Tim Hortons Local Hiring Plan Targets 10,000 Workers
Tim Hortons local hiring plan calls for up to 10,000 local workers as the chain trims its use of Ottawa’s Temporary Foreign Worker program while expanding locations across Canada this year. Duncan Fulton said the company wants owners to hire locally almost all the time, a shift that could alter staffing at thousands of restaurants.
10,000 Local Workers
10,000 local hires is the scale Tim Hortons has put on the table, and it comes as the chain expands across the country this year. Fulton, the chief corporate officer of Restaurant Brands, said, "At the end of the day, our owners would prefer to hire locally almost 100 per cent of the time" and added, "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".
4,000 temporary foreign workers are currently employed at Tim Hortons locations, equal to 3.6 per cent of all restaurant roles. The company’s stated shift means local hiring will have to fill a much larger share of openings if franchise owners keep growing the store base and pull back on use of the program.
Restaurant Brands Ends Ottawa Push
Restaurant Brands International, Tim Hortons’ parent, is pledging to stop lobbying the federal government to expand the Temporary Foreign Worker program. That is a clean break from the pandemic period, when Tim Hortons campaigned for Ottawa to raise the foreign worker hiring cap.
30 per cent was the ceiling Ottawa allowed in 2022 after the Trudeau government expanded the program, and the cap fell to 10 per cent in 2024. Federal lobbying records indicate Tim Hortons representatives kept pressing Ottawa to widen the cap again through much of 2024 and 2025, so the new stance reverses a sustained effort rather than a one-time adjustment.
TFW Program Pressure
The Temporary Foreign Worker program is used heavily by agricultural employers and by retail and restaurant chains that say they cannot find local hires. Employers must clear Labour Market Impact Assessment applications before they can bring in foreign labour, which means a shift away from the program pushes hiring decisions back onto franchise owners rather than regulators.
Michelle Rempel Garner said in December 2025 that restaurants like Tim Hortons had "removed entry-level job opportunities for youth." Don Davies said last year that if owners cannot find workers, they are "ignoring market signals." Those criticisms now sit beside the company’s promise to hire locally, a move that suggests it is trying to answer political pressure while still staffing new locations.
May 21, 2026 marks the latest point at which the company’s stance was laid out. The practical question for workers is straightforward: whether the local hiring push actually replaces foreign-worker slots at store level, or whether franchisees keep reaching for the same labor pool as expansion continues.
