Carney government’s immigration overhaul risks pushing Canadian wages down

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…Fortin said he does not yet know what dropping the LMIA will mean “on wages and job prospects for Canadian workers, but I am not optimistic.”

“After all, business is about maximizing profits, and maximizing profits requires minimizing labour costs,” he said.

That same incentive could go beyond holding down wages. Without the LMIA’s requirement to first look for Canadian workers, employers able to bring in cheaper hires from abroad could also choose to replace existing Canadian staff to reduce payroll costs.

Fortin also pointed to recent economics studies that have found the rapid pace of immigration to Canada in the past decade hurt Canada’s stagnant per capita GDP and the relative wealth of many Canadians. “There is compelling evidence that the Trudeau migratory explosion of 2016–2024 has affected Canadian productivity and income inequality among Canadians negatively,” citing various recent economics studies.

He blamed two forces. Investment went to housing and equipping newcomers rather than raising productivity. And Statistics Canada researchers found nearly half of employed temporary workers are in low-skilled, low-paid sectors such as agriculture, accommodation, and retail.

Fortin credits Diab for moving away from “this huge concentration of admissions of cheap labour in low-qualified occupations,” calling it “a step in the right direction.” But overall volumes must also come down, Fortin argues. He also warned that tying points to occupational codes rather than strictly earnings will add red tape….

Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, told The Hub that economics research has generally found little harm to Canadian earnings from high-skilled immigration of the past. Where wage pressure or displacement occurs, it is more often concentrated among “lower-skilled or lower-paid workers who compete more directly with newcomers in specific occupations.”

“[But] a high-wage occupation does not guarantee that a candidate will earn a high wage in Canada,” she said.

She also flagged fraud as a major concern. “A substantial points advantage for job offers can create incentives for fraudulent or non-genuine offers,” Mahboubi said, noting Ottawa scrapped job-offer points in 2025 amid concerns about the buying and selling of LMIAs. She added that Ottawa lacks the data to tell whether current LMIA-exempt foreign workers are “complementing Canadian workers or putting pressure on wages and job prospects.”

However, Mahboubi, through her research, believes Canada inviting more highly educated immigrants in the past to live and work here has almost always been a net gain for Canadians….

Source: Carney government’s immigration overhaul risks pushing Canadian wages down