National Bank Again Named One of Canada's Best Diversity Employers

MONTREAL, QUEBEC, Feb 21, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- National Bank CA:NA +0.46% is proud to have made the list of Canada's Best Diversity Employers, as chosen by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which recognizes 50 Canadian employers who have developed exceptional inclusiveness programs for employees from five major groups: women; members of visible minorities; persons with disabilities; aboriginal peoples; and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender/transsexual people (LGBT).

"At National Bank, promoting diversity is part of our day-to-day reality, and has been for many years. In fact, some of our programs that promote inclusiveness were created over 20 years ago. Since then, the Bank has maintained an inclusive work environment by adapting its human resource practices and by developing, year after year, new initiatives that target diversity," stated Lynn Jeanniot, Executive Vice-President of Human Resources and Corporate Affairs at National Bank.

The following are some of the initiatives that have contributed to making National Bank one of Canada's Best Diversity Employers:

Recruitment

Several attraction programs are already in place and enable the Bank to demonstrate its commitment to diversity through its hiring strategies. Its ongoing efforts continue to result in innovative approaches. For example, a mentoring program was implemented last year to facilitate the integration of new immigrants into the job market through a partnership with ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies).

Dialogue and exchanges

Open dialogue is central to the Bank's corporate culture, and managers have made it one of their core values. It is one of the conditions needed to ensure that employees will reach their full potential. In 2011, the Bank held a consultation with its employees who are members of the LGBT community to better understand their situation in the workplace. An action plan was then created to implement solutions for some of the problems identified.

Leadership

National Bank also put its expertise in diversity to good use by helping the Comite d'adaptation a la main-d'oeuvre draft a new guide on managing diversity and the opportunities it represents (La gestion de la diversite, une opportunite a saisir !). The Comite is an organization dedicated to fostering access to training and jobs for persons with disabilities. The purpose of the guide is to help companies adopt a policy for hiring persons with disabilities and is being used as a reference by a growing number of leading employers.

National Bank being designated Best Diversity Employer is one of many distinctions received over the past few months. Last October, the Bank was named one of the Best Employers in Canada and, more recently, was listed among the Top Employers in the Greater Toronto Area, one of Montreal's Top Employers as well as one of the Best Employers in Quebec.

About National Bank of Canada

National Bank of Canada is an integrated group that provides comprehensive financial services to consumers, small and medium-sized enterprises and large corporations in its core market, while offering specialized services to its clients elsewhere in the world. National Bank offers a full array of banking services, including retail, corporate and investment banking. It is an active player on international capital markets and, through its subsidiaries, is involved in securities brokerage, insurance and wealth management as well as mutual fund and retirement plan management. As at October 31, 2011, National Bank has over CDN$156 billion in assets in accordance with Canadian GAAP and, together with its subsidiaries, employs more than 19,000 people. The Bank's securities are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange CA:NA +0.46% . For more information, visit the Bank's website at www.nbc.ca . To access National Bank of Canada's financial literacy portal, visit www.clearfacts.ca .

The telephone number provided below is for the exclusive use of journalists and other media representatives.

        
        Contacts:
        Joan Beauchamp
        Senior Advisor, Public Affairs
        National Bank
        514-394-6500
        
        
        

SOURCE: National Bank of Canada

Copyright 2012 Marketwire, Inc., All rights reserved. 

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s new refugee law lacks balance

Since the Conservatives took power six years ago, fewer of the immigrants arriving in Canada are coming as refugees. As a share of all newcomers, refugees have gone down – from 13.7 per cent to 9.2 per cent.

Yet Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says Ottawa must to do more crack down on “bogus refugees” who are clogging up the system and costing taxpayers too much money.

He is proposing legislation that would rapidly deport two types of refugee claimants: those who come to Canada as part of a part of an “irregular arrival” (any vehicle or network suspected of smuggling people) and those who come from countries he considers safe (such as Hungary).

The minister tried this before. In March 2010, he brought in a bill almost identical to the one introduced last week. It would have done a relatively good job of filtering out would-be refugees who were not fleeing persecution or seeking asylum from violence, torture or cruel treatment. It would also have served as a deterrent to fraudsters hoping to manipulate Canada’s refugee system. But it contained too few safeguards for applicants rejected after a cursory hearing.

The opposition parties joined forces to seek a more balanced bill and Kenney, to his credit, listened. He agreed to amend his bill and came up with a compromise called the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. It gave rejected claimants the right to appeal to a new tribunal with knowledgeable adjudicators. It also created a committee to advise the government on the list of “safe countries” that Kenney was proposing.

