compared to 2022, when it was 1.4 million. Canada also stated that in the coming months it will announce changes to reduce permanent immigration.