EN - Travel
Domestic Flights Within Canada To Become Significantly Cheaper This Summer
Perhaps it's time to consider a staycation.
Discover Narcity
Get the latest and greatest stories every day in your inbox.
Canada's temporary workers trapped between two federal bureaucracies
Pending LMIA renewals can leave workers without legal status or income.
An immigration lawyer sent Sofia a one-line message on Aug. 31, 2026: “Stop working immediately.”
Her employer's Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) renewal —filed on time, with all documentation complete — was still pending with Service Canada and the government was not prepared to wait for it.
The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officer who was processing her work permit renewal separately, noted one reason on Sofia’s refusal letter: "No LMIA approval has been matched to file. The 90 day mark has passed."
(New Canadian Media agreed to use a pseudonym due to her fears of retaliation from IRCC)
Employers who want to hire a foreign worker require an LMIA to certify that no Canadian citizen or permanent resident is available to fill a job.
Sofia had done nothing wrong, neither had her employer. The only problem was the two federal agencies not communicating with each other.
But the consequences for Sofia were immediate: Loss of income, loss of legal status, and the collapse of any pathway to permanent residency she'd been building.
About a week after she received the refusal letter, the labour market assessment was approved. But according to her employer, the company still had to file another LMIA application and pay $1,500 in fees — and Sofia could not work until the government approved the paperwork.
This isn't a rare case; it's what happens when Service Canada (which approves the assessments) and IRCC (which issues work permits) operate on separate 90-day processing clocks with no coordinating mechanism.
Neither agency answered questions about why renewals are refused while assessments are pending; why workers receive stop-work orders; how many workers are affected; or whether any mechanism synchronizes the process.
Here's how the situation unfolds: A temporary foreign worker's permit is expiring so their employer files a new assessment application with Service Canada, triggering the 90-day processing window.
At the same time, the worker applies to renew their work permit with IRCC, which starts its own 90-day clock.
In theory, both timelines should finish at about the same time. In practice, however, Service Canada’s backlogs mean assessment processing regularly takes longer than 90 days — and IRCC doesn't wait.
When no Service Canada approval has been matched to the file, IRCC rejects the renewal and orders the worker to stop working immediately, even though their employer's application is still pending.
According to IRCC, those who apply for renewal before their current status expires should be authorized to continue working under “maintained status” while their application is processed. But if the assessment hasn't cleared Service Canada within 90 days, IRCC rejects the application.
A worker can be following the rules perfectly and working legally until that deadline passes — then suddenly the legal ground collapses under them.
IRCC acknowledged the impact of the delay, stating it "continues to work closely with Employment and Social Development Canada (another name for Service Canada) to improve coordination."
Service Canada told New Canadian Media the "Temporary Foreign Worker Program works with IRCC to ensure that the processing of LMIAs does not impact the legal status of foreign nationals."
Neither agency acknowledged the systemic failure these cases reveal.
If their assessment hasn't been approved, temporary workers face an impossible choice: Leave Canada and restart the entire application process from abroad, or stay without legal work authorization. They lose income either way. And Rural employers lose trained staff mid-season — a devastating blow during peak seasons.
Glenn Cormier, owner of Bowen Island Pub on the British Columbia coast, had 12 foreign workers when the coordination failed. He said a couple of his employees can’t work right now. One was forced to return to the Philippines to restart the process, losing months of income and thousands of dollars.
Cormier said he warned MP Patrick Weiler about this scenario in June 2025 — 14 months before the first worker's refusal letter arrived.
“It’s Service Canada that handles the LMIA… IRCC handles work permits… these two arms of government don’t talk to each other,” he said, adding that if IRCC finds the labour market assessment hasn’t been processed, “they just reject you and send you back to the beginning.”
Rupinder Sidhu, who operates Saffron Restaurant in Sechelt, B.C., lost three foreign employees working in her kitchen due to the same timing problem.
With 55 people on her payroll, Sidhu said she had to close her dining room and shut down a school lunch program. She has been to Ottawa twice, met with federal officials and sent documented letters to the prime minister and her MP four times.
Small communities like hers are already worried about losing the few immigrants they have.
Cassandra Fultz, an immigration lawyer specializing in work permit processing, says the coordination gap is systemic.
"Service Canada and IRCC don't have an automatic data-sharing mechanism," she said. "They process applications independently.
“When backlogs at one department exceed the statutory window at the other, workers are trapped in a gap neither agency designed or monitors."
New Canadian Media asked Service Canada and IRCC why IRCC rejects renewals while a labour market assessment is pending; why workers are told to stop working during processing; what the average LMIA processing time is and how it is coordinated with IRCC; whether a federal mechanism synchronizes the two timelines; and how many workers have been affected in the last 12 months.
Service Canada did not answer questions about refusals, stop-work orders, the coordination mechanism or the number of affected workers.
IRCC said it cannot isolate refusals caused solely by LMIA delays, and that it continues to work with Service Canada to improve coordination. It did not describe a synchronizing mechanism or address restoring status.
B.C.’s labour ministry did not provide comment, citing restrictions due to the ongoing provincial election campaign.
The problem lies in a bureaucratic mismatch nobody monitors: IRCC gives employers 90 calendar days to submit a Service Canada decision.
