Business leaders cite skilled-labour shortage as priority

RICHARD BLACKWELL

From Monday's Globe and Mail

As Canada drags itself through a slow-motion recovery, one of the most pressing issues facing executives across the country is an acute shortage of skilled labour.

The most recent C-Suite survey of Canadian corporate executives shows that despite the high level of unemployment, companies just can’t get all the people they need to fill the skilled positions that are available.

wo-thirds of executives say they are having difficulty finding qualified employees, and one-third say the labour shortage is so severe it is preventing their company from growing as quickly as it could.

With a federal budget coming this month, the executives say they want Ottawa to temper spending cuts with some new investments in skills training, and to open up immigration laws to allow more foreign workers to fill empty jobs.

The problem extends far beyond the oil patch. Executive from the Maritimes to Ontario’s high-tech heartland to Western Canada share similar difficulties in matching employee skills to job openings.

“It is a national problem,” said Francis McGuire, chief executive officer of Moncton, N.B.-based Major Drilling Group International Inc. “It exists everywhere.”

While many of the tough-to-fill jobs are in technical, engineering or information technology positions, Mr. McGuire said, it goes far beyond that. In his company, which conducts intense outdoor work on drilling rigs, “it is very difficult to attract people,” he said. “Salaries are very good … but [people say] they don’t want to be out with the black flies and the snow and the cold and sleeping in camp and being away from home for 21 days at a time.”

Across the country, at trucking firm Trimac Transportation Ltd. in Calgary, chief financial officer Scott Calver said it is becoming increasingly difficult to find professional truck drivers. “It is a problem and it is getting worse,” he said, because many young people are not interested in the long hours required for the job, despite relatively high pay rates.

In Saskatchewan, mining company Golden Band Resources Inc. is having trouble finding geology and mining professionals, CFO Mark Thiel said. The province’s mining boom is creating a sellers’ market for skills, he noted, and the competition for qualified workers is fierce.

And in Waterloo, Ont., Brian Doody, chief executive officer of electronics firm Teledyne Dalsa Inc., said his company would like to expand into some new markets, “but the reality is we can’t get people locally to fill the ranks of our engineering and R&D teams to the level that we need to address those opportunities.”

Despite the fact that the Waterloo region is a centre of high-tech education, “the lack of young people pursuing further education in engineering, science and technology, is definitely a strain on our ability to grow,” Mr. Doody said.

Executives responding to the C-Suite survey clearly put the government on notice that it must deal with this issue. Eighty-nine per cent said increased spending in skills training and apprenticeships should be a high or modest budget priority, more than the 84 per cent who considered spending cuts a high or modest priority.

To deal with the skills shortage, many companies are bringing in employees from outside the country to fill jobs. Almost 50 per cent of the executives surveyed said they are looking at this option as a way to fill specific positions.

It would help if Ottawa streamlined regulations to make it easier to bring in foreign workers, said Jan Hein Bax, president of Toronto-based recruitment firm Randstad Canada. Right now there are restrictions that make this difficult, he said, adding: “I’d like to see the government helping industries to get talent from abroad.” Some executives say the federal government should even help pay for skilled immigrants to obtain Canadian qualifications.

When it comes to budget cuts, the vast majority of C-suite executives aren’t looking for Ottawa to slash spending across the board. More than 50 per cent said it would be wise to keep spending at current levels or make cuts of roughly 5 per cent. Thirty per cent called for a 10-per-cent reduction, and about 8 per cent felt Ottawa should cut more than 10 per cent.

Mr. Doody, of Teledyne Dalsa, said he thinks it would be a mistake for Ottawa to make across-the-board spending cuts in the budget. “I’d be happier to see targeted reduction in areas that are not as helpful to our economy and economic growth,” he said. It is crucial, for example, that the government maintain its commitment to research and development funding, he said. “I’d hate to see that scaled back.”

Mr. McGuire, of Major Drilling, said he recognizes the need for cuts to be made now, but he also feels low-income seniors have to be protected, and there should be significant amounts of money spent to train young people. “We have to absolutely avoid the phenomenon we’ve seen in Greece and Spain where you have 50-per-cent youth unemployment,” he said. “That would be a terrible burden for the country.”

Federal politicians should focus specifically on educating youth in information technology and related fields, he said, as that sector is crucial to the country’s future and will be a huge source of jobs. “If I was policy maker I would throw the whole bucket at it,” said Mr. McGuire, who was once New Brunswick’s deputy minister of economic development.