The minister hailed the compromise as a “win-win.” He told Parliament the amendments strengthened his original bill. The law was scheduled to take effect on June 29.

But last week he introduced a third version, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act. Both of the safeguards in the previous bill are gone.

Under the new bill, Kenney alone will designate “safe countries.” Asylum seekers from those countries will have no right to appeal to the refugee tribunal. And refugee claimants who arrive by way of suspected human smugglers will face mandatory detention while their identity and admissibility are investigated. They will have no right to appeal a negative decision.

The legislation contains one new provision. It would permit authorities to collect biometric data (fingerprints and photographs) from those entering Canada on a visitor’s visa, work visa or study visa.

These changes are necessary, Kenney said, because “it has become clear that there are gaps in the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and we need stronger measures that are closer to the original bill.”

As evidence he pointed to a recent spike in refugee claims from Eastern Europe (primarily Roma people from Hungary) that cost Ottawa almost $170 million last year. There was a similar surge of asylum seekers from Mexico in 2009. But there is a way to deal with this: Require travelers from problematic countries to obtain a temporary resident visa before coming to Canada.

On the positive side, Kenney’s latest reform plan would reduce the current backlog of 42,000 refugee claims; cut the processing time for asylum seekers from countries” to 45 days (from 171 days under Balanced Refugee Reform Act); and save money.

On the negative side, it has no appeal mechanism and it gives the minister power without accountability.

Overall, it’s a step backward from the compromise reached 20 months ago.

Kenney doesn’t have to compromise now. With a parliamentary majority, the Conservatives can enact whatever they want. They don’t have to listen to the opposition parties or take into account the concerns of refugee groups, lawyers, academics or human rights activists.

It is regrettable the minister has decided to go it alone. He had a better bill when he worked with his critics.

Saskatchewan Looks To Ireland To Fill Its Labor Shortage

Sinead O'Carroll, thejournal.ie

A CANADIAN PROVINCE is hoping to benefit from the number of talented people out of work in Ireland as it suffers from a dearth of skilled workers.

A delegation of recruiters from Saskatchewan is travelling to Ireland next month to launch a campaign to address the province’s labour shortage.

The 27 employers hope to fill more than 275 jobs while in Dublin on 3-4 March and in Cork on 7 March.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and Minister of Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration Rob Norris will accompany the recruiting companies on their mission to Ireland.

Located right in the middle of Canada, Saskatchewan is the country’s fastest growing province. It currently boasts record high employment and above-average earnings. The province, including its two major cities Saskatoon and Regina, has just 1.2 per cent of its population receiving unemployment benefits.

Over the next five years, between 75,000 and 90,000 skilled workers will be needed to plug the labour shortage. Recruitment will mainly be in areas of advanced technology, construction, mineral exploration, agriculture and petroleum.

Permanent residency for Irish workers is being fast-tracked by the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Programme.

Such programmes are becoming more common across countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand who are not meeting labour market demands. They have honed in on English-speaking countries, such as Ireland, who are suffering from a scarcity of jobs and a surplus of workers.

Of the 275 jobs on offer next month, about 100 are for skilled positions in the construction sector.

“There is a good match between the jobs we have and the Irish people looking to emigrate, especially those with construction backgrounds,” says Michael Fougere, the president of the Construction Association.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/saskatchewan-looks-to-ireland-to-fill-its-labor-shortage-2012-2#ixzz1myrV3Ce1

Manitoba depends on immigration, but one expert argues the province's nominee program needs to cool down

By: Greg Di Cresce

Rodrigo Maglalang immigrated to Manitoba from the Philippines one year ago. Jacob Fehr Loewen left Bolivia five years ago to come here. Both brought families. Both found work. Both desire to become Canadian citizens. And both say they aren't interested in leaving Manitoba.

Accordioned in this way, their stories and experiences appear to echo many of the 13,089 immigrants who came to this province between 2005 and 2009 through Manitoba's Provincial Nominee Program. Both men used the program, which has played a pivotal role in doubling our rate of population growth from 2.6 per cent (between 2001-2006) to 5.2 per cent (2006-2011), according to the recently released 2011 federal census.

No other province has so successfully and strategically employed its nominee program, nor is any other province as dependent on it for its population growth. How this pathway to immigration has been implemented and experienced, particularly by newcomers, can shed light on the changing economic and social shape of our province, today and tomorrow.

