A New Brunswick-based seafood business was fined $1 million and banned from using a government program to hire

foreign workers for 10 years after Ottawa imposed higher fines and suspended three times as many employers last year for abusive workplace practices.

Bolero Shellfish Processing Inc. was penalized for failing to provide proper wages and working conditions and for not complying with federal and provincial labour laws, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) said.

“To date, this is the biggest penalty ever issued by the department,”

it said in a statement on Monday. “Because any mistreatment of workers or misuse of the program will not be tolerated.”

Bolero said it rejects the decision and will challenge it in court.

“The conclusions of the federal government … do not reflect the reality of (the company’s) practices nor its commitment to the well-being of employees hired under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP),” it said.

Overall, the federal government conducted 1,435 inspections from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, and imposed penalties of $4.8 million, more than twice the $2.06 million in fines during the previous fiscal year. It also banned 36 employers from using the TFWP. The total does not include Bolero’s $1-million fine that was imposed in September.

“The Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a last resort measure for businesses — it is no substitute for Canadian talent, and its misuse will never be permitted,”

Employment Minister Patty Hajdu said in the statement on Monday. “Strengthening our inspection practices to weed out employers who misuse the program puts workers at the forefront.”

The TFWP has been under scrutiny lately. Last month, Conservative Leader

Pierre Poilievre said he wanted the program scrapped and blamed it for flooding the market with cheap labour, which has made it harder for Canadians to find work.

Prime Minister Mark Carney in September said he wants the program to be more focused. The TFWP allows businesses to temporarily hire foreign workers if they can prove that they cannot find Canadians or permanent residents to fill those roles. Many employers, especially in rural areas and certain sectors suffering from labour shortages, depend on the program, but there have also been several reports of the program being misused.

For example, the cut-off score to become a Canadian immigrant was higher than usual last year, so jobs under the TFWP were reportedly sold for thousands of dollars because they used to give temporary foreign workers additional points in the immigration system, making it easier for them to transition to permanent residency.

In a bid to tackle the issue, the government last December removed the additional points linked to this program.

More broadly, the government is looking to reduce the overall number of temporary residents in Canada to five per cent of the population by 2027. Currently, it’s at around seven per cent.

Temporary foreign workers make up roughly nine per cent of the total temporary residents in Canada. The rest are international students and workers under the international mobility program, which includes postgraduate work permits, spousal work permits for students and workers arriving through intercompany transfers or arrivals through humanitarian pathways, including those fleeing Ukraine.

After a series of steps taken by the government last year to reduce the number of temporary workers, including a reduction in the percentage of foreign workers a company can hire and limiting the hiring of low-wage workers under the TFWP, the reliance on the program has been reduced by 50 per cent since September last year, the ESDC said on Monday.

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Others fined in the last fiscal year include an agriculture company that was fined $212,000 and banned from using the TFWP for two years for failing to provide proper working conditions and the required documentation to government inspectors.

A real estate company was fined $161,000 and banned for five years for not providing proper wages and working conditions.