Top talent getting harder to find, Canada's small business owners say

Majority of small business owners (74%) believe it is getting harder to find good employees; nearly half (46%) anticipate a labour shortage in the coming years but few are taking steps to plan for it

MARKHAM, ON, Dec. 12, 2011 /CNW/ - When it comes to seeking out and securing great staff, 69 per cent of Canadian small business owners are confident in their ability to attract and keep good employees; however, when hiring, one in 10 (11%) of SBOs reported never finding the right person and 28 per cent had the job open for up to three months before finding the appropriate candidate.

The quarterly American Express Small Business Monitor reveals that almost three-quarters (74%) believe it is getting harder to find good employees and 64 per cent of SBOs believe the demands of today's job applicants exceed their qualifications. The majority (84%) of small business owners do believe they keep their best and brightest employees, but fewer (64%) say they consistently hire the best and brightest in their industry. In fact, only 11 per cent of respondents strongly agreed that they were able to do so.

The results couldn't be timelier. With much of the Baby Boomer generation set to retire, nearly half (46%) of Canada's small business owners anticipate a shortage of qualified job applicants in the coming years. A further 32 per cent are concerned about the impact this will have on their operations and 23 per cent expect to replace a significant proportion of their employees during this time frame.

In fact, nearly two-fifths (39%) of survey respondents believe it will be difficult to replace retiring employees. Despite this, seven in 10 (69%) haven't put a plan in place to deal with the impending issue, such as modifying employment practises or offering incentives to employees to stay on after retirement age.

"Strong talent is the cornerstone of good business, especially small business, where the right people can mean the difference between a loyal customer and high turnover," said Abhijeet Rege, Director of Small Business Services, American Express Canada. "But the survey also suggests that businesses should start looking to the future by thinking about the void that will be left as skilled workers start to exit these higher-level positions."

SBOs realize money isn't everything

While money is always a motivator in attracting and retaining employees, small business owners also understand that agile, flexible environments can better draw this generation's bright minds.

In fact, when asked about what incentives were most effective for small businesses looking to attract/retain staff, flexible hours were on equal footing as higher pay - with 72 per cent of respondents ranking each as effective. Other top effective attraction/retention perks include: having a dynamic business culture (62%), offering share/stock options (61%), and better health benefits (54%).

"We've seen changes in the way people are approaching their careers today, as people become more lifestyle-oriented they are seeking improved work-life rhythm," said Rege. "The biggest draw of working for a small business is job independence and flexibility. And while money remains important, business owners realize it isn't the only factor to attracting and retaining top talent."

SBOs significantly more confident about current and future financial positions

While small business benefits might be effective in drawing and keeping new hires, the owners themselves may still be reaping the greatest level of satisfaction. The Monitor found that SBOs have experienced a steady financial position over the last year and are optimistic for the future.

While they remain risk adverse, 49 per cent of SBOs report their businesses' current financial position is improving - a two- point increase over last quarter and a substantial 22-per-cent jump over 2010. In fact, the majority of small business owners (83%) feel the rewards of running your own business outweigh the risks, with 45 per cent of them "strongly agreeing" with this statement - up 13 percentage points from last year.

"What was really exciting for us to see quarter over quarter is that the majority of business owners still believe - in turbulent economic times - that the rewards and opportunities of running their own business still outweigh the risks and challenges," said Rege. "The stability owners experience has increased significantly in the past year and now, more than ever, business owners are looking to invest in the future of their operations."

About the American Express Small Business Monitor
Between Oct. 21 and Oct. 29, 2011, Rogers Connect Market Research and Client Services, (RCMRACS) Rogers Publishing Limited, conducted an online study on behalf of American Express Small Business Services with 520 Canadian small business owners each employing between 2 and 100 people. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 4.3%, 19 times out of 20. In order to ensure the results are representative of the entire population of small business owners in Canada, the data have been statistically weighted for small business by region according to Statistics Canada. Respondents were located across Canada and came from a variety of industries, including health, social services, education, tech, sales and skilled trades. Due to rounding, some results may add to over 100%.

