Immigration Canada

Saskatchewan preparing for doctor shortage

Image via WikipediaThe province of Saskatchewan, like most of Canada, is already experiencing a shortage of doctors and with the aging population, more shortages are expected. In response to the shortage, Saskatchewan employment recruiters are looking outside of Canada for the cure.

Recruiters are travelling to the United States and the United Kingdom. Ed Mantler, CEO of the Physician Recruitment Agency of Saskatchewan, recently made the following statement to Leader Post, “We've focused our efforts much more strongly on the United Kingdom - England in particular and also Ireland to some extent," Mantler said. "That's based on what we've been hearing from our colleagues in other provinces who have also been recruiting worldwide - that there's an increasing interest in coming to Canada from the United Kingdom."

Agency representatives were sent to London, Leeds and Manchester earlier this year to recruit physicians. "At those events, we did get considerable interest from physicians in learning more about practice in Saskatchewan and some are moving ahead with the process in pursuing what it will take to get licensure and to get a work permit," Mantler added. "One of the nice things for us about recruiting from the United Kingdom is that the licensure and immigration processes are fairly rapid for immigrants from those countries."

Specialist physicians, general practitioners, and family physicians are considered to be eligible for the Federal Skilled Worker Program if they have at least one year of paid work experience in their field. Many of Canada’s provinces also offer permanent residency for health care providers through their Provincial Nominee Programs.

Harper in Colombia on free-trade deal ‘victory lap’

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STEVEN CHASE

Bogota— Globe and Mail Update

Stephen Harper pays a brief visit to Colombia Wednesday to celebrate the coming-into-force of a free trade agreement with Canada.

His visit – part of a four-country Latin American trip – comes amid reminders of the insecurity faced by Canadian companies in Colombia.

On Monday, a Canadian company’s oil operations were attacked by what Colombian military officials says were FARC militants.

The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) have been fighting the Colombia government for decades.

Colombian military officials told local media that 30 FARC rebels set fire to an oil reservoir owned by Canada’s Alange Energy Corp. The TSE-listed firm has recently announced a change of name to PetroMagdalena Energy Corp.

Mr. Harper visits President Manuel Santos in the Colombia capital of Bogota, a city of 8.5 million nestled in a high plateau in the Andes mountains.

He will also hold a roundtable with Canadian businesspeople in Bogota to discuss business opportunities here.

The Canada-Colombia free trade deal comes into effect August 15.

The Prime Minister’s visit to Colombia on this trip has been described as a “victory lap” for Mr. Harper.

Canada has succeeded in beating the Americans to the punch in securing preferential market access to Colombia. A U.S.-Colombia deal has been stalled by lawmakers in Washington over what proponents call protectionist concerns.

Ottawa took flak from human-rights advocates over a trade deal with Colombia, but Canadian Foundation for the Americas executive director Carlo Dade said recently that Mr. Harper’s drive to clinch the agreement was a gamble that’s been vindicated.

He said evidence in Colombia suggests the country is evolving in the right direction. For instance, former president Alvaro Uribe in 2010 accepted a Colombian court’s decision to reject a referendum that could have allowed him to skirt term limits for his office. Mr. Uribe said he respected the court’s decision.

“When was the last time you heard a Latin American leader say that?” Mr. Dade said.

“It could have turned out completely differently had Uribe said, ‘No, the country needs me too much – it is too difficult not to have me.’ Harper would have had egg on his face.”

Mr. Harper heads to Costa Rica Wedneday night and then Honduras Friday.

Ottawa starting to tackle rapidly aging workforce with renewed urgency

Government Convention Centre (formely Ottawa U...

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BILL CURRY

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and the highest levels of the public service are immersed in a flurry of closed-door talks aimed at tackling the rising costs of health care and retirement benefits in the face of a shrinking number of working-age taxpayers available to foot the bill.

Internal government documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show Canada’s aging population is no longer a problem on the horizon, but rather one that will impact the federal government this year. It's a challenge Ottawa is now discussing more openly and with added urgency.

This week Mr. Flaherty kicked off a policy retreat with business and policy leaders in Wakefield, Que., by saying he wanted the discussion to focus on how Canada can position itself now for the longer term – listing “Canada’s rapidly aging workforce” as an issue that shouldn’t be overshadowed by the current focus on wildly fluctuating stock markets.

“The need to address current challenges must not keep us from tackling the key questions that affect our future prosperity,” he said.

The Finance Minister has offered few hints as to how he will approach forthcoming negotiations with the provinces over health-transfer arrangements, which need to be renewed. Provinces – and ultimately Ottawa – face rising health costs as older Canadians will make greater use of the system.

Documents obtained by The Globe show Mr. Flaherty has been receiving regular briefings on “transfer renewal” from his deputy minister for months, but offer no sense as to Ottawa's negotiating position.

Canada, currently the 27th oldest country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is on track to become the 11th oldest within 20 years. It’s a challenge that will spark debate over Canada’s retirement age, fertility rates and immigration, while risking generational tension between a growing population of older voters and a shrinking pool of younger taxpayers.

Last November, Canada’s most senior public servant, Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters, invited deputy ministers from across the government for a meeting on demographics in Ottawa’s Langevin Block. There they reviewed a draft report on the impacts of Canada’s aging population. Unlike past warnings on the topic, this report did not paint it as a problem looming in the distance.

