In addition, Whitten says that many temporary foreign workers are “filling jobs that Canadians don’t want to do,” and he believes that extended delays can push them out of Canada altogether. “The harder we make it for them to get permanent residency status and the longer we make them wait, the greater the chances that they’re going to just give up and leave.,” he says, adding that sectors such as agriculture, care, construction, and hospitality may face renewed labour shortages.
By contrast, Michelle Dulmadge, Executive Vice‑President of HR, at pipeline and infrastructure firm Surerus Murphy, underscores potential benefits from stronger guardrails for vulnerable workers that the newly-minted Carney majority could bring related to restrictions it’s already implementd. “We’ve utilized temporary foreign workers in the past, especially if they have unique and specialized skill sets,” says Dulmadge. “But I think that the government putting restrictions or requirements around those workers, potentially has a benefit.”
For Dulmadge, ethical recruitment and employment remain central regardless of which party governs. “At the end of the day, we want to see that there are not just regulations around it, but that we’re ensuring that we’re bringing in people who are being paid fairly, that they’re entering the country legally,” she says. “We’ve seen that with some of the modern slavery requirements of companies to make sure that we’re ensuring that our workforce isn’t being taken advantage of, especially because they may be marginalized.”
Legislation only part of the labour law landscape
A majority government has limited room to change the overall legal‑risk landscape, because much of Canadian employment law is judge‑made, says Whitten. “There’s only so much that [Carney] can do to make us competitive on a labour market factor, bcause a lot of the rights and obligations in the employment world are driven by the common law of Canada, the judge-made law,” he says. “Our legislation sets the minimum standards, but the rest of it is by virtue of court decisions.” He points to recent court decisions that have repeatedly undermined contractual severance limits and termination clauses, increasing the cost and uncertainty of terminations for employers and making Canada “an extremely expensive jurisdiction to operate in” compared with US employment‑at‑will norms, he says.
From Dulmadge’s vantage point, the new majority hasn’t yet produced a visible federal labour‑law agenda, as Carney’s focus has been on the economy and trade. “It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, as I haven’t really seen that they’ve been forecasting anything related to federal employment or labour laws,” she says. “Right now, the focus has absolutely been on our international relations, the cost of fuel, and those kind of things.”