About American Express Small Business Services
American Express Small Business Services (SBS) is dedicated exclusively to the success of small business owners and their companies. SBS supports business owners with exceptional service. With tailored products and services, the team delivers purchasing power, flexibility, control and rewards to help customers run their business. Specifically, business owners can leverage an enhanced set of products, tools, services and savings, including charge and credit cards, robust online account management capabilities and savings on business services from an expanded line-up of partners. To obtain more information about SBS, visit www.amexforbusiness.ca orwww.facebook.com/AmexforBusiness.

For further information:

or a full copy of the report, please contact:

Isabella Mise, (416) 644-2293
isabella.mise@highroad.com

Sheryl Davey, (416) 644-2274

sheryl.davey@highroad.com

If you are a Canadian small Business owner and  need any assistance in getting foreign temporary or permanent workers, visit us at http://nexuscanadaimmigration.com/WorkInCanada.aspx

Wealthy immigrants can invest way to visas

By Lornet Turnbull

Seattle Times staff reporter

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Svetlana Anikeeva, a Russian immigrant living in Redmond, is seen in front of the Sodo building she and her husband invested in to get green cards. With developers struggling to find financing, use of EB-5 capital is expanding.

EB-5 visas

The EB-5 visa program, which Congress established in the early 1990s, grants green cards to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 or $1 million (depending on location) into a new American business and create at least 10 new jobs for legal U.S. workers.

For investments in enterprises in most parts of the U.S., a $1 million investment is required, but that drops to $500,000 for investments in rural areas or areas of high unemployment. Parts of Sodo and the University District are considered high-unemployment areas for purposes of the program.

Foreigners with an entrepreneurial spirit may start a business and directly create jobs for at least 10 new employees. For conditions to be removed and the green card made permanent, those jobs must be in place by the end of the first two years.

The more typical method is investing in what's known as a regional center — businesses, usually development operations, that have been certified by the U.S. government through a detailed, complex process. While regional centers are required to create 10 jobs per investor, they are permitted to use economic models to demonstrate the creation of jobs indirectly linked to each investment.

Foreigners who apply for the visa must prove the legitimate source of the money they are investing — by producing tax returns or other financial documents.

Typically within a year or so of first applying, investors receive a conditional green card. Within two years, if they can demonstrate job creation, the conditions will be removed.

Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

As his son moved through high school, Xiaohong Mu began researching the immigration policies of Western countries where he believed his boy would get the best education.

The owner of a petroleum-engineering firm in the southwest Chinese city of Chengdu, Mu considered Australia and Canada before settling on the United States.

America, he believes, will not only prepare his son for future success, but he also thinks he can find new business opportunities here.

Mu and his family will move to Seattle this month under a little-known but increasingly popular visa program reserved for foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in an American enterprise.

It's a source of money that cash-starved developers across the U.S. are using to help fund any number of new projects — from ski resorts in Vermont to utility-line extensions for a new BMW plant in Moses Lake.

About $48 million in these investor funds will help finance the state of Washington's $4.6 billion replacement of the Highway 520 floating bridge.

The relative obscurity of the so-called EB-5 visa program has allowed it to escape scrutiny at a time debate over immigration in this country has raged.

As developers struggle to get traditional sources of funding for their projects, use of EB-5 capital is expanding and expected to total $1.2 billion nationally for 2011, up from $845 million last year.

The financiers are wealthy foreigners — primarily the Chinese — who see an opportunity to gain permanent U.S. residency without the long wait and complicated processing associated with family and work-related visas — if they can qualify for those visas at all.

"There's a kind of gold rush going on right now — developers trying to get projects going and a huge group of Chinese with money," said James Palmer, economic-development manager at the state Department of Commerce.

While the state is not directly involved in operating the EB-5 visa program, Palmer has made himself an expert of sorts, fielding frequent calls from area developers and would-be investors around the globe seeking information about the program. "It's a marriage made in heaven," he said.

Mu's investment is visible to anyone who has attended a game at Safeco Field: the second phase of a $155 million office complex going up just south of the stadium in Sodo.

"The first priority is securing the green card," Mu said through an interpreter. "Financial return of the capital is second."

Russian citizen Svetlana Anikeeva, along with her husband, invested $500,000 in an earlier phase of the same project. Now living in Redmond on a conditional green card she received about 16 months ago, Anikeeva can't help but feel a sense of pride when she drives past the building that her investment helped make possible.