-- -- --

Rodrigo Maglalang, 35, said he came for the "good life... a secure and happy life... to get a good job, to own a home of our own, to send our kids to university." Stories from relatives already settled in Winnipeg convinced him and his wife, Ana Liza, 36, that their family could attain this life in Manitoba.

His relatives also told Maglalang, an engineer of 12 years who worked at the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, that the best and quickest pathway to Canada was via Manitoba's nominee program.

"The program is impressive," said the father of two children, a boy, Rigo, 4, and a girl, Aubrey, 2. "It asks you to lay down all your cards, all your documents, and you either pass or you don't."

Maglalang downloaded and completed the immigration forms himself.

Relatives coached him and sponsored the application. Maglalang had to show that he would be financially prepared once he arrived; he secured the necessary $16,000 in settlement funds from a friend in New York.

On Feb. 1, 2011, two years from the start of this process, he and his family came to Winnipeg.

"A federal application would have taken six years," he said. "And I was also lucky that I didn't need IELTS (International English Language Testing System). It's a tough test. It's been a requirement of the program since at least June of last year."

Although Maglalang is grateful for the expediency of the process, his arrival in Winnipeg was by no means the end of the journey.

"A few weeks after we arrived, I registered with the Manitoba Start Entry Program," he said, referring to a program that provides newcomers with settlement orientation. "But the schedule they gave me was for 4:30 to 8:30 in the evening. The office is downtown. I'm a newcomer and they told me to avoid downtown at night."

So Maglalang searched by himself, finding most of the job openings online.

In March, after approximately 15 job interviews, he landed a temporary position as a sales associate at Home Depot. With his engineering credentials not recognized, and with no car or valid driver's licence, this was the best job he could get. Three months after that, he found an apartment for his family in the North End between McPhillips and Arlington streets.

"This neighbourhood is, like, 80 per cent from the Philippines. Rigo's school is 90 per cent," Maglalang said. "Next door is my cousin. The other door is a Filipina who married a Canadian. It feels like home."

It is these relatives and friends, as well as his church and an association of former workers at the phone company in the Philippines where he used to work, who have helped Maglalang adjust to Winnipeg.

They've provided what might be described as his "settlement services."

-- -- --

Unlike Maglalang, Jacob Fehr Loewen, 55, lived in Winkler as a temporary foreign worker before applying to the nominee program.

"Without that program, Jacob would not be sitting here today," said Tina Fehr Kehler, a distant relative of Loewen and the program co-ordinator of family services in Winkler for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) of Manitoba.

"No, I wouldn't be," said Loewen, who sat in Kehler's office, speaking sometimes in English, more often in Low German, which Kehler translated. After five years in southern Manitoba, he still preferred to be interviewed through a translator.

Loewen is from Bolivia, but his grandparents had originally settled in the Winkler area and he has many relatives here. While visiting in 2006 he was offered work at Morris Piglets Ltd. as a temporary foreign worker.

Kehler learned that Loewen wanted to stay in Winkler and have his wife, Anna, 55, and five children stay, too. Kehler explained to his employer that after working for six months, Loewen could apply for permanent residency through the nominee program. The employer, impressed with Loewen's husbandry skills, agreed to sponsor him.

Loewen and his family became nominees on Dec. 17, 2006.

Asked if he has ever considered leaving the province, Loewen replied: "Not yet."

"Maybe, if somebody offered me much money. But I've got relatives here and everything. There would have to be a church there, too."

His four sons have left, however, returning to Bolivia. Two of them went to get married. Loewen expects them to return.

"There's enough work here," he said. "Things are very much easier here also."

-- -- --

Nathaniel M. Lewis, a doctoral candidate in the department of geography at Queen's University, assessed the successes and challenges of the province's nominee program in the Canadian Public Policy Journal. Lewis concluded that the program, which began as a 1996 pilot program to bring garment workers to Winnipeg, has exhibited an almost frantic adaptability and elasticity in the service of boosting immigration numbers year upon year. This narrow focus has placed a strain on a host of settlement services, such as housing availability.

Additionally, the downloading of settlement services from the federal government to the provinces and from the provinces to ethnocultural networks, such as the MCC, has inculcated a more competitive, regionalized and fragmented system. It's brought, according to Lewis, a degree of "ethnocultural inequality in the selection and settlement experiences of applicants."

