Changes could affect local businesses

May 7, 2013, 2:04 am
Kevin Weedmark

Proposed changes to Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program could impact local businesses that have come to rely on the program to fill service industry jobs that were becoming difficult to impossible to fill with local employees.

Under proposed changes employers will no longer have flexibility to set the wages for foreign labor, and the Conservative government is calling for a temporary halt to a program that fast-tracked the ability of some companies to bring in workers from outside Canada through an accelerated labour market opinion.

Public opposition to the program has mounted since Royal Bank contracted a supplier to provide IT assistance, which resulted in the bank outsourcing some Canadian jobs, and the supplier brought its own employees into Canada under the temporary foreign worker program so they could be trained in the jobs that were being outsourced.

Last year, a mining firm came under scrutiny for being approved to staff a B.C. mine entirely with Chinese miners by claiming the ability to speak Mandarin was an essential requirement of the job.

Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki says the program has been an important tool for businesses trying to expand in a tight labor market.

"It does work great and it has been a great opportunity for those who want to expand their businesses in areas like Moosomin, Estevan, and Weyburn, where unemployment rate is low and the economy is hot.

"There have been abuses, and the government is saying look, we need to ensure that program is not being abused. One of the changes is that English and French will be the only languages which can be required, which would prevent cases like the one where Mandarin was required.

"In a case like RBC, people want to be sure that people aren't displaced by temporary foreign workers, and there will be a provision dealing with that."

He said those changes are written in stone, to prevent another case like the RBC outsourcing or the case of the Chinese miners, but the government will be consulting on other provisions.

"It's going to be tougher, and the government will expect employers to pay fees for permits-it will be more user pay-but they will look at various sectors of the economy and regions," Komarnicki said. "We're going to do some cross-country consultations. We will be talking to business, industry and trade organizations. Almost everything will be open for discussion."

Employers hiring temporary foreign workers will be required to provide a plan for making the transition to Canadian workers, but in a region like Saskatchewan, with a provincial immigrant nominee program, applying for permanent resident status for temporary foreign workers could be a way of transitioning to Canadian workers.

"Whether they become Canadians or whether there are other Canadians who can fill those jobs, the long-term goal is to have jobs filled by Canadians," said Komarnicki.

He said the temporary foreign worker program has become important in southeast Saskatchewan. "Because the economy is doing so well, you have the service industry, the hospitality industry left to fend for themselves."

He said the federal government has been working on programs to try to get First Nations and other under-represented groups more engaged in the workforce.

In the meantime, however, he said he realizes that the temporary foreign worker program has allowed many employers in southeast Saskatchewan to expand where they otherwise couldn't because there simply aren't the workers available.

"Quite frankly I've mentioned this directly to the prime minister, that while there have been abuses, we can't shut the program down where it's needed.

"For the government, it's a dilemma where you have high unemployment in one region and a shortage of labor in another region."

Komarnicki urges employers worried about the proposed changes to put their concerns and their experience of the program in writing.

"Get a letter to me and I'll forward that on to the appropriate people," he said. "I will make sure those concerns get to the ministerial and the prime ministerial level.

"There are legitimate concerns and we want those to be heard.

"Things will change-it won't be the same, it will be more rigid-but we don't want it to be so rigid that it prevents businesses from being able to fill the jobs they need."

Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney said he knows employers won't be happy with the changes.

"Our message to them today is don't just double, but triple your efforts to hire and train available Canadians for the work,'' he said.

"This will affect their businesses but we're sending a message that Canadians want them to send: do everything you can to find Canadians first.''

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has criticized the proposed changes. "What is being proposed by the government today is not in the interest of Canadian business,'' the Canadian Chamber said in a statement.

"It's frustrating to see Canadians underemployed. It would be worse to see whole communities damaged because a key employer relocated elsewhere.''

In 2012, some 213,516 people entered Canada via the temporary foreign worker program, more than three times the number admitted a decade ago.

Put another way, the private sector brought in 25 per cent more foreign labourers last year than the number of economic immigrants accepted by the government, which has long insisted caps on its own programs are necessary so as not to flood the Canadian labour market.

The government spends approximately $35.5 million per year processing applications, at a cost of approximately $342 per application, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada told a pre-budget briefing earlier this year.

Dan Davidson runs the Red Barn, Dano's Lounge and Subway in Moosomin, and says the temporary foreign worker program has allowed him to expand his businesses.

"We would like to hire locally, but in all reality there aren't the people," he said.

Employers will be required to come up with a plan to transition to Canadian workers rather than relying on a revolving door of temporary foreign workers.

Davidson said his plan is to transition many of his temporary foreign workers to permanent residents.

"My plan is to make permanent job offers to my employees so they can apply for permanent resident status," he said.

"I'm starting to get some who are residents. Right now, if your business is accepted under the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program, six months into their job, you can make them a permanent job offer. They have to approve it at Service Canada, and once they get that approval, they can become a permanent resident."

While temporary foreign workers have no choice but to work for the employer who brought them in, once they are permanent residents they have the same rights as any other Canadian resident to work for any employer.

"I have a husband and wife working for me, they are permanent residents, they want to stay with me," says Davidson. "Soon what you are going to see is wives and kids moving to town. Right now I have five of them who have families coming."

Davidson is worried that with the government's proposed changes, it will become more difficult to get "labor market opinions," which allow employers to bring in temporary foreign workers.

"I do get worried that the LMOs are going to disappear in the future," he said. "We can't fill our jobs just in Moosomin, and we do get people who want to apply for 35-40 miles around, but it's just too hard, based on vehicle and gas costs. I don't want to be in the situation again where I just can't get people."

He said the current program has helped him expand his business.

"When you can't find enough employees, if you're stressed and short-staffed, you pull back on the reins and your business growth slows. When the government did give us this program, the reins did not get pulled back-you feel unlimited growth potential because the government says if you cannot find a Canadian employee we'll let you bring one in.

"I love how the program works. I've got amazing Canadian workers who I was able to surround with foreign workers.

"I know there have been some abuses and I'm not going to say they don't need to make some changes-I just think to make them so widespread that it hurts the businesses that really need it might be a little bit of a mistake. I would hate to see everyone hurt because some corporations abused it. I understand some changes like making LMOs harder to get in Ontario where the unemployment rate is high, but to make it harder where you just can't find employees wouldn't help anything."

Davidson says he simply wouldn't be operating his business on its current scale without the temporary foreign worker program.

"For me, I can't say enough about what the Conservative government has done with the program," he said. "A lot of our businesses in town have benefited from this program, and I have to give the Conservative government a lot of credit. Their program has allowed a lot of business expansion. I just hope they don't go and scale it back here, where we need it."