Sask Chamber of Commerce policies to smooth process for skilled immigrants

Reported by Stephanie Froese

First Posted: May 14, 2012 6:14am

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It’s a complex world for Saskatchewan’s business community when taking into consideration the vast policy resolutions being implemented by the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce (SCC).

Steve McLellan, CEO of the SCC said all of the resolutions voted on at a recent board meeting in Saskatoon carried significant importance.

One policy voted in aims to bring Labour Market Opinion (LMO) processing back to Saskatchewan.

The LMO is a government document that immigrant skilled workers need in order to obtain a working visa. 

A recent decision by the federal government saw the LMO offices move to Vancouver in an efficiency effort for western Canada.  The Vancouver offices now take LMO application from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and BC.

McLellan said that move caught everybody in Saskatchewan by surprise.

“They thought it would be an efficiency move. We’ve disagreed with that and we’ve been very clear with them on that challenge, as have our members and immigration consultants. We need to get that changed. We need local response times,” said McLellan.

McLellan said immigration of skilled workers is front of mind for most business people in Saskatchewan.

Having LMO processing back in Saskatchewan would be more convenient and more approachable for those workers, he said.

“There are individuals, both businesses as well as immigrants, who need to have access to those people and now with it being so far away there’s time zone issues as well there’s telecommunications issues of connecting with them,” said McLellan.

He said the SCC wants to use its influence to try to make the process as slick as possible while maintaining necessary safe guards. He said they are very confident that the LMO processing could come back to Saskatchewan.

Other policy resolutions focusing on the environment that were adopted during the Saskatoon meeting will have a bigger long term impact, said McLellan.

Among the 15 resolutions was a focus on better water management and a recovery strategy for woodland caribou. McLellen said these resolutions may not be well known to the general public but have big interest from environmental groups, the mining organizations. He said a water management strategy currently being worked on by the provincial government is a process the SCC has been very close to.

The federal and provincial political relms have the final say on changes the SCC would like to see implemented but McLellan said they have the mindset that if the SCC does their job right then policy will follow their guidelines.

“We go into each of the policy sessions with the belief that if we do our research correctly and we consult our members and the experts in the fields that we will have an awful lot of influence simply because it’s the best thinking on the particular issue,” said McLellan.

Immigration is Destroying Canada?

By Author: Max Chaudhary | May 8, 2012

The Globe and Mail recently published an article that advocated an increase in the amount of immigrants to Canada. As a Toronto immigration lawyer, I find the online comments section of such articles strangely compelling. The vast majority of the comments were anti-immigrant, some parochially and even racially so. One compelling example included a post which contained a link to an RCMP most wanted list – a list with pictures, the majority of whom were visible minorities. Such an assertion cannot be reconciled with the steady reduction of crime in Canada since the 70s despite the opening up of immigration to Canada during that period.

The article is no doubt portraying a positive view of immigration to Canada, focusing on the success of Steinbach, Manitoba, a small town, in integrating immigrants. This has resulted in the growth of the town. Astute commenters pointed out that the majority of immigrants don’t settle in small towns but rather, in Canada’s three or four largest cities (which drives up real estate values and strains infrastructure in those aforementioned cities).

There were also highly praised comments which were from self-confessed old codgers, who bemoaned the older, central neighbourhoods in Vancouver which have been apparently overrun by hoards of Asian people with large amounts of money.

The appeal to environmental degradation was cited (i.e. that more resources shall be polluted and farmland shall be paved over with subdivisions); this is a logical argument given that the current immigration and Refugee Protection Act (at section 3) is utterly silent on safeguarding the environment. However, given the dearth of investment and research into green jobs economic growth shall inevitably be tied to environmental degradation for the near future. Canadians state that they care about the environment, but behaviour suggests that care only insofar as it does not negatively impact their living standards. Perhaps pro-environmental advocates can push for a change to Canada’s immigration laws. I wish them the best of luck.

Another logical argument for reducing immigration was the assertion that there should be more encouragement for Canada’s youth to take up the skilled blue collar jobs that pay a decent wage, and a corresponding discouragement for certain children to enter university (which would theoretically reduce the need to import foreign plumbers and electricians). This is something that cannot be legislated, and moreover, this won’t address the fact Canadians do not want to work in low skilled jobs such as a Tim Horton’s in Alberta. I have seen firsthand the efforts by Tim Horton’s franchisees in Alberta who offer a higher wage resulting in little or no response from the Canadian-born labour market; the reason? – Local Canadians don’t want to work the night shift.

The fact that 2nd generation immigrants are as a group successfully integrated into Canadian society was ignored, due in part because such good news does not make for selling newspapers. Such good news is only apparent if one looks at specialized literature from academics such as Arthur Sweetman. News media compete for your attention by highlighting the dramatic problems of life like murder and sex and terrorism: if it bleeds, it leads. Thus, those without the life experience of meeting and interacting with different peoples, those only acquainted with minorities through a mug-shot on a police website come to caricatures and generalizations about minorities.

The more reasonable position taken on the online comments section was to reduce economic immigration during an economic downturn. This may make sense.