"I tell people that being born in the U.S. itself is worth at least $500,000," she said.

Small-scale program

Capped at just 10,000 visas a year nationwide, the EB-5 visa program is relatively small, but offers one of the quickest paths to legal residency.

Overseen by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, it is one of several visa-for-cash programs worldwide, including one in Canada.

Congress established the U.S. program 20 years ago to allow foreign investors from any country who could prove the lawful source of their money to obtain conditional green cards for themselves and immediate family members. For the green cards to become permanent, each investment must have created at least 10 new, full-time jobs for legal U.S. residents by the end of two years.

Typically, foreigners invest $500,000 through entities known as regional centers — usually development companies such as American Life, which owns the Sodo office complex that Mu and Anikeeva invested in.

These centers may also operate as investment companies, like the Washington Regional Center, which used EB-5 funds from 95 Chinese investors to purchase state bonds for the 520 bridge project.

The investors have virtually no direct management involvement in the centers, which are authorized by Citizen and Immigration Services. The investors may live wherever they want in the U.S., regardless of the location of the project.

In 2007, there were just under 800 visa applicants and 11 regional centers nationwide. By the end of fiscal 2011, nearly five times that many foreigners had applied and 179 centers were operating — 11 in Washington state.

And new regional centers are coming onboard every day.

A virtual cottage industry has sprung up among marketing agents overseas who promote the centers while peddling U.S. residency to the wealthy.

The marketing frenzy is particularly prolific in China, where Mu said he is bombarded daily with sales pitches.

"There's no privacy protection here," he said. "If people know you have money, they'll contact you. Every day I still get calls, emails and text messages."

The program isn't without risk, and the U.S. government makes no guarantee to investors they'll get their money back and prohibits regional centers from making upfront promises about return of capital.

In the past, projects have failed and investors have lost their money. What's more, foreigners who've been allowed into the country through the program on a conditional green card face deportation if a project they invested in fails to meet the job-creation requirement after two years.

"Despite its many benefits and increasing popularity, the EB-5 program still presents serious risks," said Elizabeth Peng, a Mercer Island immigration attorney.

"I tell investors this is money they should be willing to lose, that if they can't afford the risk they shouldn't do it."

Doesn't mind risk

Svetlana Anikeeva understood the risks when she and her husband plunked down much of their savings two years ago in exchange for the chance to live in the U.S.

Since her first visit to America as an exchange student in 1995, Anikeeva said she knew this is where she wanted to live. Other types of visas were not available to her and her husband, who owns a car business in Japan. The EB-5, she said, was the perfect solution for the couple and their 11-year-old daughter.

She receives a monthly statement from American Life on the progress of the project and distributions of about $200.

"For us this was not a business opportunity, it's an immigration opportunity," Anikeeva said.

Immigration attorney-turned-developer Henry Liebman, chief executive of American Life, has raised about $700 million from more than 1,000 EB-5 investors and created about 15,000 jobs over the last dozen years.

In Sodo and across the U.S., his company — one of the country's oldest regional centers — has developed about 40 commercial projects by pooling foreign investments with other funding.

"It's not a huge source of capital, but it's still significant," Liebman said. "It's money that wouldn't otherwise be available in a time of limited liquidity."

Test ahead in Congress

The regional center EB-5 program, which has always operated as a pilot, is set to expire in September unless Congress renews it, as it has in the past.

At least two bills have been introduced to make it permanent, including one by U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens.

David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates immigration enforcement, called it a "silly little program" with "extremely little effect" on the nation's economy.

Compared to total foreign investment in the U.S., he said, "it's pennies. If you talk to serious venture capitalists, they'll laugh at the idea of getting money in half-million chunks."

Seattle attorney Steve Miller said he steers clients away from the EB-5 program — both the regional-center track or a much smaller one that allows investors to set up and directly operate their own companies in the U.S. He says there are enough concerns to raise a "significant red flag."

Miller, for example, is working to remove conditions from the green card of a client who first obtained it more than 10 years ago.

That case dates back to the late 1990s, when uncertainty plagued the program. During that time, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service discovered fraud, some of it resulting from ambiguity over the agency's own policies.

