Canada govt to roll out new immigration regime
Employers will decide who comes to Canada, Kenney says
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Jason Kenney has had it with incremental measures.
“It frustrates the hell out of me,” the Immigration Minister told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board on Wednesday. “We're bringing hundreds of thousands of people into the country to end up, many of them, unemployed or underemployed in an economy where there are acute labour shortages.”
That’s how he justifies the federal Conservatives’ drastic plans for immigration – shifts in who comes here, and how, that the government is now pushing more urgently than before. Ottawa wants to transform the immigration system within a year and a half to allow international companies and Canadian professional organizations to assess the education and credentials of any would-be newcomer. Under the new system, employers, not bureaucrats, will decide who comes to Canada.
“Employers are going to do a much better job at selection than a passive bureaucracy,” he said, “because they can’t afford to recruit people to come to Canada who can’t work at their skill level on arrival.”
But to create the 21st century immigration system that he says Canada lacks, Mr. Kenney contends that the country first needs to deal with a staggering backlog. Last week, Ottawa announced that hundreds of thousands of people who have waited for years have been bumped from the skilled-worker application list. The move has appalled critics, prompting threats of class action lawsuits from immigration lawyers. But Mr. Kenney insists the plan, if harsh, is a lawful and necessary step to purge the immigration system and get it working again.
“We could continue with this incremental approach to backlog reduction and eventually by about 2018 we would get to a working inventory. By returning these applications now we’ll get to the working inventory in about 18 months’ time,” he said.
Mr. Kenney was also clear that implementing his idea of immigration means sending an unambiguous message about what he considers Canadian values – and that goes for people who want to take their citizenship oath wearing the niqab
“I'm not saying that wearing a niqab is barbaric. I am saying that the whole citizenship process is an opportunity for us to instill in people a sense of Canadian – read broadly, western liberal democratic – values, including the equality of men and women,” he said. “And I think most of us would regard a … tribal practice forcing women to cover their faces illiberal.”
Transforming Canada’s immigration system is a good idea, says Maytree Foundation
“He's imagining a system that we should have had 10 years ago.”
Ms. Omidvar said she’s concerned, however, that a new emphasis on language skills will exclude the immigrants from emerging markets that Canada needs most. And, she argues, focusing on a perfect future immigration system will leave behind those newcomers who are already here, and struggling.
“The government needs to invest more resources in internships, in mentoring, in bridge training programs,” she said. “All this talk about fixing the system for the future takes our eyes off the ball.”
Mr. Kenney’s plan to ensure Canada primarily brings in people who can do well here and help the economy is a way to “stop the madness,” as he puts it, of having chronically underemployed immigrants when employers across the country face severe labour shortages. And he said it will allow Canada to better compete for the world's top talent up against not only Australia and New Zealand – “we’ve been letting them eat our lunch on this,” Mr. Kenney said – but also emerging powerhouses such as Brazil.
Critics have charged that the federal Conservatives’ approach is xenophobic, draconian or too market-driven. But Mr. Kenney argues Canada’s doing people a disservice by bringing them without a shot at a decent job.
“To string them along for years as they get stuck in survival jobs, as their skills deteriorate and they deplete their savings, is almost inhumane.”
One fundamental challenge is Canada’s balkanized system of professional credentials.
It’s tough to ensure the engineers coming to Canada meet the Canadian definition of “engineer,” Mr. Kenney said, when there isn't one – when each province has its own professional body and system of evaluating qualifications.
In January, 2009, the provinces agreed to sit down and hash out these differences. Three years and $50-million later, nine professions have come up with matching processes. Another six are in the works. Mr. Kenney’s ultimate goal is to set up national groups to assess immigrants’ credentials before they show up. At the same time, he’s about to put out a call for companies to do a similar pre-assessment of international education.
“Dropping immigrants into our labour market to sink or swim, even if they really don’t have a reasonable shot at getting their licence, it’s a waste of human capital. It’s an opportunity cost for our economy,” he says. “So by creating a better qualified pool of prospective immigrants who are going to have much higher rates of success in getting their licenses, they will all do much better.”
Aging population to impact economy: BoC
By Claire Sibonney
TORONTO – The aging of Canada’s population will put upward pressure on wages as the pool of available workers shrinks, and global aging might over time lead to lower interest rates, Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Jean Boivin said on Wednesday.
Aging will also affect the potential of the economy, meaning the level of activity at which it can operate without inflationary pressures, and this is something the Bank of Canada needs to assess, he said.
The high level of household debt in the country makes it even more crucial that individuals adjust their savings behaviour and plan over a longer horizon, he said in a speech in Toronto.
“As our society ages, we can either accept a lower standard of living or we can try to be proactive and adjust … The stakes are high and we cannot afford to ignore them,” Mr. Boivin said.
“There is no free lunch in that context ; something will have to give and someone will have to pick up the tab, so the least we can do is accept this fact and ensure that the bill remains small and that the burden is shared fairly.”
The mechanism for upward pressure on wages would be that with relatively fewer people left in the work force, employers will compete to attract talent.
Taken in isolation, he said, the scarcity of labour relative to capital could be expected to lead to higher wages and lower returns on capital in advanced economies, and eventually to persistently lower global interest rates.
Improved productivity, if any, would offset the downward pressure on rates.
But Canada’s tepid growth of productivity and potential output has preoccupied the central bank. Mr. Boivin said the latest estimate was for Canada’s potential output to grow by 2.2% in 2014, and without the decline in working age population it would be 0.2 percentage points higher.
“Aging is projected to continue to subtract from potential output growth until the end of the current decade,” he said.