“The oldest baby boomers start to turn 65 in 2011, meaning the dependency ratio will start to increase significantly in a matter of months,” states the draft report, which was obtained in redacted form by The Globe under Access to Information.

Prepared by officials at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Finance Canada, the report is full of alarming statistics. It also lays out several measures the government could take to limit the impact, including incentives to boost fertility rates, bring in younger immigrants and encourage Canadians to work longer.

“A Canada where seniors outnumber children is uncharted territory,” the report states.

When asked about the report, Alyson Queen, press secretary to Human Resources Minister Diane Finley, listed recent government measures to encourage older Canadians to stay in the workforce.

“Our Government has done more to support older workers than any before,” she said in an e-mail.

Monte Solberg, who preceded Ms. Finley as Human Resources minister and retired from politics in October, 2008, said incentives for older workers were among the easiest options – politically speaking – available to the Conservatives in the face of an aging population.

Now, he says, the government will have to consider the hard ones, like raising the retirement age – a move so controversial he says it would likely require a Royal Commission to build public support.

Even more pressing are the upcoming negotiations on health-care transfers to the provinces, which currently grow at six per cent a year under the Canada Health Transfer Program that expires in fiscal 2013-14.

“It’s a very real problem,” said Mr. Solberg in an interview. “It’s easily the largest unfunded liability that we have, without question, because we have this wave coming at us [and] there’s no extra money that’s set aside to address it.”

By the numbers

Percentage of Canadians by 2036 who will be over the age of 65

5:1

Ratio of workers to seniors in Newfoundland in 2010

1:1

Ratio of workers to seniors in Newfoundland by 2050

Percentage of Quebec’s population that is seniors

Percentage of Quebec’s population that will be seniors in 30 years

Source: Canada’s Changing Demographics: The Impacts of Population Aging, a draft internal HRSDC report marked secret and dated Oct. 27, 2010, that was circulated in advance of a Nov. 3 meeting of the Coordinating Committee of Deputy Ministers.

KENNEY: SKILLED CANADIAN IMMIGRANTS WITH JOBS OFFERS JUMP TO FRONT OF QUEUE

Source: MuchmorCanada.
As more than a million people wait in the immigration queue, Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said that applicants with experience in key occupations and those with job offers from Canadian employers will go to the front of the line.

Currently, about 30% of Canadian immigrants are economic migrants selected on the basis of their necessary skills or an arranged employment offer. Kenney recently confirmed that while immigration levels won’t jump drastically, immigration had a role to play in off-setting the country’s ageing population and skills shortages. Today, about 70% of Canada’s 34.1 million population is of working age – a figure expected drop to 60% within 25 years.

Kenney said federal government would continue to recognise the importance of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) to help provinces and territories obtain the skilled migrants they need to fill labour shortages. Under the scheme, provinces can choose to sponsor migrants whose skills, education and work experience will have an immediate economic impact.

The top three provincial nominees are the booming oil and gas provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Last year, Canada accepted 38,428 provincial/territory nominees, including more than 8,600 temporary foreign workers who later became permanent residents.

Canada will accept a record of 40,000 provincial nominee immigrants in 2011 – five times more than Canada’s PNP intake for 2005. The Citizenship and Immigration Department is currently conducting a series of nation-wide consulations about immigration levels and the type of migrants it should accept into the country.

Job growth surpasses recession losses

Carol Christian

Today staff
In June, Alberta crossed a line: it officially regained all the jobs lost in the recession — 73,600 — and then some.
Alberta has regained 76,800 jobs or 104.3% of the jobs lost during the recession.
Job growth doesn't end there as Alberta had the strongest employment growth in Canada for July and the unemployment rate fell to 5.5%.
"This is just another indication that Alberta is in a period of solid economic growth," said Terry Jorden, Alberta Employment and Immigration spokesman.
In Fort McMurray, the unemployment rate had a small change to 5.7% for July from 5.4% the month before. It wasn't the number of employed people that changed. It's more people joined the labour force. In July, this area had 84,800 people eligible for work. Of those, 80,000 were employed and 4,800 were unemployed resulting in the unemployment rate of 5.7%.
Jorden explained that when the surveys are done by Statistics Canada, the large sampling of population becomes quite small when it gets down to individual regions.
When statistics on employment or unemployment jump one way or another from one month to another, Employment and Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk says, "I neither dance the happy dance, neither do I get overly depressed because that's what unemployment numbers do, but now we're starting to develop a trend."
For the last three months, Alberta has seen significant drops in unemployment and a significant increase in job creation, and more importantly, in full-time employment which, he added, is really good.
"Definitively, Canada is leading the world in economic recovery and without any shadow of a doubt, Alberta is leading Canada. That is a good news story."

But Lukaszuk was also cautionary about the numbers saying the dropping unemployment rate breeds another problem: "having an unemployment rate of 5.5% gets you very close to what we consider to be full employment which is somewhere between 4% and 5% and that means we are going to start to feel acute shortages of workers in a variety of sectors of our economy and that will affect us all."

carol.christian@fortmcmurraytoday.com

Immigration Canada

Saskatchewan preparing for doctor shortage