Some developers were taking investors' money without delivering projects and the jobs they promised, and some investors got green cards without making their full investments. As a result, hundreds of foreigners and their family members from that period still do not have permanent green cards.

Between the late 1990s and mid-2000s, participation in the program slowed. While the government has since clarified its policies regarding the program, Miller said he tries to explore other avenues for high-income clients willing to operate businesses in the U.S.

Wave of Chinese

As the number of wealthy Chinese has increased, so has their participation in the visa program. More than 40 percent of program investors are from China — far higher on the West Coast.

A recent study by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Co., a consulting firm, found almost 60 percent of China's "high net-worth individuals" — those with at least $1.5 million in assets — are either considering or completing emigration through investment programs.

Five years ago, it was Koreans, Taiwanese or people from across Europe, said Kim Foster, with the Aero-Space Port International Group, which established Washington's first regional center in Grant County.

Mercer Island immigration attorney Cletus Weber said his firm's Chinese clients tend to fall mostly into one of two categories: parents like Mu who want to move to the U.S. so their children can get a better education, or college students whose parents hand them $500,000 so they can set themselves up in the U.S.

Said his partner, attorney Peng: "As U.S. permanent residents, they have more doors open to them than if they came as foreign students."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com. On Twitter: @turnbull




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Foreign-trained workers expand Canada's options

By GERRY MACARTNEY, SPECIAL TO QMI AGENCY


CHAMBER VIEW: Their global experience and skill are invaluable assets as we go forward

Could there be any greater asset when trying to compete in the global marketplace than having an abundance of global experience and talent right in our own back yard?

The London Chamber of Commerce, and many chambers across Ontario, feel strongly that the foreign-trained professionals and skilled immigrants we have in our communities are indeed the kind of assets we will need to grow our economy and expand our connections to a wider array of business opportunities around the world.

These skilled individuals can enable our business base in London to have a real tangible global advantage in today's increasingly competitive and borderless business environment. How? By providing insight and knowledge about other business cultures that can often be the difference between success and failure when attempting to open up new global opportunities.

They can provide quicker access to international markets and connections that might take us years longer to develop.

And as was the case with the chamber's recent foray into China with the rest of Team London -- it was a foreign-trained professional and a member of the chamber that provided a critical advantage in language and translation skills and a better understanding of the technological and business nuances that vary widely from country to country.

It's been said that only by taking calculated risks and being open to learning from the experiences of immigrants will Canadian companies fully capitalize on the potential for innovation and growth.

And the truly great thing is that we don't have to go and look for them or lure them here -- they are already here.

The London Chamber, in partnership with the Ontario Chamber and the London Middlesex Immigrant Employment Council, is offering the first of its kind "global experience at work" program whose principle aim is to connect more chamber members with skilled immigrants here in our community through the following no-cost tools and resources:

• Search tools to access pre-screened local and province-wide talent.
• Mentoring programs that strengthen leadership, coaching and cross-cultural skills of employees,
• Screening support for evaluating international credential and language skills.
• Connections with other Chamber members who have successfully attracted and retained top newcomer talent.

We're all aware that our workforce is getting older and our emerging industries require more and more specialized skill sets.

We have many talented and well-educated internationally trained professionals in London that can add greatly to the strength of our city, economic region and local economy. We highly encourage you to arrange a consultation with a program representative at global@LMIEC.ca or by calling 519-663-0774 to learn more about how your company can connect to a qualified talent pool, free of charge. We also look forward to your participation in workshops throughout 2012 designed to support your company in attracting and retaining top newcomer talent.

Gerry Macartney is chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce. His e-mail address is gerry@londonchamber.com

Canada Escapes Recession's Grip

by BRIAN MANN


America's biggest trade partner, Canada, sailed through the economic downturn almost unscathed, with low unemployment, no mortgage crisis and not a single major bank failure. As part of WBEZ'sFront and Center series, Brian Mann reports on how Canada emerged as one of the world's most stable and prosperous economies.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

As Europe works to solve its financial problems, closer to home and with a little less fanfare, America's biggest trading partner is thriving. Canada has built an impressive track record throughout the recession. It's got low unemployment, little government debt and some of the healthiest economic growth in the industrialized world. Brian Mann traveled to Toronto for WBEZ's Chicago's Front and Center project and has this story.

BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: It's early morning and Toronto's central business district is in high gear with people crowding into street cars, heading to work.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)

MANN: This city of five million people sits just a few hours' drive from America's rust belt - from Buffalo and Detroit. While those cities have shed population and are struggling to reinvent themselves, Toronto is on fire. Matthew Mendelson heads the Mowat Center for Policy Innovation.

MATTHEW MENDELSON: Our financial sector, our financial institutions are the healthiest in the world. And so that creates enormous opportunities.

MANN: Canada has some of the strictest banking rules in the world. While hundreds of banks failed in the U.S. during the recession, this country hasn't seen a single major bank failure - not one. In fact, banks here are posting record profits. There's also no mortgage crisis in Canada. And while U.S. politicians feud over government spending, Mendelson says political parties on this side of the border have done the hard work of balancing budgets.

MENDELSON: The last decade has been one of Canada paying down debt, while it's been one of the United States ratcheting up debt. And so that creates much more flexibility for Canada to invest and make choices when a recession arises.

MANN: It's a huge turnabout for a country that in the 1990s was an economic basket case. In those days, the Canadian dollar was so weak that it was known as the northern peso. Now, Canada's dollar trades on par with American greenbacks and economic growth here is a third higher than in the U.S. Unemployment remained relatively low during the recession and people who do lose their jobs in Canada can expect to be out of work for half as long, compared with jobless workers in the U.S. Economists credit Canada's prosperity to a wide range of factors, including the rapid expansion of the country's oil industry and a very different approach to immigration.

MARIO CALA: We've instituted a managed, point-based immigration system.

MANN: That's Mario Cala, head of a nonprofit that runs a network of immigrant welcome centers for the Canadian government. While the U.S. grants most of its green cards on the basis of family connections, Cala says Canada actively seeks out immigrants who can bring money, high tech skills or new businesses to boost the economy.

CALA: Canadians understand that while these people coming from other countries may be very different from us, they're coming with great talents and skills.

MANN: As a consequence, Canadian cities have emerged rapidly as high tech international hubs with deep ties to China and India. Not everything here is perfect. Canada has seen government debt creep up during the recession, and there's a growing environmental debate here and in the U.S. over the impacts of Canada's booming oil industry. But many economists in Canada say their biggest economic vulnerability long-term may be an over-reliance on the United States, which now buys more than 70 percent of Canadian exports. Matthew Mendelson with the Mowat Center says Canada is racing to diversify.

MENDELSON: We are in the process of a historical pivot. Our future can not only be tied to exports to the United States. It also has to be tied to the emergence of Asian economies.

MANN: That pivot will take decades, and for now, Canadian exporters are watching nervously to see if the American economy and American consumers will continue to bounce back. For NPR News, I'm Brian Mann.

Feds to revoke thousands of citizenships in historic sweep

BY TOBI COHEN, POSTMEDIA NEWS DECEMBER 9, 2011

 

 

• STORY
• PHOTOS ( 3 )

 

 

More Images »

 

In what's being dubbed the biggest citizenship fraud sweep in Canadian history, the federal government is set to crack down on 4,700 more people believed to have obtained citizenship or permanent resident status illegally. Pictured, Jason Kenny, federal minister of immigration, speaks to the Chamber of Commerce in Calgary.

Photograph by: Grant Black, Calgary Herald

OTTAWA — In what's being dubbed the biggest citizenship fraud sweep in Canadian history, the federal government is set to crack down on 4,700 more people believed to have obtained citizenship or permanent resident status illegally.

The announcement comes six months after the government moved to strip 1,800 people of their Canadian citizenship or permanent resident status for the same reasons. Up until this year, Canada had revoked just 67 citizenships since the Citizenship Act came into force in 1947.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is expected to make the announcement that "Canadian citizenship is not for sale" on Friday, Postmedia News has learned.

He will unveil the details in Montreal where Nizar Zakka — an immigration consultant suspected of fraud — was arrested in 2009. Zakka is suspected of providing would-be Lebanese immigrants with false evidence — indicating that they were living in Quebec when they were not — to support their cases for permanent residency.

He's also accused of filing or contributing to the filing of 861 false tax returns for at least 380 clients between 2004 and 2007. The returns allegedly were then used to claim refunds for child care and property taxes as well as the provincial sales-tax credit.