Kehler has a different spin: "I'd say it's more beneficial to newcomers to be helped by people who know the culture and the community than by a bureaucrat who's been given the job and has no connection. This is why [the province's approach to immigration] works."

Lewis didn't disagree, but he suggested a quota system, at least temporarily, might be in order to "cool down" a system obsessed with economic and population growth.

"Manitoba's policy has been constantly adapted to bring more and more immigrants and there has been more and more growing pains with each of those changes," he said. "What this all comes down to is what's good policy. Should you just throw something down and see what growing pains occur? Growing pains that are ultimately felt most by newcomers who live the policy? Or should there be a less ad hoc approach?"

While policymakers continue to wrestle with such macro issues, the new immigrants plot their own course. Near the end of 2011 Maglalang's job became permanent. His work schedule turned to steady days, Monday to Friday, affording his wife the chance to look for work at "a Tim Hortons or a 7-Eleven."

"I'd like to go back to school," Maglalang says. "But how can we do that and survive? How can I raise my kids? I have to pay the bills.

"Still, we've survived a year so why not another? Let's see what happens."

gdicresce@yahoo.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 19, 2012 A6

Alberta's golden goose, Ontario's dead duck

JEFFREY SIMPSON | Columnist profile | E-mail

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

A tale of two provinces unfolded this week: Albertans were told how wonderful their province’s future will be, Ontarians how difficult theirs will be.

Alberta, if the Conservatives’ budget can be believed, is rolling in dough. Government spending increased everywhere. Restraint was a word banished from the province’s vocabulary; spending will be up by almost 10 per cent in the next two years.

The Sustainability Fund was raided again: $1-billion over the past two fiscal years to help reduce the deficit. A budget surplus is forecast of almost $1-billion in 2013-2014, and more than $5-billion in 2014-2015. Amidst this cornucopia of spending and revenue, the Heritage Fund got a puny increase, further evidence of the province’s refusal to save for the future.

The munificence is built on only one product: non-renewable resource revenues. This year, about 25 per cent of government revenues will come from this source; in two years, if the budget forecasts are correct, the share will be about 30 per cent. By far the biggest revenue source among the non-renewables: the oil sands (or tar sands, if you wish). Royalties from bitumen in two years will raise almost $10-billion, just a shade below revenue from personal income taxes.

So when Alberta touts its low personal and corporate tax rates, and the lack of a sales tax – the Alberta Advantage – there’s only one reason: bitumen royalties, followed far behind by royalties from crude oil and natural gas, and sales of Crown land for exploration. No wonder it’s the abiding purpose of the Alberta government to do nothing that the oil industry doesn’t want, a position echoed by the Harper government in Ottawa.

Alberta’s good fortune and bright future contrasted with the scenarios for Ontario painted by economist Don Drummond and his fellow commissioners. Whereas Alberta’s budgets balloon courtesy of bitumen royalties, Mr. Drummond warned Ontarians that “we cannot count on robust economic growth to resolve our fiscal challenge.” Alberta thinks its economy might grow at 4 per cent a year; Mr. Drummond forecasts Ontario might grow at half that rate.

Alberta’s government will get bigger in spending and personnel; Mr. Drummond said Ontario’s must shrink. Alberta is heading for big surpluses, Ontario for large deficits – $30-billion in 2017-2018, Mr. Drummond reckons, if nothing is done. Alberta has no provincial debt; Ontario’s debt has reached a ratio of 35 per cent of the provincial economy and is going higher. Alberta has the highest bond rating; Moody’s Investor Service just knocked down Ontario’s from stable to negative.

Alberta’s spending per capita on government will go up; Ontario’s must decline an average 2.5 per cent a year for seven years – “a drop that is almost certainly unprecedented,” Mr. Drummond wrote.

Of course, no Ontario government will be that draconian, certainly not a minority Liberal government that has presided over years of big spending increases. Instead, Ontario will be raising more revenues from higher fees and taxes, thus widening the tax gap with Alberta.

Alberta, courtesy of its booming economy, is attracting a greater share of skilled immigrants; Ontario is getting a higher share of family-class immigrants and refugees, meaning it’ll take much longer to reach average Canadian wages.

Of course, Alberta pays into the country’s equalization scheme, as Ontario did for decades. Now, Ontario receives equalization payments. The way the system works, however, means Ontario gets a small amount from Ottawa, but Ontario taxpayers are actually sending more money to Ottawa than their government gets back in payments.

