As Calgary’s unemployment rate holds steady at 7.7%, more spotlight is being put on the federal government’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program and its impact on businesses and the province at large.Tensions continue to rise as companies struggle to fill skilled positions and local residents become increasingly frustrated by perceived preferences for foreign workers.One such example surfaced online when Kirk Lubimov, president of Testbed and a Calgary resident, tweeted that he would no longer shop at Lina’s Italian Market — a popular Italian grocery store and eatery chain — citing a decline in service quality and the company’s online Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) application to hire a foreign operations supervisor..“Today is the last time I’ve spent money at Calgary’s Lina’s,” Lubimov said on Monday in an X post.“I won’t spend a penny in businesses that hire foreigners instead of locals.”The Lina’s controversy echoes a recent push by Tory leader Pierre Poilievre and Shadow Immigration Minister Michelle Rempel Garner, who earlier this month, called for permanently scrapping the TFW. Poilievre framed the program as a betrayal of Canadian youth, stating, “The Liberals have to answer, 'Why is it that they are shutting our own youth out of jobs and replacing them with low-wage, temporary foreign workers from poor countries who are ultimately being exploited?’” Matthew Rai, senior vice president of Lina’s Italian Group, explained the company’s hiring challenges, saying of the applicants for jobs such as the operations supervisor role: “Around 60–70% were unqualified or newcomers to Canada, and another 30% were overqualified professionals, such as engineers, seeking any job to cover living expenses.”He attributes part of Alberta’s total 8.4% unemployment rate to an influx of newcomers, estimating that 6% of the unemployed are recent immigrants navigating the job market, while only 2% represent the Canadian talent pool with relevant experience.“We've got so many newcomers that are just floating around jobs and trying to make things work,” he told the Western Standard, noting that internal migration within Calgary and increasing rents further complicate employee retention, though Rai’s multi-location business allows some staff transfers.“We have Canadians that are working a year or six months on their resume and moving to another place trying to get more money, because it's been tough for living costs... [people’s landlords] are increasing the rent and they have to change positions or where they work... we’ve been dealing with it the last five years.”Lubimov responded to Rai’s comments, calling the hiring of foreign workers “disappointing” and a “last resort.”“There is no such thing as ‘overqualified,’” he said, arguing that it is an employer’s job to hire the best people available and, if not, to “train them up.”“Hearing that many new high-skilled workers can't find a job in their field is just as alarming.”He argued that the operations supervisor role, requiring under three years of experience and basic computer skills, should be accessible to local applicants.With a salary of $36 per hour — equivalent to $70,000 annually — Lubimov questioned why Lina’s struggles to find trainable Canadian talent in a city with tens of thousands of unemployed..EDITORIAL: Scrap the Temporary Foreign Worker Program so Canadian young people can work again.Rai said that entry-level roles like cashiers are “easy to fill” with students or local applicants, but middle management and skilled positions remain challenging.He also reflected on the contrast between Calgary’s current job market and what he witnessed during the last major economic downturn in 2008, recalling a heartbreaking case where a high-earning couple applied for cashier roles after losing everything.However, he did say that kind of scenario hasn’t appeared during this current economic situation — at least, not from what he’s seen.“I haven’t seen that yet this time around,” he said.“Granted, I’m not in the stores every day anymore — I’m mostly in the office — but those types of cases haven’t really come across my desk.”Instead, he said, most of the skilled applicants they’re seeing are newcomers to Canada, often professionals who have been forced to leave their fields.“What I am seeing more of are people coming from places like Mexico for petroleum engineering jobs where maybe the department has shut down, or there’ve been layoffs in oil and gas,” he revealed.“Same with candidates from Nigeria, Mexico, Azerbaijan — those kinds of positions. But not so much Canadian engineers or professionals, or whatever.”Rai emphasized that Lina’s prioritizes Canadian hires when possible due to a simpler learning curve, but stressed the need for specialized skills in their niche Italian market.“For me, it’s about strategies — and that’s the thing: if I do find good people, I typically hire them,” he said.“To be frank, I probably carry a higher labour cost right now because we’re actively trying to build our talent and expand the company even further.”
