Canada's Budget includes measures to poach talented workers, holding US H1B visas, from abroad

The Canadian government’s budget presented on Tuesday includes measures to poach talented workers from abroad, including the United States.

According to a report in ‘The Globe and Mail’, there is a plan for a fast pathway to Canada for holders of US H1B visas, meant for high-skilled jobs that American tech companies find hard to fill.

Canada will also launch an initiative to recruit more than 1,000 top international researchers as the budget has injected up to $1.7-billion into recruitment measures.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters that Canada wants to attract “the best and the brightest”. Ottawa aims to keep new permanent residents at less than 1 per cent of the population beyond 2027, while reducing the number of temporary residents to less than 5 per cent of the population by 2027 end, ‘The Globe and Mail’ reported.

The federal government announced a dramatic cut in the number of temporary residents, especially international students, it plans to admit to Canada in the next three years.

According to ‘The Globe and Mail’, in its immigration-levels plan, released as part of the budget, the government has cut the number of temporary residents the country will admit to 3.85 lakh next year from 6.74 lakh in 2025.

In a move that may be resented by educational institutes, Canada will halve the number of international students.

The squeezing of admissions reflects declining public support for immigration, including for temporary residents, whose proportion of Canada’s population has more than doubled in the past six years, according to ‘The Globe and Mail’.

The government’s budget document said this “unprecedented rate of growth” has “put pressure on housing supply, the health care system, and schools” and is “no longer sustainable”.

Prime Minister Mark Carney says he wants to restore immigration rates to “sustainable levels” while attracting “the best talent in the world”.