The company once “synonymous with Canada” is “favouring foreigners over our own citizens,” remarked Ezra Levant

Article by Rebel News staff.

Tim Hortons claims it is scaling back its use of Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada, following severe backlash to the once iconic Canadian franchise's push to expand the program.

“We have not lobbied the government since last year and we won’t be lobbying them on TFWs any time soon given our commitment to hire locally everywhere possible,” said Duncan Fulton, chief corporate officer of Tim's parent company, Restaurant Brands International, in a story published by the Globe and Mail.

On Monday's edition of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra was skeptical of the multinational corporation's claim it was dialling back its reliance on non-citizen staffers.

“They said they couldn't survive without Temporary Foreign Workers; they kept on repeating the lie that they could only get foreigners to work,” he said, reflecting on how entry-level jobs in foodservice were a common way many young Canadians first entered the workforce.

“It used to be a great job for teenagers,” he continued. “Now, it's a great job for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s from foreign countries.”

The company was also playing games with the wording of its message, Ezra said. With Tim's claiming they'll hire 10,000 “local workers,” Ezra looked at what the word “local” means in this context.

“Is a local worker someone who happens to be in the neighbourhood but is a foreign student?” he said, also scrutinizing Fulton's claim that the company would stop lobbying.

But official records tell a different story, with Restaurant Brands International's CEO lobbying the government about immigration as recently as a mid-May.

“They're liars, and they're lying about stopping to lie,” he remarked, suggesting the company was shifting its focus from staffing through the Temporary Foreign Worker program to taking advantage of international student loopholes instead.

“You see what they're doing here? An international student is really a Temporary Foreign Worker that doesn't show up in the Temporary Foreign Worker numbers,” he said.

Tim Hortons' announcement was “trickery,” Ezra said, asserting they would “shift towards those international students.”

The company was once “synonymous with Canada — now they're favouring foreigners over our own citizens.”