Which 24 Canadian metros are ineligible for LMIA processing until July?

'Employers must adapt by offering higher wages or recruiting domestically'

BY Jim Wilson 08 Apr. 2025

The federal government has temporarily banned 24 Canadian metropolitan areas from accessing a feature of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, in accordance with a policy change that Ottawa announced in 2024.

Effectively immediately, the Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) will not be processing low-wage Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) applications for employers in these cities.

That’s because their locality failed to meet the new requirement put in by the government last year.

Effective Sept. 26, 2024, Ottawa refused to process LMIA applications in the low-wage stream in census metropolitan areas with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher.

Areas affected by this refusal to process – for the period of April 4 and July 10, 2025 – are:

Census metropolitan area	Unemployment rate (%) for applications submitted from April 4 to July 10, 2025
Newfoundland and Labrador
St. John's	7.6
New Brunswick
Saint John	7.7
Fredericton	6.9
Quebec
Drummondville	8.0
Montreal	6.7
Ontario
Kingston	7.2
Peterborough	9.9
Oshawa	8.0
Toronto	8.6
Hamilton	7.3
St. Catharines-Niagara	7.7
Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo	8.5
Brantford	7.2
Guelph	6.2
Windsor	9.3
Barrie	7.5
Alberta
Calgary	7.8
Red Deer	8.4
Edmonton	7.3
British Columbia
Kelowna	6.7
Kamloops	7.1
Abbotsford-Mission	6.2
Vancouver	6.6
Nanaimo	6.0

Regina, Saskatchewan (5.9%) and London, Ontario (5.5%) are no longer part of the latest list. They were among those banned from the program from the period of Jan. 10 to April 3, 2025, according to a CIC News report.

The introduction of Canada’s new low-wage LMIA restrictions “marks a significant shift in the country’s immigration policies, aiming to balance foreign labour with domestic job market needs,” according to B.C.-based SOHI Law Group.

“By targeting 24 high-unemployment CMAs, the government prioritizes Canadian workers while ensuring essential industries continue to thrive with foreign labour,” it said.

“Employers must adapt by offering higher wages or recruiting domestically, while foreign workers should explore exempt sectors or other regions. As the list of affected areas evolves quarterly, staying informed is crucial for all parties involved.”

How to determine if you are affected by LMIA restrictions

For employers to know if they will be impacted by the temporary ban in metropolitan areas, they must determine whether any of the low-wage positions are located in CMAs by following the steps below, according to the federal government:

Enter the complete postal code of the work location at Census of population
On the Geography search results page, refer to the “Census metropolitan area / Census agglomeration” geographic level. If this level isn’t listed in the search results, your application will remain eligible for processing. If the result under this geographic level is:

Census agglomeration: Your LMIA application will remain eligible for processing
Census metropolitan area: Find the unemployment rate of the CMA. If the unemployment rate is 6% or higher, the application won’t be processed

“If any of these positions are located in a CMA, you must then check the CMA’s unemployment rate using the table provided. If any of the work locations fall within a CMA with an unemployment rate of 6% or higher, your application won’t be processed,” said the federal government.

Before Ottawa implemented the rule in September, a number of employer groups criticized the federal government’s decision to halt the acceptance of workers under the low-wage stream of the TFW Program in Montreal.

The federal government has made numerous changes to its immigration rules, and many stakeholders have criticized these changes.