American workers good for Alberta, says MLA

Alberta’s Employment and Immigration minister wants the federal government to make it easier for Americans to work in Alberta.

Thomas Lukasuk said there’s a 25 per cent unemployment rate among trades people in Illinois and that making it easier for them to work in Alberta would also help ease a provincial worker shortage.

“I'm being assured by United States representatives here in Canada that they will also be sending that message to Washington and encouraging President [Barack] Obama to discuss that with Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper to open up our border so that there is greater fluidity of labour going north and south,” Lukasuk said.

Lukasuk wants the U.S. to lobby Canada to allow more American workers in.

He just returned from a trip to the United States and said he would be meeting with the ambassador to the United States in the next few weeks.