Tim Hortons hiring push pits workers against each other, advocates say

Tim Hortons is facing sharp backlash from migrant worker advocates after announcing Monday it will hire 10,000 “new local team members” and that lobbying for expanded access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) is “no longer necessary.”

With plans to open 80 new locations across Canada this year, the chain said it would launch a national hiring campaign to address youth unemployment, calling it “an ongoing responsibility to hire locally.”

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This comes as the youth unemployment rate rose to more than 14 per cent in April, according to Statistics Canada, with some analysts describing these figures as unusually high outside of a recession. Others have linked this new shift to increased competition in the coffee sector, with the return of Dunkin‘.

However, the co-executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Syed Hussan, said the campaign’s framing risks pitting workers against one another.

“Pitting so-called local workers against temporary foreign workers is a red herring. Every worker deserves real rights and protections, regardless of nationality,” Hussan told Broadview.

He pointed to the company’s past reliance on the program, noting that Tim Hortons had previously lobbied to expand the TFWP and recruited thousands of migrant workers in its restaurants after pandemic-era labour shortages. According to the company, about 4,000 workers are currently employed through the program out of roughly 110,000 employees.

Hussan also argued the company’s labour practices are tied to broader affordability issues in the low-wage sector, including its stance on minimum wage increases.

“Tim Hortons is one of the leading lobbyists against increases to minimum wage, which is the number one reason for our affordability crisis,” he said. “These people’s wages are too low, and what [their] model is doing is actually one of the key actors responsible for creating the affordability crisis, and it’s now using the anti-migrant record as a way to excuse itself.”

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In a statement, Tim Hortons said its use of the program has declined since 2024, with about 4,000 workers employed through the TFWP among Tim Hortons’ roughly 110,000 employees nationwide.

The company has also called for “continued rigour and scrutiny” for new temporary foreign worker applications and will follow labour frameworks set by governments.

For Rena Namago, refugee and migrant rights policy officer at Citizens For Public Justice in Ottawa, the announcement risks reinforcing a misleading narrative that migrant workers are responsible for youth unemployment.

“We need to challenge this framing of youth unemployment because of migrants taking jobs,” Namago says. “It’s not because of competition with migrants — migrants were brought in because that problem was already there.”

“If they lose their job, they lose their status, their immigration status, so they could face deportation,” she adds.

Rosemary Quinsey, a national representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Toronto, said migrant workers continue to face exploitation by some employers despite their contributions to the Canadian economy.

“In many cases, there is nothing ‘temporary’ about these jobs, so in addition to an overhauled TFWP, migrant workers must also have access to permanent residence pathways,” said Quinsey.

For some advocates, concerns extend beyond workplace conditions to the uncertainty facing workers who come to Canada expecting stability and opportunity.

“The government policy changes fail to account for the thousands of workers already in Canada because of previous government policy after COVID-19,” says Jonathon Braun, legal director of the Migrant Workers Centre in Vancouver.

“Workers were uprooted from their families, and often spent their life savings to come work for Canadian employers during a difficult time. Sudden, unpredictable changes to immigration policy leave these workers stranded, and put them at significant risk of abuse.”

Broadview reached out to Tim Hortons for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

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Charlotte MacDonald and James Adair are Broadview summer interns.