The bulk of the citizenship fraud cases are said to be linked to Zakka as well as Halifax immigration consultant Hassan Al-Awaid, who was charged in March with more than 50 citizenship fraud-related offences.

The cases are also tied to a third consultant from Mississauga, Ont., west of Toronto, who remains under investigation, according to a government source who noted the others were brought to light thanks to the new citizenship fraud tip line.

Unveiled in September, the tip line already has fielded 5,366 calls.

Letters are currently being sent to the 6,500 people from 100 countries indicating that Canada is revoking their citizenship or permanent resident status due to fraud.

This comes following a lengthy investigation by the RCMP and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

Alleged fraudsters, the majority of whom are not currently living in Canada, have up to 60 days to appeal the decision in Federal Court before cabinet moves to void their passports and strip them of all rights and privileges.

According to Citizenship and Immigration, to maintain permanent resident status a person must reside in Canada for at least two years within a five-year period. Permanent residents seeking citizenship must show proof that they've lived in Canada for at least three of the last four years before applying.

At the time of Al-Awaid's arrest, Kenney said he was suspected of helping people "create the appearance they were residing in Canada in order to keep their permanent resident status, and ultimately attempt to acquire citizenship."

He said investigators had linked Al-Awaid to 1,100 applicants and their dependents, 76 of whom had obtained Canadian citizenship.

He noted that many people were prevented from "fraudulently obtaining citizenship" as a result of the investigation.

The government has been taking action against citizenship fraud for some time. The Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, which imposes tough new penalties for immigration consultants convicted of fraud, including fines and/or prison, is now law in Canada.

tcohen(at)postmedia.com

Twitter.com/tobicohen

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Lorne Gunter: Time to crack down on fraudulent immigrants

Canadians are generous people, but have no tolerance or patience for people who don’t play by the rules and who lie or cheat to become a Canadian citizen. The government will apply the full strength of Canadian law to those who have obtained citizenship fraudulently.”

With those blunt words, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Friday in Montreal that his department and the RCMP have gathered evidence on as many as 6,500 new citizens or permanent residents who acquired their immigration status fraudulently. Mr. Kenney intends to strip them of their status and deport them, if they are in the country. He added, “Canadian citizenship is not for sale.”

Mr. Kenney and the police allege that paid immigration consultants have been helping people pretend to meet the residency requirements needed to obtain citizenship or permanent-resident status. Before being accepted, an applicant must have lived full-time in Canada for three of the previous four years. To maintain their status, they must show proof they have lived here at least two out of every five years thereafter. Unscrupulous consultants, Mr. Kenney suspects, have been helping thousands of applicants produce fake evidence that they have been living in Canada.

Many of the case of suspected fraud revolve around two consultants, Nizar Zakka of Montreal, who was arrested in 2009, and Hassan Al-Awaid of Halifax, who was charged last March. Mr. Zakka is suspected of providing would-be immigrants with false evidence that they were living in Quebec. He was also accused of helping file nearly 900 false tax returns, allegedly so absentee citizens could qualify for tax credits for child care, property tax and provincial sales tax.

Related

• Thousands to be stripped of Canadian citizenship in historic fraud sweep

Not surprisingly, many of Mr. Zakka’s allegedly fraudulent clients are Lebanese who are suspected of never having lived in Canada long enough to acquire citizenship legitimately. Why is not surprising to me that so many Lebanese are suspected? Because of the way so many suddenly remembered their devotion to Canada when war broke out in their country between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

When the bullets began whizzing and the bombs and missiles began falling, hundreds of Canadian “citizens” who hadn’t lived here for a decade or more pulled their passports out of the drawers they’d stuffed them in and started waving them around like “Get out of Hell free” cards demanding Ottawa rescue them (at Ottawa’s expense).

Many of these Canadians of convenience had come here in the 1980s and 1990s, during Lebanon’s long civil war, only long enough to obtain citizenship, then the minute they qualified and the fighting back home subsided, they beetled off to Lebanon never again to live in Canada or contribute to Canadian society. Yet once they were caught in the crossfire between Israel and radical Islamists, they insisted Ottawa send ships and planes to ferry them to safety. Then they complained the rescue wasn’t happening fast enough and, finally, were indignant about the conditions on the ships that were sent.

