Alberta wins battle to bring in more foreign workers.

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By Jason Fekete, Calgary Herald
The federal Conservative government has acquiesced to provincial demands -- including from Alberta -- to ease its restrictions on the number of immigrants that can permanently reside in the provinces each year.
Ottawa controls the number of permanent immigrants that can annually settle across Canada through the provincial nominee program, with the current cap at 4,400 in Alberta -- well short of the 5,000 Alberta had requested this year.
Wild Rose Country and other western provinces have been lobbying the Harper government for months to scrap its plans to impose a lower cap on the number of immigrants arriving through the nominee program. Rather, the provinces have been urging Ottawa to ratchet up the number of workers they can nominate to the federal government to bring to their jurisdictions to fill permanent jobs.
Federal officials initially indicated in June the provinces wouldn't receive as many nominees as hoped, but announced Tuesday they will increase the numbers after reviewing their case loads and immigration targets for the year.
The additional nominees are critical to sustaining the short-term economic turnaround as well as long-term growth, said Alberta Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.
" It would be a move in the right direction," Lukaszuk said about the federal decision. "We will be seeing more and more permanent labour shortages. We have to look to immigration towards solving this problem."
Lukaszuk said he believes the provincial nominee program is the best solution because immigrants can only apply if they have a guaranteed job that employers have shown cannot be filled by Alberta workers.
The approach ensures new immigrants landing in Alberta are paying taxes and contributing to society, rather than tapping already strained social assistance programs.
"We believe we should have some degree of determination of what immigrants we bring here," he said.
Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is travelling in Europe and wasn't available for comment.
But Alykhan Velshi, the minister's director of communications, said the federal government has heard the provinces' concerns and will increase the numbers beyond what was originally promised earlier this year.
Alberta will now receive 5,000 provincial nominees this year (up from the 4,400 initially approved), which is a large increase from the 4,200 last year and 2,800 two years ago. B.C. will now receive 3,500 provincial nominees (an increase from the promised 3,200); Saskatchewan has been allocated 4,000 (up from 3,700) and Manitoba will get 5,000 (increased from 4,600).
Alberta received the largest increase of any of the provinces, Velshi noted, which reflects Kenney's recognition of how important the program is to the Alberta economy.
Alberta and the other provinces were initially promised a smaller number because the federal government is trying to sharply improve processing wait times for immigrants, temporary foreign workers and foreign students. It also must balance the provincial nominees with the number of immigrants allowed through the Federal Skilled Worker Program (which assess applicants based on a points system), he said.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada initially set a target of allowing between 240,000 and 265,000 immigrants into the country this year, with the agency usually hitting the midpoint. However, CIC now expects to reach the top end of its target, which is helping accommodate more provincial nominees.
"There are other categories that we have to pay attention to. There are trade-offs," Velshi said.
Back in Alberta, Lukaszuk noted the 5,000 is just a start and still doesn't address Alberta's long-term economic and immigration needs.
Lukaszuk favours the permanent provincial nominee program over attracting temporary foreign workers -- which reached about 60,000 in the province during the boom -- who can often be sent back and forth between Alberta and their home country depending on demand.
"I'm not a big fan of shipping workers in and out, in and out," he said.
Social agencies and the food services industry welcomed the federal government's decision to increase the number of provincial nominees.
Despite the higher unemployment rates in Canada over the past two years, there's still not enough workers to fill jobs in many different sectors, they noted.
" We're looking at a problem that is long term," said Enayat Aminzadah, director of operations and resource development with Immigrant Services Calgary. "It's a great way to strengthen our workforce."
The additional immigrants shouldn't be seen as a "threat" to Albertans also looking for a job, he stressed, because there's clearly a need for the workers both now and in the coming years. Also, nominees are only approved if they have a permanent job offer, Aminzadah said.
The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association applauded the federal decision, saying their sector desperately needs additional workers across the western provinces.
"It's a big issue and a lot of our members are concerned," said Mark von Schellwitz, western vice-president with the CRFA. "That is really welcome news."
jfekete@theherald.canwest.com