The drift of people and money to Alberta has been going on since the 1970s, but, for much of that period, Ontario held its own. With Alberta, it was the paymaster of equalization and, together, they were the country’s two golden geese.

All this changed in the past decade. Apart from a couple of drops in the price of oil, Alberta has boomed, whereas the hollowing out of manufacturing has stunted Ontario’s prospects. Alberta will see big government spending with low tax rates; Ontario will face government spending but higher tax rates.

Drummond Report: An excerpt on how Ontario got into this mess

FROM THE DRUMMOND COMMISSION REPORT

The roots of Ontario’s current fix lie in both the economy and in the province’s record of failing to keep growth in government spending in line with revenue growth. Ontarians have long been accustomed to their economy growing faster than the rest of the country. This was once true: in 15 of the 21 years from 1982 to 2002, Ontario grew faster than the national economy. But changing economic conditions have hit Ontario harder than other provinces over the past decade; in all nine years from 2003 to 2011, Ontario’s real economic growth was below that of the rest of the country.

The reasons are simple. Beginning in 2003, the Canadian dollar began a strong ascent that lifted it from the persistent lows of the previous decade (around 70 US cents) to the recent highs (around parity with the U.S. dollar) during the past four years, with only a brief dip in late 2008 and early 2009. This surge in the currency made Ontario’s exports more expensive for foreigners to buy and rendered the province’s exporters less competitive, while also making imports cheaper.

The impact on Ontario’s nominal GDP was huge. The contribution of trade to the economy is measured by net exports, the difference between what the province sells outside its boundaries and what it buys from other countries and provinces. Ontario’s net exports to other provinces, where there was no currency effect, remained relatively stable. But the contribution to GDP of net exports to other countries first vanished entirely and then began to detract from Ontario’s growth. The financial crisis and resulting U.S. recession, during which auto sales fell by about one-third, aggravated this trend. The province’s international trade surplus, which accounted for 4.3 per cent of GDP in the 1998–2002 period, disappeared by the middle of 2006 and was replaced by a trade deficit, which in the first three quarters of 2011 diminished nominal GDP by 7.5 per cent.

Ontario’s overall GDP per head relative to the rest of the country reflects the turnaround in trade. In 1998–2002, Ontario’s GDP per person was 14.1 per cent higher than the average for the other nine provinces and three territories; in the first three quarters of 2011, it was 6.5 per cent lower. Since 2006, Ontario’s GDP per person has been below the average for the rest of Canada.

Another way to look at the data is to track the growth of total GDP in current dollars, because that is the province’s tax base. Since 2002, the year before the dollar began its ascent, nominal GDP has grown by less than 33 per cent in Ontario, compared with almost 59 per cent in the rest of the country.

The recent recession was tougher on Ontario than on the rest of Canada. The province’s growth faltered in 2007, slowing while the rest of the country continued a brisk expansion. In 2008, Ontario’s real GDP fell during the winter (the first quarter) and, aside from a small uptick that spring, continued to shrink until growth resumed in the summer of 2009 (the third quarter) — five quarters of contraction over a period of six quarters. Elsewhere in Canada, the recession did not begin until the final quarter of 2008 and then lasted only three quarters in total. From peak to trough, Ontario lost 5.0 per cent of its GDP; the rest of the country lost only 3.7 per cent. Since the low point in the second quarter of 2009, the Canadian economy as a whole has recorded respectable real growth. But in the two years through the third quarter of 2011, Ontario lagged the rest of the country, with 5.8 per cent growth compared with 7.4 per cent elsewhere.

The human cost of this lacklustre performance shows up in the employment picture, where the old verities of a labour market in which Ontario always outshone the rest of Canada have been replaced by new patterns:

Ontario’s unemployment rate, once reliably lower than the national average, has been above the national rate for over five years now and was generally higher than the jobless rate in Quebec from the beginning of 2009 through the third quarter of 2011. In 2009 and 2010, the Ontario unemployment rate was 0.7 percentage point higher than the national rate; the gap narrowed in 2011, when the Ontario rate was 7.8 per cent, while the Canadian rate was 7.5 per cent.

The employment rate, perhaps the best measure of the health of the labour market, could once be counted on to be at least three percentage points higher than the national average. But since 2008, it has been lower than the national rate. In 2011, 61.6 per cent of working-age Ontarians had a job, compared with 61.8 per cent nationally. The Ontario rate is down 2.1 percentage points from the most recent peak in 2003 and 2004. Such a difference translates into about 229,000 jobs.