But according to immigration consultant Andrea Baskin, “three calendar months is not the same as 90 business days.”
"Workers follow every rule," Fultz says. "Employers follow every rule. They file on time, they complete the paperwork, they pay the fees. The system fails them anyway.
And there's no escalation path, no emergency mechanism, no override. They just get expelled."
Copyright 2026, New Canadian Media. All rights reserved.
Shilpashree Jagannathan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media.
Keep reading
Show less
Gros lot record de 90 M $ au Lotto Max : Voici tes vraies chances de gagner
Est-ce le bon moment de dire « Bye-bye boss »?🤑
Narcity Québec
Avis à ceux et celles qui rêvent de quitter leur emploi après avoir remporté le gros lot à la loterie de Loto-Québec. Le tirage du Lotto Max de ce vendredi 16 octobre atteint 90 millions de dollars, un record pour ce jeu de hasard pancanadien. Par contre, ne crie pas « Bye-bye boss » trop vite!
À lire également : Loto-Québec cherche 8 gagnants qui ne savent peut-être pas qu'ils ont remporté jusqu'à 2 M$
Ce vendredi, à 22 h 30, un Québécois ou une Québécoise pourrait mettre la main sur ce gros lot historique, du jamais-vu au pays. À cela s'ajoutent 18 lots de 1 million de dollars et 90 autres de 100 000 $.
Le gros lot de 85 M$ de mardi dernier n'ayant pas été remporté, il a grimpé à 90 M$ pour le tirage de ce soir.
« Loto-Québec a déjà fait plus de 110 millionnaires depuis le début de l'année. Espérons que la chance soit toujours de notre côté avec ce gros lot de 90 millions de dollars au Lotto Max », a fait savoir la société d'État par communiqué.
Depuis le lancement du Lotto Max en septembre 2009, plus de 4,37 milliards de dollars ont été remportés au Québec, selon Loto-Québec, dont 54 gros lots, parmi lesquels figurent trois jackpots de 70 M$.
À deux reprises, des personnes du Québec ont également remporté la moitié d'un gros lot de 80 M$, soit 40 M$ chaque fois.
Quelles sont tes chances de remporter le gros lot du Lotto Max?
Selon le site Web de Loto-Québec, tes chances de remporter un lot quelconque sont d'une sur 5,8 pour une seule participation à 6 $. Jusqu'ici, tout va bien. Toutefois, tu risques de commencer ton week-end bredouille si tu espères mettre la main sur le gros lot de 90 M $.
Tes odds sont alors un brin plus minces. On parle d'une chance sur 33 446 140 avec une seule participation.
Quand tu y penses, c'est pratiquement la même probabilité que d'obtenir 25 fois « pile » de suite en lançant une pièce de monnaie. Tu as même trois fois plus de chances d'obtenir neuf fois le chiffre six en lançant un dé!
Et pour ta prochaine soirée trivia, voici une statistique qui risque d'en surprendre plusieurs : les probabilités d'être frappé par la foudre au Canada sont inférieures à une sur un million, selon le Centre canadien d'hygiène et de sécurité au travail (CCHST). De quoi mettre tes chances de devenir multimillionnaire au Lotto Max en perspective!
Keep reading
Show less
Hitachi announces $479M plan to build transformer insulation factory in London, Ont.
Hitachi to build transformer insulation plant
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Hitachi Energy, along with the federal and Ontario governments, have announced a $479-million plan to build a new transformer insulation factory as electricity demand is expected to skyrocket.
The 21,000-square-metre facility in London, Ont., is expected to be completed by the end of 2028.
It would be the first in Canada to produce pressboard — a material made from paper pulp that's key to keeping transformers cool — and the first one Hitachi would establish in the Americas.
The facility is expected to create 100 permanent skilled jobs.
Hitachi is shouldering the bulk of the investment, with the federal and Ontario governments collectively contributing $50 million.
Of that, $20 million is through the federal strategic response fund, $10 million is from Natural Resources Canada and up to $20 million is through the Invest Ontario Fund.
The transition to renewable electricity, industrial developments and a boom in artificial intelligence data centres are driving up demand for transformers and their components, said Bruno Melles, chief executive of Hitachi's transformers business unit based in Zurich.
"Today we are in a situation where the industry for transformer manufacturing is going at a very high speed, but not all the industrial parts are going at the same speed," Melles said in an interview ahead of the announcement.
"This is why we want to give a strong message to the market and say, 'We want to be an integral part of the supply chain resilience and we are going to invest in order to ensure that the market is not going to have any shortage.'"
In May, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Canada's new electricity strategy, which aims to double the country's electricity grid by 2050.
Building new infrastructure has been a key focus for Carney's government, and several power and transmission projects have been referred to the major projects office for a streamlined review.
"Electricity demand in Canada is growing at an unprecedented pace, something we've never seen before," Carla Vincente, managing director of Hitachi Energy's Canadian division, said in an interview.
"By ensuring that we have this factory operational by the end of 2028, we will be able to respond to the higher needs and demand for the transformers that are an essential part of anything that we want to do to be able to electrify."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2026.
Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Keep reading
Show less