40K manufacturing jobs gone, lobby wants more foreign workers

Canada’s manufacturing lobby is pushing for easier access to foreign workers despite more than 40,000 manufacturing payroll jobs disappearing in 2025.

Source: X (edited with AI)

Canada’s manufacturing lobby is pushing Ottawa to relax foreign worker restrictions, even though manufacturing employment declined by more than 40,000 in 2025. That’s raising all sorts of questions on Parliament Hill about why the industry is looking overseas for workers when so many Canadians are unemployed.

Conservative MP Costas Menegakis confronted Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) Director of International Trade and Skills Policy Matt Conley during an October 29 meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

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💥 REPORT: Canada's manufacturing lobby has been demanding more foreign workers while the industry has laid off nearly 50k Canadian workers in the past two years. The Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters lobbied the federal government 94 times in 12 months to remove the 10% …

11:32 AM · Oct 30, 2026 · 7.67K Views

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“Would you support policies that require employers to prioritize hiring laid-off local talent before bringing in workers from abroad?” Menegakis asked.

“Yes,” Conley replied.

But when asked about retraining and rehiring the Canadians who had been laid off, Conley supported immigration as another way for manufacturers to build their workforces.

“A lot of my members have increased wages, have increased training budgets,” he said.