The decline of factory employment — traditionally a source of well-paid jobs — as a share of total employment accelerated in the past decade. Such jobs have been growing steadily less important in all developed countries, a consequence of strong productivity gains relative to other sectors of the economy and of outsourcing manufacturing activity to lower-wage Asian countries. In 1976, manufacturing accounted for 23.2 per cent of all Ontario jobs; this fell to 18.2 per cent in 2002 after recovering from an even lower reading during the recession of the early 1990s. Through the rest of the latest decade, as the dollar climbed and the auto industry faded, manufacturing’s share of employment has slid rapidly — to 11.8 per cent in 2010 and 2011.

Not surprisingly, incomes have also been affected. In the 1980s, real personal income per capita — that is, average personal income per person adjusted for increases in the implicit price index for all consumer spending — grew by an average of 1.9 per cent annually in Ontario, compared with 1.4 per cent in the rest of the country and 1.6 per cent nationally. Those were the days when Ontario was substantially richer than other parts of Canada. In the second half of the 1980s, when the Ontario economy was booming and other provinces were struggling with low prices for oil and other resources, Ontario’s average personal income was more than 20 per cent higher than the average in the rest of Canada. This changed dramatically after 1990. In both the 1990s and in the period from 2000 to 2010, Ontario’s real personal income per capita grew at only about half the rate that it did in the rest of Canada. In the period from 1990 to 2000, the average annual growth rates were 0.4 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively; between 2000 and 2011,4 they were 1.0 per cent and 2.0 per cent. By the third quarter of 2011, this extended period of slow growth relative to other regions had left the average Ontario income, in current dollars, 0.5 per cent lower than incomes in the rest of Canada.

Can we expect better in the future? Barring another major global financial or economic crisis, a caveat that on some days feels shaky, Ontario and Canada will continue to recover from the recession and embark on a new expansion. But for Ontario, future growth will almost certainly be slower than it has been in the past. This has not been a normal business cycle for the world economy, one in which recession is usually followed by a rapid return to full capacity and further growth beyond that. It has been one set in motion by a financial crisis. As Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney noted recently, “… history teaches that recessions involving financial crises tend to be more severe and have recoveries that take twice as long.”

Ontario also faces further structural changes. Manufacturing, once the vibrant heart of the Ontario economy, has for years been dwindling as a share of the province’s output and employment base. This is true in most of the developed world as factory work continues to migrate to low-cost Asia. In addition, the higher dollar continues to make it harder for Ontario to compete in world markets, especially in the United States, the province’s main external market. The U.S. is choking on public and private debt and faces years of slow growth as governments and individuals work off their excess borrowing. At the same time, U.S. auto sales, though up from their low point, will take many years to fully recover from a precipitous decline between 2007 and 2009. Ontario’s auto industry has also bounced back from its even steeper drop in production during those years, but it remains much diminished, perhaps permanently. Ontario industry, which has benefited for decades from plentiful electricity at subsidized rates, faces much higher power prices, made necessary by the imperative to replace essential infrastructure after years of neglect.

There is another barrier to income growth: almost all the growth in Ontario’s working-age population and labour force will come from immigration, but the incomes of recent immigrants have been well below those of workers who were born in Canada or arrived earlier. The average wage of recent immigrants (those who have been here for five years or less) was only about 76 per cent that of Canadian-born workers in 2010, while immigrants who have been here for 5 to 10 years had an average wage that was 85 per cent that of Canadian-born workers. Those with over 10 years in Canada had wages comparable to Canadian-born workers. Since more than two-thirds of future jobs will require some form of post-secondary education, it is particularly distressing that immigrants with university degrees are having such a difficult time integrating into the workforce. In 2005, recent immigrants with a university degree had median earnings of only $24,636, less than half the $51,656 earned by those with degrees who were born in Canada. The $27,020 gap was wider than it had been in 1995.5

In short, we cannot count on robust economic growth alone to resolve our difficult fiscal challenges

Ontario immigration hobbled by Ottawa

John Ivison, National Post · Feb. 17, 2012 | Last Updated: Feb. 17, 2012 3:06 AM ET

Attacking Dalton McGuinty's Liberals is a waste of time - they've done such a good job themselves. Still, when it comes to making a mess of Ontario's finances, they've had some help from Ottawa.

