You Can’t Run a Tourist Town Without Foreign Workers

After 13 years opening and managing at Four Seasons hotels across North America, I returned home to Tofino, B.C., in 1995, to launch a long-imagined family project: the Wickaninnish Inn. We opened in 1996 with 46 rooms and, by 2003, we had 75. When guests pull up to the hotel someone greets them at the gatehouse. Then our front-desk staff check them in and give them a personal tour of the hotel, while a valet brings their luggage to the room so that it appears there like magic. That kind of service takes an army. Hiring and maintaining enough staff has been one of the hardest parts of operating the business since day one.

In nearly three decades of running the Wick, I can’t recall a summer when we’ve been fully staffed. Tofino is an entrepreneurial town: only 2,500 people live here but we have over 700 active business licences, which means most locals run their own ventures rather than working tourism jobs. The town attracts more than 600,000 visitors each year, and the Wick, one of the largest employers in Tofino, swells to over 200 staff in the summer. The local labour pool simply isn’t large enough to fill entry-level positions like stewards and room attendants, let alone specialized roles like sommeliers and pastry chefs. In a service-focused industry, every interaction counts—one negative experience can sour a guest’s entire stay. That’s why we’re highly selective about hiring, even if it shrinks an already shallow labour pool. Our HR director attends job fairs at hospitality and culinary schools across Canada every year, and we still struggle to find enough qualified people. Fewer Canadians are willing to move for work and leave behind family, friends and their social networks than a generation ago. Young Canadians, in particular, are drawn to the cities, where career opportunities and entertainment options are plentiful and varied.

Related: These International Students Wanted Citizenship. Canada Killed That Dream.

For the last 20 years, we’ve recruited foreign workers to fill our staffing needs. Usually between 15 and 20 per cent of our employees are temporary foreign workers, who hold roles in practically every department of the inn, ranging from senior managers to entry-level positions. Many come from Europe, Central America and Southeast Asia. The Canadian government classifies positions as either “low” or “high” wage, based on provincial median wages, and we have a mix of employees above and below that threshold.

In 2024, the Trudeau government decided to shrink the number of temporary residents in the country from seven per cent of the population to five per cent by the end of 2026, ostensibly to combat the housing crisis, youth unemployment and the strain some newcomers put on social services such as food banks and shelters. To get there, it tightened the rules on temporary foreign workers. They now have to renew their work permits every year instead of every other year. Previously, up to 20 per cent of a company’s workforce could be staffed by low-wage foreign workers. Now, it’s half that. At the same time, Ottawa raised the bar for what counts as “low-wage.” In B.C., the threshold increased from $28 per hour to $36.60, or $76,128 annually, pushing many of our positions into that category overnight. The changes seem to be working: the office of the minister of immigration recorded 125,00 fewer temporary workers in the first part of this year compared to last.

These changes, however, are devastating for our business and many others. We’ve already lost some talented staff who weren’t able to renew their work permits. Their roles will likely go unfilled. About 15 per cent of our staff are considered low-wage foreign workers, so we can’t hire any more people for those positions until we get below the 10 per cent cap. We had 10 vacant positions in the height of summer this year, mostly for housekeepers and stewards, and it will only get worse. If we can’t fill enough entry-level positions with Canadians, then we’ll have to run understaffed, which overworks the rest of the team who have to pick up the slack. We managed to get by this summer, but there’s a sense of foreboding as we keep losing staff we struggle to replace. I worry that next year we might have to reduce our operations; we can’t fill the rooms if we don’t have anyone to clean them.

Ottawa has also raised the bar for permanent residency applications: workers who once would have qualified to stay now get sent home after their permits expire. Many of our foreign workers enjoy their time in Canada, so our HR team and in-house immigration consultant help them through the byzantine system of permanent residency applications. Over the past three decades, we’ve had over 100 successful applications, many of which have led to citizenship. Many of our new Canadians stay on with us even after their status is no longer tied to their employment at the inn. But as the PR system is hyper-competitive and requirements get harder to attain, we will continue to have to say goodbye to more and more well-trained staff who would happily have stayed.

There’s a common belief that employers hire foreign workers to get out of paying competitive wages. That’s never been the case at the Wick. Our wages are based on the role, not the worker; an international front-desk attendant is paid exactly the same as their Canadian co-workers. In fact, it’s illegal to hire a temporary foreign worker for less than you’d pay an equivalent Canadian.

Related: I’m Trying to Learn French. Quebec Isn’t Helping.

Hiring internationally is actually a big cost for us. First, we have to pay $1,000 for a labour-market impact assessment, which proves to Ottawa that we aren’t able to fill the positions domestically. We spend a lot of money on recruitment, which includes advertising available positions, sending our staff on overseas hiring trips and paying employment agency commissions that can run as high as 18 per cent of a worker’s first-year salary. Once we’ve hired a foreign worker, we pay for them to travel to Tofino, which can be as much as $1,500 per person. Then comes housing. With so little infrastructure in town, we’ve invested around $6 million since 2022 in staff accommodations and are applying for permission from the town to build more. Training international workers is especially intensive because we spend extra time familiarizing them with the local geography, wildlife and natural wonders—so they can answer guests’ questions and offer recommendations.

Recently, Pierre Poilievre and David Eby have both said that Canada should scrap the temporary foreign worker program to tackle rising youth unemployment rates. But they’re focusing on cities, where most of their political bases live. Some urban companies may be taking advantage of the program, but getting rid of temporary foreign workers overlooks the reality in small tourist towns. Across Tofino, many businesses rely on temporary foreign workers to staff our industries. Without them it’s going to get much more expensive to operate. Some businesses may not survive, while others will be forced to scale back.

Already, I’ve heard from hotel operators in other small towns in the province who are closing whole floors because they don’t have the staff to clean all the rooms. It’s always been our family’s dream to create and run the Wickaninnish Inn, and we’re proud to welcome visitors from across Canada and around the world. But one-size-fits-all cuts to the temporary foreign worker program will negatively impact small towns around the country. So if Poilievre and Eby want cuts to the program, I hope they’re willing to come join us to make beds and serve breakfast. We could use the help.