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Methodology

The quarterly C-Suite survey was conducted for Report on Business and Business News Network by Gandalf Group and sponsored by KPMG.

The survey interviewed 151 executives between Feb. 10 and Feb. 27, 2012. Respondents represent ROB 1,000 companies from across Canada in the manufacturing, service and resource sectors. The margin of error is 7.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Each quarter, a $1,000 charitable contribution is made on behalf of a survey participant. For the December survey, a donation was made to KidSport Calgary on behalf of Laura Cillis, chief financial officer of Calfrac Well Services Ltd.

Want to know more about what Canada’s business leaders think? Watch for coverage throughout Monday on BNN, and go online to ReportonBusiness.com for the full report.

A new immigration point system for Canada starts in 2012

Nicholas KeungImmigration Reporter

A revised points-based selection grid will be introduced to favour young immigrants with strong language skills, says federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Prospective immigrants in licensed professions will need to be pre-assessed to ensure they are likely to get certification in Canada before their applications are processed, Kenney said in Toronto at the annual gathering of Metropolis, an immigration research network that is about to lose its federal funding.

Currently, immigration applicants can skirt the mandatory language requirement by entering through the Provincial Nominee Program, which allows provinces to select immigrants with job offers from local employers.

Under the new grid, to be introduced by the end of the year, Kenney said provincial nominees will face a higher bar as well, because research has shown that language proficiency enhances social and economic integration in the long run.

“We must make better choices. We must select immigrants who have the skills and traits we know will lead to their success, and qualifications that are already recognized in Canada, or can be recognized in a short time,” he said.

While the federal government does not plan to require spouses of applicants in the federal skilled worker program to undergo language tests, Kenney said they will be awarded more points if their spouses are proficient in English or French.

Calling the revised system “more flexible and intelligent,” Kenney said a welder with a job offer in Prince George would not face the same expectations with regard to language skills as someone expecting to work as a physician.

Plans are also underway to change the federal immigration programs for entrepreneurs and investors, though Kenney gave few details.

“In the United States, half of the top 50 venture-capital backed companies are founded by immigrants. We do not nearly do as well in Canada. We must do a better job attracting entrepreneurs and investors to Canada,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kenney said Canada will continue to offer protection to refugees and the family reunification program.

“I strongly believe that economic integration is the best path to social integration,” he said. If new Canadians can maximize their contribution to the labour market, social integration will quickly follow.”

Taking liberties: Canada's booming business of detention and deportation

BY MATTHEW BEHRENS 

Most Canadians would shudder at the thought of women being shackled to their hospital beds after giving birth. Yet that is exactly what happens to a specific class of women who, having come to Canada seeking safety, are detained even though they pose no threat to the public.

Detained refugees experience the trauma of being shackled and chained on their journey to and from medical care and during certain procedures in Canadian hospitals, according to a brief presented to the House of Commons last month by McGill University researchers Janet Cleveland, Cécile Rousseau and Rachel Kronick. In addition, they reported many detained refugees forgo health-care visits for fear of being shackled and humiliated.

This shameful state of affairs represents just one of the many abusive practices currently applied against some of the world's most vulnerable people once they arrive in Canada. It also shines a spotlight on the devastating consequences of both the Balanced Refugee Reform Act passed last year and Jason Kenney's further repressive Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, introduced last week.

Fallout from both pieces of legislation include increased detention and deportation of those who, through no fault of their own, have become an easy scapegoat in the so-called Global War on Terror. And the Canadian government has not been shy about tarring the millions forced to wander the globe in search of safety as the petrie dish in which the terrorist virus incubates.

As with most aspects of the "national security" economy, detention and deportation is a huge and growing business. Last year, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) released an evaluation of their "Detentions and Removals Program" that framed their analysis within the context of "securing Canada's borders in support of national security priorities." Over $92 million are annually spent on detention and removal of human beings, the report states, with some $22 million of that under the rubric of "Public Safety Anti-Terrorism." The report, a remarkably lifeless document that doesn't document the fear and terror experienced by individuals seeking asylum, speaks instead to achieving efficiencies in a system designed to ensure "those who pose a threat to the integrity of Canada's immigration laws and/or Canadian society" are detained and removed as quickly as possible. But the report fails, like most of Canada's legislation in this field, to define terms like threats and national security.