He said Canada faced three options to avoid drastic declines in living standards or shifting too much burden on the next generations: more work, greater productivity and higher savings.
Without endorsing last week’s federal budget, he said policy steps could foster the needed adjustments and this was the objective of some of the measures in the budget.
The budget raised to 67 from 65 the age of eligibility for payments to seniors under its Old Age Security program, and hiked the age of retirement to 65 from 60 for new federal employees, starting next year.
Mr. Boivin also highlighted the important contribution of immigration to dealing with the aging problem. The budget announced plans to eliminate a backlog of stale applications by foreign skilled workers so that immigrants whose skills are in greater current demand can enter Canada faster.
He said a key challenge was to remove the barriers that keep educated and skilled immigrants from working in their fields.
© Thomson Reuters 2012
Scotiabank Turns to Immigrants to Boost Canadian Banking
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| Bank of Nova Scotia Building, now incorporated into the Scotia Plaza office complex, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third- largest bank, plans to increase the share of banking services it offers for newcomers to the country, said Anatol von Hahn, the lender’s group head of domestic banking.
“Emigrating India, China or Mexico, we try to get you before you arrive to get you to open some of your banking services,” von Hahn said yesterday during an interview in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where the Toronto-based bank is holding its annual meeting.
By gaining a larger share of immigrants, which von Hahn said enter Canada at a rate about 250,000 per year, Scotiabank can increase its “share of wallet” for services such as mortgages and credit cards. Von Hahn estimates the bank has a 17 percent to 18 percent share of newcomers to Canada, with the biggest “opportunity” to expand being with skilled workers who come to Canada for a short period.
“The bigger objective is, we need to get more customers through the front door so that we can provide them with our services,” said von Hahn, who has been with Scotiabank since 1984. “That’s of course a very hard thing to do in a mature market when most of your customers are already banked, and it’s difficult to switch them.”
Domestic banking accounted for 32 percent of the lender’s C$5.3 billion ($5.35 billion) in record net income last year, and von Hahn’s unit was the biggest contributor to profit. The lender uses its moniker of being “Canada’s most international bank,” with operations in more than 50 countries, as a starting point to seek out new clients before they move to Canada.
Scotiabank often receives referrals from immigration consultants in the countries it does business in for clients moving to Canada. The bank also has a three-person branch inside Mexico’s Canadian embassy, where newcomers to Canada often visit and explore banking relationships before they leave the country, von Hahn said.
In addition, Scotiabank plans to bolster domestic banking profit by expanding auto lending and small banking businesses, von Hahn said.
“There’s a lot more in the small business segment where we can continue to grow,” said von Hahn, who has worked for the bank in Chile, Argentina and Mexico. “I think that’s an area you’ll continue to see us grow in.”
New report brings small business to the immigration conversation
Published: Tuesday, Apr. 3, 2012 - 8:09 am
TORONTO, April 3, 2012 -- /PRNewswire/ - A new report released by ALLIES highlights new ways to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to hire skilled immigrants.
The report notes that SMEs face skills and labour shortages, and compete with larger businesses for skilled talent. However, due to a lack of HR personnel and resources, SMEs are underutilizing the skills and talents of immigrants in the workforce.
To address this, the report recommends:
- Programs and services to SMEs should be marketed and delivered through individuals and organizations that SMEs trust, such as accountants, industry and professional associations, and peers;
- That government and others provide more services to SMEs that facilitate workplace integration - all while making sure that their interactions with small business are simple, straightforward and fast; and
- A public awareness and media campaign with national and local mainstream media to promote the benefits of hiring skilled immigrants in Canada.
"The potential impact of engaging SMEs in immigrant employment strategies can have significant positive outcomes for local labour markets across different sectors and regions," says Ratna Omidvar, president of Maytree. "In the private sector alone, SMEs employ 6.7 million Canadians. Effectively engaging SMEs will an enormous effect on SMEs, skilled immigrants, and on the Canadian economy."
This report highlights findings of a year-long study of new, innovative and promising initiatives that can help connect SMEs with the skilled immigrant labour pool. The findings draw on the input of nearly 300 SMEs from five Canadian cities, individual interviews, and an online survey conducted by the Conference Board of Canada. Earlier findings resulting from a review of policies and programs aimed at SMEs, and interviews with more than 50 stakeholders Canada-wide, were summarized in an interim report published in October 2011.
To download the report, visit the ALLIES website at http://alliescanada.ca/sme.
Supportive quotes:
"Canada's future success depends on the ability of SMEs to take advantage of global opportunities. We know that the underemployment of highly skilled immigrants is costing the Canadian economy. Governments and communities can use some of these strategies to improve SMEs' ability to access highly skilled immigrant employees." - Anne Golden, President & Chief Executive Officer, Conference Board of Canada
"This report shines a light on the significance of SMEs on our economy, and the challenges they can face in recruiting top talent. Ontario's CGAs understand the needs of the SME sector and we are pleased that this research illustrates how accounting professionals can help SMEs thrive in an ever-increasingly competitive economy." - Doug Brooks, FCGA, CEO, Certified General Accountants of Ontario
"Canada is facing a skills crisis, and as the labour market tightens, access to skilled foreign-trained workers will be essential to the success of Canadian SMEs." - Honourable Perrin Beatty, President & Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies) supports local efforts in Canadian cities to successfully adapt and implement programs that further the suitable employment of skilled immigrants. The project is jointly funded by Maytree and The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. http://www.alliescanada.ca.
Global Talent for SMEs is funded in part by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
SOURCE Maytree Foundation
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