Group urges firms to 'hire Canadian' as students struggle to find summer jobs

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OTTAWA — While Canadians rally around “buy Canadian,” a citizen’s group is calling on businesses to “hire Canadian.”

With youth unemployment skyrocketing as students battle for the few summer jobs available to them, the National Citizens Coalition wants Canadian employers to focus on hiring locally instead of utilizing the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

“It became apparent quite quickly that the ‘buy Canadian’ crowd weren’t actually hiring Canadian,” NCC spokesperson Alex Brown told the Toronto Sun, saying that “buy Canadian” amounts to little more than anti-American platitudes if Canadian retailers and businesses continue to rely on inexpensive foreign labour.

“It is the Liberals that gave an inch here and many of these companies have taken a mile.”

So far in 2025, summer job postings are down 22% compared to last year — the worst summer job market in nearly two decades. Many of those entry level jobs are staffed by migrant and/or temporary workers — preferred by business owners that receive wage subsidies — who accept lower-than-market wages and are vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors.

Last summer, a little more than 14% of Canadians under 25 years old were unable to find work — more than double Canada’s current unemployment rate of 6.9%.

Brown shared stories of young people who’ve had no luck finding summer work despite months of trying.

“There is nothing available,” he said, speaking of a 20-year-old niece of a coalition supporter.

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“Despite hustling on foot and handing out over 90 resumes, she’s had exactly one interview — and the employer likely went with a subsidized temporary foreign worker instead.”

In response to the crisis, the Trudeau Liberals reduced 2025’s temporary resident arrivals to 673,650 — roughly the population of Vancouver. The same policy also saw the Trudeau Liberals cap study permit issuance at 437,000, a modest decrease from the 486,000 issued in 2024.

Last week, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani called for Canada to end the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, blaming the contentious policy as a major driver of unemployment and wage suppression, and to divest vital seasonal agricultural workers into separate programs.

Between January and October last year, 162,100 new work permits were issued under the program.

The NCC called on businesses to prioritize hiring Canadian youth and recent graduates over subsidized foreign labour and advocate for reform.

Aside from abolishing the foreign worker program, the NCC wants the federal government to close diploma mills and asylum loopholes — as well as lower annual immigration targets and increase deportations of people no longer entitled to be in Canada.

“We cannot allow another generation of Canadians to face economic scarring due to deliberate policy sabotage,” Brown said.

“It’s time for businesses to urgently invest in our youth and for Carney’s minority government to fix an immigration system that is failing everyday Canadians.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume