Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre wants the federal government to axe the temporary foreign worker program.
He said it has flooded the market with cheap labour and made it harder for young Canadians to find work.
But he also said he would have a way to hire foreigners for difficult-to-fill agriculture jobs, presumably meaning crop workers and meat-packing industry jobs.
"The Liberals have to answer, 'Why is it that they are shutting our own youth out of jobs and replacing them with low-wage, temporary foreign workers from poor countries who are ultimately being exploited,'" Poilievre said.
Canada already has a separate immigration stream for farm workers called the Seasonal Agriculture Worker Program (SWAP) that allows employers to bring in workers from Mexico and other participating Caribbean countries.
Poilievre stressed that he doesn't blame the temporary foreign workers themselves but the Liberal government and "liberal corporate elites" who he says are exploiting these workers to enrich themselves.
