(CANADA) — Tim Hortons said it wants to hire 10,000 people locally as it dials back reliance on the Temporary Foreign Worker program, aligning the restaurant chain more closely with a federal push to recruit and train Canadians first.

The company’s shift came as Ottawa tightened access to the program and signaled that employers should turn to temporary foreign workers only after exhausting local hiring options.

Marc Caira, then Tim Hortons’ CEO, said the company had “always used the program responsibly” and prioritized hiring Canadians before foreign workers. The statement placed Tim Hortons inside a widening political and business debate over who should fill restaurant jobs and under what conditions.

That debate sharpened on June 20, when Jason Kenney, then Canada’s Employment Minister, said temporary foreign workers should be hired only as a “last and limited resort to fill acute labour shortages,” according to the government’s stated policy position at the time.

Alexandra Fortier, Kenney’s spokesperson, said employers must “redouble their efforts to recruit and train Canadians”. The language left little room for employers to treat the program as a routine staffing channel.

Ottawa’s policy changes hit restaurant hiring directly. Restrictions applied in regions with unemployment rates of at least 6 percent, and the rules also barred some entry-level restaurant positions from access to the program.

Officials also increased inspections and shortened permits for low-skilled occupations. Those changes raised compliance pressure on employers and narrowed the room to rely on foreign labour for ordinary staffing needs.

Tim Hortons’ announcement therefore landed at the intersection of corporate hiring strategy and a federal effort to reset expectations around the Temporary Foreign Worker program. The company did not present the move as an abstract rejection of temporary foreign workers; it tied the shift to a local hiring target and a broader effort to dial back dependence on the program.

The number itself stood out. A plan to hire 10,000 people locally suggested that one of the country’s best-known restaurant brands wanted to show it could meet staffing needs inside Canada even as access to foreign workers tightened.

That matters in a labour-intensive business where hiring often happens store by store and turnover can be high. Federal restrictions in areas with unemployment of at least 6 percent meant employers in many communities faced a sharper test of whether they could attract and keep local workers before seeking permission to bring in staff from abroad.

Restaurant operators also had to contend with the ban on some entry-level restaurant positions. Jobs that once might have been filled through the program now fell more squarely onto the domestic labour market, raising the pressure to recruit faster, train more workers and hold on to them.

Caira’s statement sought to answer a political concern that had become central to the file: whether employers had relied too readily on temporary foreign labour instead of first offering jobs to Canadians. By saying Tim Hortons had “always used the program responsibly”, he framed the chain as a compliant user of a system that Ottawa had begun to police more aggressively.

The company’s position also reflected how quickly the policy environment could shape employer behaviour without an outright ban on the program. Ottawa did not eliminate the Temporary Foreign Worker program for restaurants across the board. It tightened the conditions, increased scrutiny and made the message unmistakable that Canadian recruitment had to come first.

Kenney’s phrase, “last and limited resort to fill acute labour shortages,” captured that change in one line. It narrowed the program’s intended role to exceptional cases rather than regular workforce planning.

Fortier’s instruction that employers must “redouble their efforts to recruit and train Canadians” added an operational demand. Employers were not simply expected to prefer domestic workers in theory; they were expected to show stronger efforts to find and prepare them.

For chains such as Tim Hortons, that created a practical challenge as well as a public one. A company needed enough staff to keep restaurants running, but it also had to demonstrate that it was responding to the government’s new standard on recruitment and training.

Tim Hortons’ plan to hire locally offered one answer. The company moved to present domestic hiring not as a symbolic gesture but as a measurable target, with 10,000 jobs attached to it.

The restrictions on low-skilled occupations and the shorter permit terms reinforced that direction. Even where use of the program remained possible, the process became harder to treat as a stable, long-duration solution for routine restaurant staffing.

More inspections added another layer. Employers faced not just policy limits on where and for what jobs they could apply, but more scrutiny over how they used the permits they received.

That combination changed the calculation for businesses across the sector. Hiring locally, training more Canadian workers and relying less on the Temporary Foreign Worker program became not only a political expectation but a more practical response to tighter rules.

Tim Hortons’ move also showed how employers were adapting their public language. The chain did not cast foreign workers as the problem. It argued instead that it had used the system properly and that Canadians had always come first, while at the same time announcing a push to expand local hiring as federal policy hardened.

That distinction mattered because the debate was not simply about whether the program should exist. It centered on when employers should use it, how much they should depend on it and whether local recruitment had genuinely been exhausted before applications were filed.

Ottawa’s answer was clear in the measures it adopted. Regions with unemployment of at least 6 percent faced tighter limits, some entry-level restaurant roles were blocked, inspections increased and low-skilled permits were shortened.

Each of those changes pointed in the same direction: employers needed to rely less on foreign workers and do more to build a local workforce. Tim Hortons’ promise to hire locally fit that direction, whether as a response to policy pressure, a staffing plan, or both.

The chain’s statement from Caira left its own message on the record. Tim Hortons, he said, had “always used the program responsibly”, while the federal government insisted temporary foreign workers should remain a “last and limited resort to fill acute labour shortages,” and that employers must “redouble their efforts to recruit and train Canadians.”

Between those positions sat the restaurant labour market, where staffing needs remained immediate but the rules had shifted. Tim Hortons answered by saying it would dial back use of the program and hire 10,000 people locally.