Take immigration policy. As the Drummond report on reforming Ontario's public services makes clear, the federal government's immigration programs have undermined Mr. McGuinty's attempts to attract skilled workers to his province, in favour of guiding them westward.

The report, released Wednesday, emphasizes how important immigration is to Ontario - it will account for all net growth in the working age population in the forseeable future. Ontario is still the top destination for immigrants to Canada. Yet that dominance is slipping - in 2010, Ontario's share of new immigrants was 52%, down from 64% just five years before.

More worryingly for Mr. McGuinty is the mix of those immigrants - a high number of refugees and family-class migrants, and fewer skilled workers.

The province has long received the majority of refugees who arrive in Canada - 65% in 2010. This costs Ontario taxpayers millions, since they are not eligible for federally funded services until their claims are settled.

At the same time, Ontario is receiving fewer of the skilled workers needed to help drag the province out of its fiscal funk.

For years, the federal skilled worker (FSW) program was geared toward making Ontario the destination of choice for the high-priority migrants everyone wanted to attract. In 2001, Ontario attracted 89,078 workers through the FSW program; in 2010, that number was just 53,885.

This hasn't happened just because new arrivals decide they prefer the prospect of Regina in January over what is laughingly referred to as winter in Toronto. It has happened because the federal government has introduced new rules to ensure a flow of skilled workers heads to the resourcerich Western provinces.

A quick scan down the list of the 29 job descriptions prized by Ottawa as the skilled occupations Canada needs, confirms why those workers are not coming to Ontario - the requirement is for mining engineers, geological engineers, petroleum engineers and so on. The Conservative government has put a cap on the number of skilled workers coming into Canada, in order to clear a six-year backlog, but Ontario's fiscal situation is so dire that the feds should level the playing field - or even tilt it in the province's favour.

Before anyone begins howling that no province should be given special treatment, consider that Quebec receives nearly double the rest of Canada when it comes to immigrant settlement and language services - $5,800 per head, compared to $3,200 in the rest of Canada.

In addition, British Columbia and Manitoba have been granted devolved powers when it comes to designing and administering their settlement and language programs - powers for which Ontario has long lobbied. As the Drummond report concluded: "Ontario should push for greater policy control and full funding support for immigrant settlement. This will allow the province to reduce duplication and help immigrants get services they need, when they need them."

Another policy initiative where Ontario is at a disadvantage is the provincial nominee program that allows provinces to directly recruit workers to their province, at which point the feds fast-track the application. Ontario has come late to this party and has been allocated just 1,000 spots, compared to 5,000 or so for Manitoba. "Expanding the provincial nominee program could help the province partially offset the recent decline in the number of economic migrants," the Drummond report concluded.

Jason Kenney, the Immigration Minister, threw Mr. McGuinty a bone Thursday, by introducing refugee reforms that should save the province an estimated $1-billion over five years, by reducing the time that bogus refugee claimants from countries in the European Union are able to game the Canadian system. The new rules should knock two and half years off the time claimants are able to claim provincially funded social benefits.

But Mr. Kenney could do more. The sheer size of the province means that as goes Ontario, so goes the nation. The jobs are few and far between at the moment, but labour shortages will start to appear as the Boomers start retiring. Ontario needs once again to become a magnet for the best migrants the world has to offer, and the federal government has a role to play in making that happen.

JIVISON@NATIONALPOST.COM

Tories say new refugee bill will make it easier to deal with bogus claims

OTTAWA—The federal government is overhauling Canada’s overloaded and “broken” refugee system to put questionable refugee claimants on a fast-track back to their homelands.

But immigration experts are sounding the alarm, warning that legitimate refugees risk being tossed out, too, in the government’s rush to process applications and cut a backlog of 42,000 people.

And they say the changes put too much power in the hands of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to decide which countries are deemed safe or not around the globe.

Kenney tabled legislation Thursday meant to streamline the refugee process and in particular target a growing number of “bogus” claimants from Europe.

“To be blunt, Canada’s asylum system is broken,” Kenney said.

“The growing number of bogus claims from European Union democracies is only exacerbating the problem. Too many tax dollars are spent on people who do not need our protection,” he told a news conference Thursday.

These latest reforms comes less than two years after the Conservatives did an overhaul of the refugee system, changes that Kenney lauded back then as a “win-win.”

But now the Conservatives are using their majority muscle to roll back concessions made at that time under pressure from the opposition parties in the minority Parliament.

Kenney denied that he was playing a “political game,” and said instead that the government needed new tools to rebuff the influx of claims from Europe.

