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.
