On August 18, 2010, the federal government published new regulations applicable to temporary foreign workers (“TFWs”) under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. 

The Regulations Amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (Temporary Foreign Workers) are designed to protect TFWs and minimize their exploitation by employers and third-party agents by amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations to impose stringent new guidelines and restrictions upon the employment of such workers by Canadian employers.

In part, the amendments:

• establish a set of factors to be considered in assessing the genuineness of all offers of employment to TFWs by Canadian employers (including an employer's past compliance with applicable federal or provincial employment laws);
• restrict an employer’s eligibility to access the TFW Program for two (2) years where the employer has been found to have provided wages, working conditions or an occupation that was not substantially the same as what was offered during the previous employment of a TFW, without reasonable justification (as defined in the regulations); and
• permit the publication of a list of “ineligible employers” on Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s external Web site identifying the names, addresses and period of ineligibility of employers denied eligibility to access the TFWP, in order to inform foreign nationals as to which employers are not eligible to hire TFWs.

In addition, the regulations establish a maximum cumulative duration of four (4) years of work, followed by a period of at least four (4) years not working in Canada, with exemptions under certain circumstances.

The amendments are based on draft regulations first proposed on October 10, 2009. The final regulations come into force on April 11, 2011.