On September 30, 2018, after almost 14 months of negotiation,
Canada and the United States successfully reached an agreement for
Canada to join the preliminarily agreed upon pact with Mexico to
update and revise the North American Free Trade Agreement
("NAFTA"). The new NAFTA will be renamed the
US-Mexico-Canada Agreement ("USMCA"). The US, Canada and
Mexico are expected to sign USMCA at the end of November 2018.
Chapter 16 of the current NAFTA governs the temporary entry of
business persons into Canada. In general, chapter 16 allows
employers in the US, Canada and Mexico to access professional
labour from all three countries under expedited immigration
programs. In the NAFTA negotiation, the three countries did not
re-negotiate Chapter 16. This means the USMCA will contain the
existing temporary foreign worker programs that are in NAFTA. This
article summarizes the common temporary foreign worker categories
for Canadian employers. Please note this is not a complete
