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In the past decade, Canadian immigration policy experienced a shift towards the expansion of the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program because of a perceived necessity to prevent economic slow down in times of labour shortages. Conditions about hiring TFWs were imposed on employers to avoid abuses that developed in the past with such programs. However, it appears that a majority of construction workers in Metro Vancouver do not trust these conditions work. Skilled workers believe TFWs lower their wage and unskilled workers believe, in addition, that they make it harder to get a job. Also a majority of workers do not believe the program is necessary to fill vacancies. Hence, there appears to be a deep mistrust in the functioning of the program. Active monitoring of the conditions imposed on employers who hire TFWs would greatly improve the perception resident workers have about the program and its acceptability.

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The goal of a temporary foreign worker (TFW) program is to accommodate shortages of labour that otherwise would cause wages to rise substantially or possibly stop production because of the difficulty of finding resident workers. Over the past decade, the Canadian government relaxed several of the conditions to obtain a Labour Market Opinion (LMO), an application to hire TFWs proving that there exist labour shortages that domestic workers cannot fill. In 2013, following a couple of cases that might have involved losses of job opportunities for Canadian residents, the government reversed some of these changes. This paper examines two questions raised by these modifications. Firstly, did easier access to TFWs adversely affect resident workers' employment? Secondly, if so, are the recent changes adequate or could other policy changes make Canada's TFW program more efficient?

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