Ontario’s new OINP employer-led system creates an unfair barrier for many qualified workers employed by large, established Canadian companies.

Under the current system, an employer must actively register with the OINP Employer Portal and submit the worker’s job offer before that worker can proceed with certain provincial nomination pathways.

This means that a qualified employee can have:

• a genuine permanent full-time job
• years of Canadian work experience
• strong language skills
• Canadian payroll and tax records
• employment with a major, established company
• and still be completely prevented from accessing the program simply because their employer has a corporate policy against participating in provincial immigration portals.

This disproportionately affects workers employed by large corporations, banks, universities, major retailers, telecommunications companies, and other institutional employers whose HR departments may be willing to verify employment and issue job-offer letters, but are unwilling to take on the administrative and legal responsibilities of participating directly in the OINP Employer Portal.

Meanwhile, workers employed by smaller employers whose owners are willing to participate can access the program.

The worker’s immigration opportunity should not depend primarily on whether their employer’s internal HR department chooses to participate in an immigration portal.

The current structure may also create unnecessary employer leverage over temporary foreign workers. When an employee’s ability to pursue permanent residence depends entirely on employer cooperation, workers can become more vulnerable to pressure involving wages, working conditions, scheduling, or continued employment.

It may also fail to achieve its intended anti-fraud purpose. Employment at large, regulated and established organizations can already be independently verified through payroll records, T4 slips, CRA records, employment contracts, direct HR verification, and other documentation.

What We Are Asking Ontario To Do

We are asking the Government of Ontario and the Ministry responsible for the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program to create a streamlined employer-verification pathway for workers employed by large, established and independently verifiable organizations.

Under this pathway:

• the worker would be permitted to initiate their own OINP application or Expression of Interest;
• the employer would not be required to create and operate an OINP Employer Portal account;
• OINP could directly verify the worker’s employment with the employer’s HR department;
  applicants would still be required to meet all existing immigration, employment, wage, education, language and work-experience requirements;
• Ontario could establish strict criteria defining which employers qualify for this streamlined process.
• Possible qualifying employers could include federally regulated institutions, publicly traded corporations, governments, universities, hospitals, large established Canadian companies, and other employers meeting objective payroll, workforce, revenue or compliance requirements.

This proposal does not ask Ontario to weaken immigration screening or eliminate employer verification.

It asks Ontario to modernize the verification process so that qualified workers are not excluded solely because of their employer’s internal corporate policy.

Why This Matters

Ontario should select immigrants based on their skills, work experience, qualifications, economic contribution and genuine connection to the province.

A worker should not be forced to leave Ontario, abandon a career, or change employers simply because a legitimate employer will verify their employment but will not participate directly in an immigration portal.

We are asking Ontario to preserve program integrity while giving qualified workers at established employers a fair opportunity to compete for provincial nomination.

We call on the Government of Ontario to amend the OINP system and introduce a streamlined verification pathway for workers employed by large, established and independently verifiable employers.