Without reflecting on the major faults with Canada's refugee determination system, CBSA concludes that "it is clear that the need to detain and remove foreign nationals will continue." Consequently, one of Canada's fastest growing exports is the traffic in traumatized human beings. Between 2006 and 2011, CBSA carried out 83,382 deportations of women, children, and men, while from 2004-2010, there were 72,000-plus refugees arbitrarily detained. Among those thousands deported were women fleeing male violence (indeed, there are high profile cases of Mexican women who, having been sent back, are found murdered) as well as Roma fleeing a wave of racist violence and state-supported discrimination across Eastern Europe.

Kenney's new legislation reflects the pervasive attitude throughout the immigration bureaucracy that refugees are guilty parties hiding something rather than survivors of war and torture who need counselling and support. The CBSA report, for example, reports the consistent feedback of officers who wish to have better training not to assist those arriving in desperate straits, but to strengthen their cases against refugees at the hearing stage and thereby add notches to their deportation belts.

Notably, the McGill brief found that the hundreds of Tamils who were detained after arriving by boat in B.C. reported that among the most traumatizing of experiences -- having survived a horrific war zone in Sri Lanka -- were lengthy and repeated interrogations by CBSA officers that occurred between 3 and 20 times and lasted as long as eight hours.

The logic of CBSA, however, is that these human cargo are meant to be inspected and, if they do not fit a particular profile, must be stamped "return to sender" before they can access the limited resources available to asylum seekers. Indeed, the CBSA evaluation of its operations stated a general concern that the agency needed to deport as many people possible in short order "prior to additional avenues of recourse becoming available," an admission that the rights of the asylum seeker are considered an annoyance preventing the factory-like efficiency of roundups and removals.

The McGill report further notes 95 per cent of those detained are for identification purposes and concerns about an individual showing up for their hearing, neither of which poses a threat. Many refugees have to come to Canada with false documents for their own safety, but are nonetheless thrown either into a prison or an immigration holding centre which replicates the worst aspects of prisons (complete with razor wire fences, security guards, surveillance cameras, and regimented wake-up and meal times). Detention remains indeterminate, and though the average detention time in 2009-2010 was 28 days, the McGill report notes that, especially for traumatized individuals, even a few days behind bars can trigger symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and other debilitating conditions.

Indeed, their study compared the lives of detained versus non-detained refugee claimants and found that the majority of refugees experienced on average nine severe traumas before coming here, from physical and sexual assault to being close to death and the murder of friends and family. Following a median detention of 18 days, over 75 per cent were clinically depressed, two-thirds clinically anxious, and a third exhibited PTSD symptoms. Those detained were twice as likely as non-detained to show PTSD symptoms, while depression rates were 50 per cent higher among those detained.

Meanwhile, a companion report to the McGill study, written for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) by Delphine Nakache, notes that CBSA does not keep adequate enough records to record variations in age, gender and periods of time in detention. However, the report found CBSA's own statistics reveal 27 per cent of asylum seekers are detained in penal institutions even though less than 6 per cent are suspected of criminal activity or behaviour. Those held in jails are detained for longer periods than those in immigration holding centres, and detainees who become suicidal or exhibit behavioural or mental health issues are frequently sent to jail and placed in solitary confinement, further traumatizing individuals who require counseling, not punishment.

The UN report recommends detention only in the most exceptional of circumstances, and quotes from the respected International Commission of Jurists, which finds that poor and overcrowded conditions for migrants in detention "have regularly been found by international courts and human rights bodies to violate the right to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Canadian courts have also affirmed that alternatives to detention should always be considered by immigration officials, but CBSA, like its brother agencies in the national security apparatus, tends to ignore or bypass such jurisprudence whenever possible.

Kenney's legislation mandating one year of detention without bail for refugees who arrive in Canada by "irregular means," such as by a boat, translates into an increase in the human misery documented above. In addition, the fetishization of "securing" identity documents places refugees at further risk because, rather than accepting a driver's licence or national identity card, continued detention is called for while CBSA seeks ID verification abroad, which could lead to the detainee's ID being disclosed in the home country. Needless to say, investigative detention has been found by the Supreme Court of Canada to be a form of arbitrary detention.

But CBSA continues moving on. While Canadian airlines handle many of the agency's deportations, the search is on for "alternative service delivery arrangements," code for privatization. Among those making a profit off this trafficking in trauma is Skyservice Business Aviation, a firm already on standby whenever someone bound for torture under the secret hearing security certificate process is ready for rendering to a country like Egypt or Algeria.

