Canada’s summer jobs market was in tatters. In July, the youth unemployment rate hit 14.6%, the highest since 2010 outside the pandemic years. The employment rate for young people slumped to levels not seen since the late 1990s. .Statistics Canada’s own release says the pain is concentrated among teenagers and students. Returning students faced 17.5% unemployment overall, with 15–16 year olds at 31.4% — the worst summer since the 2000s, outside of the COVID lockdowns. Young men are at 16.2% joblessness and young women at 12.8%. Nearly one-in-five teens who want work can’t find any. That is not a blip. That’s policy failure. .What changed? A tide of temporary foreign workers has swollen the low-wage labour pool far faster than demand. Desjardins calls it a “deluge of available labour” that’s pressuring youth unemployment upward — something any parent with a job hunting teen has already noticed. Automation hasn’t helped as self-checkouts chipped away at cashier roles — the first rung on the job ladder for countless teens. And many gig platforms shut the door entirely until someone turns 18. Put it together and the entry ramp to work has narrowed to a bike lane. Which brings us to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). On paper, it’s a last-resort tool where employers must show, via a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), that no Canadian is available. In practice, the TFWP has sprawled far beyond that modest remit, becoming a standing labour pool for entry-level work. Ottawa’s own guidance shows most employers need an LMIA because the program exists to avoid hurting Canadian job prospects. Yet teenagers are sidelined anyway. .EDITORIAL: Danielle Smith must continue fight against porn in school libraries.Even the program’s early critics can read a balance sheet. Back in 2014, Justin Trudeau, before he became prime minister, blasted the TFWP’s ballooning scale, warning it displaced Canadian workers and depressed wages and urging it be “scaled back dramatically” and refocused on permanent immigration with a path to citizenship. Trudeau was correct back in 2014, the logic hasn’t aged a day..And it’s not just Conservatives raising alarms. BC NDP Premier David Eby now says the TFWP should “be cancelled or significantly reformed,” arguing it’s taking jobs from young people while straining services. When an NDP premier and the Official Opposition Conservatives agree the program is off the rails, the Liberals should stop pretending this is a fringe view. .The numbers are unforgiving. July’s labour force report shows four out of five job losses fell on youth, compounding a two-year drift of young Canadians into unemployment. That isn’t because teens got lazier in 2025. It’s because bad government policy made them expendable. A teenager from the third world is preferred over a Canadian teenager under this Liberal regime.Defenders say big brands only use TFWs “where locals aren’t available.” Yet case after case suggests convenience, not necessity, is the driver. Conservative MPs have been cataloguing openings that go to foreign hires while tens of thousands of Canadians — including 199,000 Ontario youth at one point — sit on the sidelines as foreigners cash cheques that used to go to Canadian young people. Conservative Shadow Minister for Immigration Michelle Rempel Garner posted to Twitter/X an obvious point to any rational person. If an employer can post $36 an hour food service job and still can’t find a Canadian in a major city, something’s broken in our matching, not our kids. .Meanwhile, the moral cost mounts. The UN’s special rapporteur has called the program a “breeding ground for contemporary slavery,” and Ottawa’s own ministers have conceded abuses exist, especially in low wage jobs. We don’t lift up newcomers — or our country — by importing vulnerability. We do it by hiring people at fair wages in jobs that can become stepping stones in their career path. .So what should Ottawa do?First, end the TFWP outside truly hard-to-fill roles. For example, if there’s a shortage of agricultural workers, create a narrow, transparent seasonal stream with real enforcement and housing standards. For the rest, the taps close. The jobs go to Canadians. That is exactly the direction Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has outlined, and it’s one worth adopting now, not after another cohort of teens gives up. Second, redirect dollars to Canadian mobility and training. Employers pay thousands in fees, travel, and compliance to bring in temporary workers. Put that into youth hiring bonuses, relocation help, and fast-track training..RUBENSTEIN: The truth about Canada’s residential school abuses.Third, crack down on fake “shortages.” If a company installs a fleet of self-checkouts, cuts starter shifts, then cries scarcity, regulators should laugh them out of the LMIA line. The test is supposed to protect Canadians, so enforce it that way. Canadians should not feel like foreigners in their own country.This isn’t anti-immigration. It’s pro-Canada, pro-teenager, pro-first paycheque, and pro-dignity for Canada’s future. It’s young people who will be the future of Canada and they deserve to have the same opportunities as those who went before them. If Ottawa won’t side with our kids now, when youth joblessness is scraping historic highs, when will it?
