Canada to expand work permit eligibility for spouses, common-law partners

Canada will introduce a two-year temporary measure to expand work permit eligibility to spouses, common-law partners, and working-age dependents of temporary workers across skill levels from January 2023, according to Canada's immigration policy. The families of workers in healthcare, trades, and hospitality would include this. The measure would affect around 200,000 foreign workers and their family members.

The policy will be implemented in three phases, beginning with the ability for family workers to apply for an open work permit. After consultations with agricultural companies and other stakeholders, the expansion of policy ambit will be expanded to include family members of agricultural workers, as per the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada release.

Before that, spouses of those working in a high-skill occupation were only eligible for a work permit. The temporary measure aims to improve the emotional well-being, physical health and financial stability of workers by keeping families together. The Canadian government aims to address the country's labour shortages and help employers with staffing needs across skill levels. According to Canada's Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance Randy Boissonnault, labor shortage is the biggest challenge for the country's tourism industry.

Boissonnault said Labour is the number 1 challenge facing Canada's tourism sector as we position ourselves for post-pandemic growth. Today, our government is bringing in innovative family-based solutions to solve this issue and help our tourism partners meet the global demand for Canadian experiences from coast to coast to coast. Canada issued 645,000 work permits between January and October this year, four times higher than the 163,000 work permits issued in the same period last year.