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Canadian immigration consultant regulator gives public a look at internal operations

The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) gave the public a glimpse at its internal operations today through a video presentation that puts a face to the organization, its departments and its staff.
“CSIC embraces transparency in our governance, and now we’re going one step further to give the public and our members a look at our internal operations,” said CSIC Chair Nigel Thomson.
The video shows CSIC’s small, diverse staff, which has accomplished great things by working together with limited resources. Working together in many different roles, CSIC’s registration, education, complaints and discipline, legal, compliance, member practice aide, finance and administration, policy, communications and intelligence departments have been highly effective in pursuing CSIC’s mandate to protect consumers of immigration consulting services.
“Since 2004, CSIC has shut out more than 800 agents, and disciplined more than 225 consultants. These numbers demonstrate that CSIC is an effective regulatory body that acts in the public interest. With this video we’re giving the public an idea of the day-to-day operations that help CSIC perform its vital regulatory activities,” said Thomson.

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Why Canada Needs More Immigrants—Now

BY ALISON RAMSEY

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Studies in both the United States and Canada have shown that job creation increases and the economy improves as the number of immigrants swells. Immigrants are, as a group, better educated than Canadians and since 1967, when the government introduced its point system, the selection process favours those with marketable skills.

Is there a market here for skilled labour? Actually, Canada is seeing signs of worker shortages in several professions – including engineers, doctors and nurses, to name a few. Added to this is the fact that the population in some provinces is shrinking, and employers are having difficulty filling their rosters with skilled help. Paul Darby, director of the Conference Board of Canada, estimates a shortfall of 3 million skilled workers by the year 2020.
Boosting immigration could be a very effective way of helping to ease the shortage, but there are other impediments.
Immigrants often have difficulty working in their fields after they arrive. On average, it takes 10 years for immigrants to get hired in jobs for which they have skills and, even then, they are not necessarily working at the skill level to which they have been trained. In March, Jeffrey Reitz of University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations, released a study showing that immigrants whose skills are underused cost the Canadian economy $2.4 billion yearly. He also estimated that they are underpaid to the tune of $12.6 billion every year. No type of job is exempt. "We used comparisons across the labour force," says Reitz.
Some organizations are answering the growing demand by helping immigrants become licensed to work in Canada after they arrive. The Ontario Ministry of Education, for example, is spending $12 million over three years to help get more foreign-trained medical professionals – nurses, doctors and pharmacists – into their professions. The money is given to local professionals associations to recruit and retain personnel. Another $3.5 million is being spent by the province to train foreign professionals to ensure they meet Canadian standards.
Yet, at the same time, experts are worried that the flow of immigrants is about to dry up, thanks to legislation coming into effect in June that changes the rules for people hoping to enter the county. Reitz says the proposed guidelines constitute a much more stringent selection criteria. He theorizes that the government hopes to eliminate a backlog of applicants, which numbers about 660,000 people. The Association of Immigration Counsel of Canada has run dozens of scenarios to determine how many of the 660,000 would be eligible under the new guidelines. "We anticipate that only five to eight percent will be allowed in," he says. The problem, adds Reitz, is when the backlog is gone but the need for skilled workers remains.
Growing demand for skilled labour is not limited to Canada. In India and China, for instance, the high-tech industry is developing. Workers from those countries who might have had to emigrate to ply their job skills in the past, now have a better chance of finding work at home. Even after skilled workers arrive, it can be a challenge to keep them here: the United States is also eager to attract the best and the brightest.
According to a survey by Canada’s Federation of Independent Business, one out of 20 jobs remains unfilled because of an inability to find suitably skilled labour. This represents about 250,000 to 300,000 vacant jobs in small- and medium-sized businesses alone. The lack is not just in professions that require higher education. The worst off are employers looking for skilled construction workers, who reported 7.7 percent of jobs went unfilled. They are followed closely by the business services and agriculture sectors. Hospitals and the personal service sector ranked tenth at 3.8 percent.
The need is greatest in Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta.