The Conservatives says there will be some help for businesses facing a labour crunch in northern Ontario if the Temporary Foreign Worker program is scrapped.
Party Leader Pierre Poilievre made that promise last week.
Kenora MP Eric Melillo says this isn’t a one size fits all policy.
“We recognize that depending on the region and depending on the industry, there is a need to fill those vacancies, and that’s why we’re going to take that regional approach and implement this over a five-year transition period for those low unemployment regions,” says Melillo.
“So, I think this is a very common-sense policy addressing the issues we’re seeing.”
Melillo stresses this is not a one size-fits-all approach to immigration.
“We recognize there are industries and regions where unemployment is low, and it’s difficult to fill positions with Canadian workers and we see that in different industries across the northwest. That’s why we’re going to be looking at this with a regional approach.”
In the last federal and provincial elections, municipal leaders in this region came out and said they needed more immigration and a change in policy was needed to address the labour shortage.