“We have a serious problem. We are facing a large wave of unfounded asylum claims coming from the European Union in particular,” Kenney said.

Under the changes, Canada will create a list of safe countries of origin, countries considered capable of providing state protection to its citizens.

Refugees from those countries will be fast-tracked through the process — in just 45 days, down from 1,000 days now — with a speedy hearing and they’ll be denied recourse to appeal a negative decision to the refugee appeal division.

And while they’ll be able to still appeal a denial to the Federal Court, no longer will they remain in Canada during that legal process.

“We are sending a message today,” Kenney said. “If you do not need Canada’s protection, we will give you access to our fair asylum system quickly and then send you home quickly.

“You will not be allowed to remain in Canada for years using endless appeals at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.”

Canada now gets more refugee applicants from Europe than Asia and Africa. In the crosshairs are refugee applicants from countries in Europe, notably Hungary, which immigration officials argue are democratic and are seen to have robust justice systems.

The package of changes also bundles in the Tories’ previous human smuggling bill, with one key change — minors under the age of 16 caught up in a smuggling operation will not be kept in detention.

As well, the government wants to require visa applicants to provide biometric data — fingerprints and a digital photograph — moves that Kenney said would “substantially improve immigration security.”

NDP MP Don Davies condemned the changes to the refugee system, calling it a “serious step backwards” from the legislation proposed in 2010.

“This bill once again puts too much power in the hands of the minister,” said Davies, noting that Kenney will have the “sole” power to deem which countries safe or not.

“You will see people who are bona fide refugees be returned to countries where they face persecution, maybe even death,” Davies said.

Former Immigration and Refugee Board chair Peter Showler called the new bill “bad news,” saying that the notion of declaring a country “safe” is dangerous because that safety is not necessarily for everyone.

He said the 2010 legislation required that independent human rights experts had to be consulted to ensure the minister didn’t “arbitrarily” designate a country as safe or not.

“This new bill removes those protections. There is a danger that countries will be designated by the minister for political expediency rather than legitimate protection concerns,” said Showler, now a University of Ottawa law professor.

Lorne Waldman, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, said lawyers, advocates and asylum seekers themselves appreciate a fast refugee determination system, but not at the expense of fairness.

He said measures in the 2010 legislation to ensure a “fair and efficient” system have been removed. The refugee lawyers’ association does not rule out any legal challenge to the changes.

While many countries may seem “safe,” there can be serious problems of persecution, discrimination and violence against victims of domestic abuse, ethnic minorities or gays and lesbians, whom the state may fail to protect, said Rob Shropshire, acting executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

“The designation of a safe country is at the sole discretion of the immigration minister. It makes it dangerously vulnerable to political considerations, rather than ensuring a fair and independent decision about who is a refugee,” said Shropshire.

Tories unveil bill to thwart 'bogus' refugees

The Tories have introduced a bill that will once again attempt to deter “bogus refugees” from applying to Canada.

The new bill, Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, will go back on many of the changes the Conservatives were forced to make under a minority government in their previous attempt to reform the asylum system in 2010.

To be blunt, Canada's refugee system is broken," said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. "Too many tax dollars are spent on bogus refugees."

The legislation would crack down on human-smugglers and grant authorities the ability to collect biometric data from people entering Canada on a visitor visa, work permit or study visa.

Mr. Kenney said the biometrics would be phased in starting in 2013 for travellers from high-risk countries and then expanded globally.

In particular, the government wants to limit the number of claims for the European Union, of which they say 95 per cent were withdrawn, rejected or abandoned and cost taxpayers $170 million.

Bill C-31, tabled in the House of Commons Thursday, will toughen measures taken in the earlier bill - Balanced Refugee Reform Act - which received royal assent in June 2011.

“It has become clear there are gaps in the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and we need stronger measures that are closer to the original refugee bill,” said Mr. Kenney.

Under the new bill, the immigration minister would have the power to place countries on the safe country list without the benefit of a committee that was to include human-rights experts -- a change the official opposition says politicizes a system that should be judicial.

'It's a serious step backward," said NDP critic Don Davies. "This minister didn't even implement Bill C-11," he said, adding it's been a mere 20 months since the older bill received royal assent. "How he can say the system doesn't work when he didn't give it a chance is beyond me."

Mr. Kenney said that with the previous act and today's legislation, provinces and territories can expect to save in the range of $1.65 billion over five years in social assistance and education costs.