Community leaders in Northern B.C. are demanding action from Ottawa to address a workforce crisis they claim is threatening businesses.
Prince Rupert is home to the third largest port in the country and, according to the Community Futures Development Corporation, offers unionized jobs which allow young people to move up quickly and afford a house within three years.
But executive director John Farrell says the local economy in the northwest coast city of 14,000, is at risk due to federal government changes to immigration and work permit policies.
“Right now, we have two permits that are under siege,” Farrell told the business community at a Northern BC Call to Action session on June 25.
The Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, which fuels the service industry, and provides 90 per cent of the staff at Farrell’s restaurant, Opa Sushi and the international student program, recently underwent significant cuts.
International students he said, are no longer going through the program at the local college.
“That pipeline was cut by the federal government,” Farrell told Global News in an interview.
In 2024, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada capped study permit applications in an effort to ease the strain on housing, health care and other services – a measure it said has reduced the number of incoming international students by about 40 per cent.
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As of Sept. 26, 2024, employers can hire no more than 10 per cent of their total workforce through the TFW program, and workers can only stay for one year instead of two.
“We’re capped, we can’t bring any more workers in,” said Farrell. “So once a worker leaves, we’re just that much further down the hole.”
At the local McDonald’s, temporary foreign workers make up more than 60 per cent of the workforce.
“The domestic workforce just simply is not available,” manager Michael Seabrook told the community meeting June 25. “These individuals are not just filling positions, they’re the reason our business is able to operate day in and day out.”
At Ray Pedersen’s construction company, most of the employees are foreign workers on temporary VISAs.
“My business would disappear overnight and all my customers would be disappointed if we didn’t have the guys we need to deliver the service they need,” said the Pedersen-Gruppen Enterprises CEO.
“If we don’t stem these policies and actually think about the northwest of B.C. as different, then really our town’s going to collapse,” warned Farrell.
Farrell said the community is asking the federal government to reconsider the impact of the immigration and TFW policies, and will be sending a formal “Northern BC Call to Action” document to Parliament on behalf of the region.
“Given the immense wealth that we generate in the northwest, it doesn’t make economic sense for Ottawa to be punishing us so severely,” Farrell told Global News.