That’s the kind of insincere citizen Mr. Kenney is targeting. He is right that Canadians are a generous lot. We already accept more immigrants per capita than any other developed nation – more than 250,000 a year, heading towards 300,000 a year over the coming decade. So it does not make us mean-spirited or xenophobic to revoke the citizenship or permanent-resident status of a few thousand applicants who, in his words, lied and cheated to get into Canada. Indeed, doing so preserves the value of Canadian citizenship not only for people born here, but also for those new Canadians who took the time to go through the proper procedures to come here legally – a process that can take up to seven years.

For far too long, Ottawa has been cavalier about granting citizenship, refugee status and permanent residency. It hasn’t screened visa applications adequately. It has accepted at face value too many bogus stories about persecution back home. It has made little effort to deport people ordered expelled by the courts, including hundreds of violent criminals. It has seldom prosecuted people smugglers and has permitted people granted refugee status to travel freely back and forth between Canada and the homelands in which they insisted their lives were in danger. Ottawa has even done a poor job of encouraging new Canadians to adopt this nation’s values. No longer.

Under Mr. Kenney and the Tories, the visa-screening process is to be beefed up, the refugee determination system is being streamlined to help better sort true refugees from sob-story applicants, the immigration consultant industry is being cleaned up and citizenship training has been changed to emphasize the importance in Canada of the rule of law, equality between the sexes and social tolerance. This is not proof of bigotry and vindictiveness by the Tories. Rather it is, finally, a recognition that if Canadian citizenship is to mean anything, it cannot be given away like Halloween candy.

National Post

Follow Lorne on Twitter @lornegunter

B.C. panel to review how to attract skilled workers, investors

Premier Christy Clark announced this week the creation of a task force to review the system under which skilled immigrants and foreign investors come to B.C. and Canada.

Led by Richmond-Steveston MLA John Yap, the nine-member group will consist of community and business leaders and will review the Provincial Nominee Program, the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Canadian Experience Class, and the Federal Immigrant Investor Program.

The task force will assess the efficiency of each program, and look at how to improve the federal government's responsiveness to immigration needs throughout Western Canada, the premier said in Vancouver Thursday.

"We've laid out an ambitious plan to create jobs in the BC Jobs Plan and we will need skilled immigrants to help fill more than one million job openings expected over the next decade," Clark said, noting that current B.C. residents are expected to account for only two-thirds of those positions.

"We don't know yet how we're going to fill those jobs," she said.

The goal of the task force is to assess the current system and find ways to attract more skilled workers every year.

To do that, task force members will meet with employers, industry and sector associations, settlement service providers, community associations and other relevant groups, Clark said.

"This is a province and a country that was built on immigration, and that hasn't changed."

Clark said she'd like to see the elimination of federal caps on the Provincial Nominee Program, which channels educated, experienced, skilled workers swiftly into the economy and accelerates the process to secure permanent residency.

The group's first meeting is scheduled for next week, Yap said.

"They're going to be busy over the next couple of months."

He said members of the team, which also includes former MP Stockwell Day, are participating on a volunteer basis and the government will cover the incidental costs of the initiative, which aren't expected to exceed $100,000.

A final public report will be submitted to the premier by March 31, 2012.

CONFIRMED MEMBERS OF TASK FORCE

. John Yap, chair - Richmond-Steveston MLA.

. Tung Chan (Richmond) - Former CEO SUCCESS/Chinese community leader.

. Stockwell Day (Penticton) - Government relations consultant/former minister/MP.

. Yuen Pau Woo (North Vancouver) - CEO Asia Pacific Foundation.

. Grace Wong (Vancouver) - Assistant dean, UBC/vice-chair SUCCESS.

. Tim McEwan (Prince George) - CEO, Initiatives Prince George.

. Suki Badh (Richmond) - College instructor/South Asian community leader.

. Michael Hwang (New Westminster) - Principal lawyer of Hwang & Company/founder and partner of Amicus Lawyers.

. Narindarpal Singh Kang (Vancouver) - Founder, Kang and Company Law Firm, specializing in immigration law.

Evan Duggan, Vancouver Sun

eduggan@vancouversun.com

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