B.C. to opt into part of federal temporary foreign worker expansion<\/p>\n
Published 3:10 pm Monday, April 20, 2026<\/p>\n
The province is opting into the federal government\u2019s time-limited policy changes to the temporary foreign worker program to help address immediate labour shortages in rural B.C. communities.<\/p>\n
B.C. will be opting into the proposed variance that allows rural employers to retain existing low-wage temporary foreign workers beyond the currently 10 per cent cap, the Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills Ministry announced in a news release Monday (April 20).<\/p>\n
That means rural employers would be able to retain their existing workers for an additional year, if all other requirements of the temporary foreign worker program are met.<\/p>\n
However, the release added that the province doesn\u2019t support a broader expansion of the program. As a result, B.C. will not be opting into the proposed increase of the low-wage stream cap to 15 per cent, which would allow employers to bring in larger numbers of new temporary foreign workers.<\/p>\n
The federal government announced on March 13 that it would implementing time-limited measures to help rural employers address workforce challenges while maintaining strong safeguards to ensure Canadians remain first in line for available jobs.<\/p>\n
The measures are set to remain in place until March 31, 2027.<\/p>\n
Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills Minister Jessie Sunner said the policy changes are intended as a short-term response to immediate labour pressures.<\/p>\n
\u201dB.C. is calling on the federal immigration minister to focus on long-term workforce solutions, not stopgaps, that reflect provincial needs and help communities, especially in rural and remote areas, recruit and retain skilled workers for the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ministry adds that seasonal, short-term and primary agriculture positions will stay exempt from caps.<\/p>\n
The province says it also plans to continue to work with the federal government on workforce development focused on long-term solutions that: reduce youth unemployment, strengthen skills development and support employers in transitioning away from ongoing reliance on temporary labour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"B.C. to opt into part of federal temporary foreign worker expansion Published 3:10 pm Monday, April 20, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-617794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}