November 2025: The latest regarding LMIAs!

Greetings! Middlemiss Immigration Law Inc. is a boutique immigration law firm in Montréal serving clients in Québec and nationally, across Canada. Whether you are an employer seeking work permits for your employees, a family looking to reunite in Canada, or a professional aiming to immigrate to Canada, we are committed to assisting you.

Below are some of the latest news and information regarding Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs)

What is a Labour Market Impact Assessment? Work Permits are usually very difficult to obtain in Canada and in the ordinary course of events, an employer must demonstrate that reasonable efforts were made to hire a Canadian citizen or permanent resident for the position that a temporary foreign worker is being hired for in Canada. This process is called a confirmation of Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA).

• Proof of advertising and recruitment efforts is normally required as part of the LMIA application – also known as “regular” LMIA.
• In certain cases, an employer may be exempt from the usual advertising requirements – such as for Global Talent Stream LMIAs and Quebec Simplified Process LMIAs.

For the most part, the same documentary requirements and process to apply for a LMIA apply across Canada. However, certain provinces have their own requirements for employers, for example:

• Employers in British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia must have a valid provincial employer registration certificate in order to submit a LMIA application.
• For employers in Quebec, in addition to the LMIA application to Service Canada-Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), an application for a Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) must be submitted in parallel to Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI).

LATEST NEWS

Regular LMIAs

• We are currently in a very restrictive immigration context and regular LMIAs are becoming increasingly common as a strategy to extend worker status – for example, for those on Post Graduate Work Permits or IEC Work Permits which cannot be extended.
• An employer is usually required to advertise the position on Job Bank in order to submit a LMIA application. A position can be advertised on the Job Bank website only if the job posting gets approved by Job Bank.
• In practice, we have seen officers examining draft job postings for Job Bank with greater scrutiny, especially where the proposed salary is above the prevailing wage rate for the occupation.
• We have also seen a higher number of instances where job postings are taken down from Job Bank for a plethora of reasons.

“Freeze” on low-wage LMIA applications

• There is currently an ongoing refusal to process LMIA applications for most low-wage positions in census metropolitan areas (CMAs) with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher.
• What determines whether a LMIA application is for a low-wage vs. high-wage position is the hourly salary. For example, the minimum salary required to qualify as a high-wage LMIA in Québec is $34.62/per hour.
• The table used by ESDC to determine whether a given CMA has an unemployment rate of 6% or higher is updated periodically every 3 months. The next update is planned for January 9, 2026.
• At present, most CMEs, with the exception of: Saguenay (QC), Québec City (QC), Sherbrooke (QC), Trois-Rivières (QC), Drummondville (QC), Peterborough (ON), Thunder Bay (ON), Saskatoon (SK), and Victoria (BC), have an unemployment rate of 6% or higher – and thus a refusal to process most low-wage LMIA applications is currently in force.

Updates documentary requirements for proof of business legitimacy

• If an employer is presenting an LMIA application for the first time in the last 2-year period, then the employer will need to submit documents for proof of business legitimacy.
• Following an important recent update, a valid municipal business license is now required for certain businesses.
• For corporate tax documents to show proof of business legitimacy, they must now generally be those evaluated and issued by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Documents that have been printed and filled out from the CRA website are no longer accepted if they haven’t been submitted to and processed by the CRA.

Quebec Simplified Process LMIA

• The list of occupations eligible for the Quebec Simplified Process is historically revised by the MIFI annually in February. We will keep you updated of any notable changes.

Do you have any questions?

Reach out to us to (514) 667-0661 or
information@middlemissimmigrationlaw.com, or
to our individual email addresses or telephone numbers.

We would be pleased to speak with you.

***Information contained in this newsletter should not be taken as legal advice. The content of this newsletter is intended to be general and should not be relied upon for any individual case or situation.***