Skyservice makes great efforts to accommodate CBSA requests for deportation flights, even pulling their medevac aircraft out of rotation if need be. Documents obtained under an Access to Information request reveal an email from Mike Vallee of Skyservice to Reg Williams of the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre thanking Williams for the deportation business, stating "it is one of the more rewarding (exciting) aspects of life here in the hangar." Skyservice has performed "removals" to such human rights abusing countries as Egypt, Algeria and Somalia (an email with respect to the Somalia flight suggests throwing a "few Kenyans" on board as well.) On other flights, Skyservice will hire members of the Montreal Urban Police tactical squad to escort deportees.

As with all aspects of privatization, controls over issues such as privacy and personal safety of the deported individual are even further debased. In an Albanian deportation, for example, Skyservice writes to CBSA that they need further personal details on an individual being deported, but does that information get shared with a receiving government that will then use it to harass or detain the individual? "The Albanian government must be provided proof that this individual is actually an Albanian," the CBSA memo reads, noting "there have been incidents in the past where the detainee turned out to be from another country."

Refugees and immigrants in Canada have traditionally suffered a lower standard of justice than Canadian citizens, but the precedents created in repressing the former group eventually become a wedge designed to deprive everyone else of their rights. And while thousands of Canadians have rightfully expressed outrage over the fact that the government seeks to monitor all of their Internet communications, the deprivations of liberty increasingly suffered by migrants will, hopefully, similarly shock the conscience of Canadians, spur them to action, and end this insidious aspect of Canada's "national security" strategy.

Matthew Behrens is a freelance writer and social justice advocate who co-ordinates the Homes not Bombs non-violent direct action network. He has worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. 'national security' profiling for many years.

Sounding alarm on labour shortages

BY GARY LAMPHIER, EDMONTON JOURNAL

More than 15 major Alberta business groups say the feds and the province need to do much more to avoid what they regard as a looming labour crisis.
The newly formed Alberta Coalition for Action on Labour Shortages (ACALS) says a projected deficiency of 114,000 workers over the next decade represents a serious threat to economic growth and future government revenues.
The alliance, which has scheduled a news conference today to air its concerns, wants the federal and provincial governments to reform immigration rules and aggressively ramp up efforts with employers to boost the flow of new workers to the province.
The coalition's members include the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Alberta Chambers of Commerce, Alberta
Forest Products Association, Merit Contractors Association, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association and Alberta Enterprise Group (AEG), among others.
"We want to raise labour shortages to the top of the list of issues facing not just Alberta, but quite frankly Western Canada," says AEG president Tim Shipton, whose group's members employ about 50,000 workers provincewide.
"If there is a (limit) on our future prosperity, it will be labour shortages impacting not just the energy sec-tor but all sectors of the economy, and that's why so many groups are coming together and calling for action now."
Tom Huffaker, CAPP's vice-president, policy and environment echoes that message.
"We all perceive that we have a very substantial (labour) crunch coming, if it hasn't already begun, and there's a strong expectation that it's going to get worse," he says. "Whereas in the past it's been somewhat cyclical, there's a perception this time that it's going to be sustained over a long period of time, and we need to start organizing how to deal with that on a number of levels."
The Petroleum Human Resources Council estimates that 39,000 new workers will be needed by 2020 just to replace those who retire, and as many as 130,000 new energy workers may be needed by the end of the decade.
Other industries are looking at similar shortfalls, with the province projecting the creation of 600,000 new jobs in Alberta over the next 10 years.
At 4.9 per cent, Alberta already boasts the lowest unemployment rate in Canada, and with more than $20 billion of oilsands capital spending this year, the Conference Board of Canada expects the provincial jobless rate to fall to 4.5 per cent by next year. Saskatchewan is facing a labour shortage of its own, with a jobless rate that's nearly as low as Alberta's.
"It's not a crisis for the time being, but it's clearly going to be a chronic long-term issue, so it is a very important, high-profile issue for us," says Huffaker. "Our ability to grow the industry depends on having an ad-equate, high-quality labour supply, and we're really concerned about our ability to meet that."
Although Huffaker, Shipton and others give the Harper government credit for boosting the flow of temporary foreign workers and those recruited under the provincial nominee program, the province it-self wants annual quotas under the latter program doubled to 10,000 from 5,000.

