Work permit worry looms as nominee program languishes in limbo

Business groups in the NWT were already worried for foreign nationals with expiring work permits even before the territory’s key immigration stream appeared to implode on Wednesday night.

The NWT Nominee Program had been planning to accept 100 applicants on a first-come, first-served basis from Thursday morning after being shut down for half a year.

But the territorial government called off the reopening at the 11th hour, saying on Wednesday night it had learned that its federal cap for the whole of 2025 was going down from 300 successful applicants to just 150.

The program is in such demand that the 100 January places were expected to go fast. The territory had been hoping for a federal cap of 500 places this year after the NWT’s 2024 program had to shut almost half a year early, in July, after hitting its annual cap.

Now, the territorial government says it needs to “reassess” its approach under the new, much tighter cap, and has delayed reopening the nominee program indefinitely.

Having to work with 150 places instead of a hoped-for 500 completely reshapes the math for NWT immigration in 2025 and may also have an effect on the territory’s overall population.

‘Precarious positions’

The continued pausing of the nominee program will only increase worry among applicants and businesses, who were already concerned even before Wednesday night’s drama.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Yellowknife and NWT chambers of commerce – joined by francophone economic development group CDÉTNO – said the first-come, first-served approach the GNWT had been contemplating for January was troubling.

The business groups said foreign nationals whose federally issued work permits were about to expire would be relying on acceptance to the nominee program to stay in the territory. However, with the nominee program having shut down for the past six months, the groups said those people with expiring permits would now be fighting many others for comparatively few places.

As a result, they said, some businesses may lose workers who don’t get into the program and can no longer stay in Canada, meaning employers may have to start from scratch to fill vacancies.

That prospect becomes increasingly likely following Wednesday night’s decision to keep the program suspended indefinitely while the GNWT thinks through its options.

The territory acknowledged that, saying in a statement that it recognized “this announcement will inconvenience and generate uncertainty for potential applicants.”

Even the first-come, first-served approach “inadvertently disadvantages individuals whose work permits are nearing expiration, leaving them and the businesses that depend on them in precarious positions,” the business groups had said in a letter to NWT minister responsible Caitlin Cleveland on Wednesday.

They urged Cleveland to switch to “prioritizing applications based on the proximity of applicants’ work permit expiration dates.”

This would maintain workforce stability, allow individuals to keep contributing to the NWT’s economy and ensure “businesses are not burdened with the increased costs and inefficiencies of filling vacated positions due to worker departures,” the letter stated.

GNWT had ruled out changes

Prior to its dramatic Wednesday night reversal, the territorial government had told Cabin Radio it would not prioritize applicants with expiring work permits anyway, even had the January intake gone ahead as planned.

“The Department of Education, Culture and Employment acknowledges that there is a high number of applicants who want to apply,” a spokesperson for the department said by email. They said first-come, first-served was the “fair and equitable” approach.

The spokesperson said extra effort had been made last year to accommodate people with expiring work permits who were left out after the program, known as NTNP for short, hit its 300-person cap in July. Taking that action at the time was considered fair as the program’s closure “was sudden.”

But doing so also brought about a significant delay, according to the GNWT.

“This process put a significant amount of strain on application processing and caused the average processing time of the program to increase from approximately 10 weeks to six months or more,” the spokesperson stated.

“To ensure that the program remains fair and that the NTNP can process all applications thoroughly, the NTNP will not be able to accommodate priority processing for 2025. Thorough application processing is vital to the integrity of the program and cannot be compromised in any way.”

The GNWT said employers who are worried about retaining employees with expiring work permits should “explore other options,” giving the example of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker program.

Yukon struck deal with Ottawa

The territory is not the first Canadian jurisdiction to end up in this kind of scenario.

Last year, the Yukon similarly had to pause its nominee program intake. In October, the Yukon announced it had made a deal with Ottawa to give more than 200 temporary foreign workers in the territory a form of two-year work permit extension.

“Issuing these work permits will help to support foreign workers settled in the Yukon as they pursue their path to permanent residency, while helping Yukon businesses to retain staff,” the Yukon government said at the time.

A spokesperson for the Yukon government told Yukon News: “Approximately 215 workers were identified as needing support for expiring work permits, and it is crucial that they be able to continue to live and work in the Yukon.”

In Manitoba, more than 6,000 people with expiring work permits were given a similar two-year extension according to a CBC report from May 2024.

After this article was first published, the NWT government said the “temporary policy” the federal government had rolled out around last year’s work permit expiry problems had now itself expired, so “would not be relevant to any 2025 applications.”

“The NWT did consult with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada about joining this policy, but ultimately it did not join it, as the NTNP processed all applications in its 2024 processing queue that had a work permit that was going to expire in 2024,” the territory stated.

The three business groups who wrote to Cleveland this week said foreign nationals were vital to filling NWT vacancies and keeping the economy running.

“The NTNP is a vital tool in supporting the territory’s labour shortages, supporting businesses and driving economic growth,” the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce stated.

“Every nomination represents an investment in the territory’s strength and sustainability.”