For employers
Employer Compliance
Every LMIA and every Employer Portal offer creates binding conditions — and ESDC and IRCC inspect thousands of employers a year against them. Penalties run to $100,000 per violation, $1 million per year, public naming, and program bans. We build compliance systems before inspectors arrive, and manage responses when they do.
Who it's for
- Employers who have received an inspection notice, questionnaire, or document request
- Businesses employing foreign workers that have never audited their own compliance
- Employers who discovered an error — wage drift, changed duties — and are weighing voluntary disclosure
- Companies facing a notice of preliminary finding with an AMP or ban on the table
- Franchises and multi-site employers needing one compliance standard across locations
- Buyers acquiring a business that employs foreign workers and inheriting its exposure
Common scenarios
Inspection letter arrived
ESDC or IRCC wants payroll, contracts, and records within a tight deadline. We manage the response — complete, organized, on time — and prepare you for interviews or a site visit.
You found the problem first
An internal review shows a worker was paid under the committed wage or duties changed. We assess whether a voluntary disclosure, corrective payment, and process fix can mitigate penalties.
Prevention before growth
You're scaling foreign-worker hiring and want systems, not luck. We audit current files, fix gaps, and build record-keeping that makes future inspections routine.
Evidence checklist
- Payroll records proving wages match every LMIA and offer of employment
- Employment contracts, job descriptions, and any amendments over time
- Time and attendance records showing hours consistent with the offer
- The original LMIA applications and Employer Portal offers with their stated conditions
- Recruitment records retained from each LMIA filing
- Records of workplace safety coverage, insurance, and provincial registrations
- Documentation of any changes to duties, wage, hours, or location — and the advice taken
- A six-year document retention log for every foreign worker employed
Exact requirements vary by program and profile — treat this as a planning baseline, not advice on your specific file.
Process overview
Compliance audit
We reconstruct your obligations from every LMIA and offer on file and test actual payroll and practice against them — finding issues before an inspector does.
Remediation
Where gaps exist, we plan corrections: back payments, contract fixes, process changes, and where appropriate, a voluntary disclosure strategy.
Systems build
We implement retention schedules, wage review checkpoints, and change-control procedures so compliance holds as staff and wages change.
Inspection response
If you're selected, we manage the document production, prepare your team, and respond to preliminary findings with justifications the framework recognizes.
Risks & common mistakes
Missing an inspection deadline or sending disorganized records.
Non-cooperation is itself a violation with serious consequences. Calendar the deadline immediately and produce a complete, indexed response.
Letting raises, promotions, or restructuring silently breach the offer conditions.
The commitment is to the conditions as filed. Build a checkpoint into every HR change affecting a foreign worker — some changes require new filings.
Recovering LMIA or recruitment fees from workers.
Directly or through deductions, this is prohibited and heavily penalized — and provincial recruiter laws add separate liability. Employer costs stay with the employer.
Ignoring a notice of preliminary finding because 'it's just preliminary'.
The response window is your chance to correct facts and argue justifications before the AMP or ban is finalized. Treat it as the main event.
Related pathways
Frequently asked questions
Next step
Be the employer whose inspection is boring.
Every file starts with an honest assessment: what you qualify for, what the evidence needs to show, and what the realistic timeline looks like. We prepare the strongest possible application — and we're direct with you about risk, because the final decision on every application rests with the officer, never with us.
Tell us about your situation
We review every enquiry and reply within one business day.