The coalition is also asking the federal government to:
- Change the point system under the Federal Skilled Worker Program (TFWP), so it places greater emphasis on marketplace demand for labour as well as validated employment offers, rather than factors like advanced degrees;
- Expand opportunities for temporary foreign workers to become permanent Canadian residents under the Provincial Immigrant Nominee Program;
Amend the national occupation ? ? codes that are used in assessing workers under both the permanent and temporary immigration streams, so the codes better reflect actual employer needs and a broader range of skill positions;
- Reform the screening processes under the temporary-foreign-worker program so employers can better pre-qualify workers, speeding up the cumbersome application and approval process.
The coalition also wants to see a far more aggressive campaign to recruit skilled workers internationally, something that Australia has done over the past couple of years right in Alberta's backyard.
Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says he understands employers' concerns, but he insists the Harper government is already doing a lot to address them.
"Since we came to office five years ago, the number of newcomers coming to Canada who have settled in Alberta has more than doubled, and we've increased the numbers to Alberta under the provincial nominee program 17-fold, so this is a huge success story," he says.
"One of the key initiatives of our government this year will be significant additional reforms to our economic immigration programs, precisely to address this issue, (including) significant changes to the points grid for the selection of federal skilled workers," he adds.
"But the key thing is this: We'll be making broad reforms to move from a slow-moving, rigid and very passive immigration system to a much faster and more flexible proactive system . . . to complement what the provincial nominee programs are doing."
Kenney says the federal government has also quadrupled its in-vestment in settlement services for newcomers to Alberta. "It's a huge in-crease in federal investment in those services that's not been matched by the province."
glamphier@edmontonjournal.com

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Immigration minister looks to private sector

BY PETER O'NEIL, EDMONTON JOURNAL

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney raised the spectre of European-style tensions over multiculturalism in Canada on Thursday while proposing measures to boost the economic prospects of new Canadians.
His proposals include a greater private-sector role in immigrant selection and, in a move one immigration lawyer said would be controversial, more emphasis on the English or French proficiency of immigrants' spouses.
He also elaborated on his recent warning to provincial governments such as Alberta and British Columbia that he won't expand the provincial nominee program until that program is reformed.
"If we can improve the economic outcomes of immigrants, debates over the degree of their social integration would virtually disappear," Kenney said in a speech in Toronto.
Kenney also said the steps the government has taken to improve the "integrity" of the immigration and refugee system are essential.
"We don't have to look very far to see what happens when that integrity is undermined," he said.
"It's happened across Europe and even to some extent in the United States, where public support for the entire immigration system has fallen after widespread illegal migration and consequent abuse of public resources have gone unchecked.
"I never want to get to that point."
Kenney, after noting the comparatively poor performance of immigrants in recent decades, said he is considering proposals to adjust the points system for skilled workers to put greater emphasis on youth with "high quality credentials."
Applicants with Canadian work and study experience and trades skills should also move closer to the front of the line, he said.
The minister said the federal government will also look at giving preference to applicants with a direct job offer, resulting in the private sector getting a much larger role in the federal skilled worker program.
Kenney said he will reject recent appeals from such provinces as B.C. and Alberta for a higher quota from the provincial nominee program until that system is reformed.
He cited the successes of the pro-gram, noting that 26 per cent of current economic immigrants go to provinces other than the traditional destinations of B.C., Ontario and Quebec, compared to 11 per cent in 1997.
But he said provincial nominee immigrants tend to do worse than nominees under the federal foreign skilled worker program because Ottawa puts more emphasis on language skills.
Kenney also said the provincial pro-grams are in some cases duplicating federal programs, and also expressed concerns about provincial nominee "integrity" due to nominees arriving in one sponsoring province and then quickly moving to another.
"We will not consider increasing a province's allocation under the PN program until it demonstrates that its PN program is directly responsive to labour market needs and does not overlap with federal family reunification or investment streams."
NDP immigration critic Don Davies said Kenney exaggerated the government's progress on reducing immigration backlogs and said the minister has failed to substantially improve the ability of immigrant professionals to get their credentials recognized.

Davies also said Kenney is allowing far too many low-wage temporary foreign workers.
Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland praised Kenney's proposed moves, saying a more "nimble" sys-tem that lets the private sector play a bigger role is replacing the old "supertanker" model.
But Kurland said a move to a British-style requirement that spouses should speak one of the official languages will cause a stir.
And he said Kenney will also cause provincial governments some grief by pushing them out of the investor recruitment field, demanding tougher language requirements and perhaps setting up monitoring pro-grams to ensure immigrants don't immediately leave the province that's sponsored them soon after arrival.
Fraser Institute economist Herb Grubel, a prominent critic of the system, said allowing companies to play a bigger role in selection will improve immigrants' performance. But he had some words of warning.
"Will there be a minimum level of pay the employers have to offer? We do not want to be flooded by un-skilled workers whose incomes are low," he wrote in an email.
Poneil@postmedia.com Twitter: @poneilinottawa Read my blog, Letter from Ottawa, at edmontonjournal.com/oneil

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