Canada’s food industry has become addicted to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). The numbers tell a sobering story.
In just a few months of enforcement data — from July to late September 2025 — the federal government has listed 26 food-related employers found non-compliant with federal rules governing the program. That’s everything from oyster farms to sushi restaurants, cafes, and food processors. That’s nearly 40% of all companies fined during that period.
A New Brunswick seafood processing company has been fined $1 million and banned from using a government program to hire foreign workers for failing to comply with federal and provincial labour laws.
Bolero Shellfish Processing Inc., located in Saint-Simon, N.B., received the maximum financial penalty on Sept. 17 for failing to offer appropriate wages and working conditions and for “failing to provide a workplace that was free of abuse,” Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) said in a statement. The company also received a 10-year ban from taking part in the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program.
The owner of an Etobicoke-based Canadian Tire store has been fined $111,000 by the federal government for violating the guidelines of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program.
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), the federal ministry that runs the TFW program, found branch owner Ezhil Natarajan in violation of two guidelines: that wages, work conditions or the job did not match what was listed in offers of employment and that employees were assigned to work different roles than what they were hired for.
