Let me give you a perspective from someone who is in Canada and is living here for past almost 4 years now. At the beginning of pandemic, a massive lockdown was announced and it was a death call for a number of businesses in Canada. Around me there are a long list of store, restaurant etc which closed. Now, with economy reopening there is another trouble for businesses. There are not enough "low skilled" employees. Its really hard for them to recruit cashiers, farmworkers, store keepers, chefs, servers and what not. Many businesses are facing this crunch. It will settle down but it is another problem for Canada. Politically, it is VERY hard to allow people en masses right now from outside after seeing what is happening in US and UK right now. I know many folks who got their relatives into Canada via alternative paths but that is attracting a lot of criticism. I have never seen an iota of racism in Canada but I see frowns when people talk about people from places hit hard by delta version coming here.
What do you think government will do? It will hold on to ALL the low skilled labor which is in Canada. Most of the time, the so called low skilled labour is ESSENTIAL for survival of the society. The highly skilled workers help economy grow, the low skilled people keep the society alive and chugging along. This is why such a huge flurry of CEC accepts with really low numbers. These folks are here, they are doing a lot of jobs which are essential for survival of the Canadian society. Jobs like reciving cash, jobs like harvesting produce, jobs like inspecting meat, jobs like butchering cattles for meat, jobs like delivering groceries to elderly population.