Alberta Crackdown on Employment Agencies: Could Atlantic Canada Be Next?

Welcome to Bienvenue à Nova Scotia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

September 21, 2012
Written by Lana MacLellan

Alberta is cracking down on unscrupulous provincial employment agencies with some of the strictest rules to date in Canada.

New regulations under Alberta’s Immigration Act came into effect on September 1st and are primarily designed to protect temporary foreign workers.  However, they also protect any worker who uses and employment agency in Alberta. They build on existing rules that require employment agencies to be licensed, and prohibit them from charging employees a fee to find a job.

Most significantly, the new regulations require employment agencies to:

Keep better records;
Operate under a licensed name;
Register agents; and
Have written contracts with job seekers.
In addition, agencies recruiting internationally will be required to provide the government with a $25,000 security.

The new regulations also make it illegal to mislead temporary foreign workers about their chances of becoming permanent residents or Canadian citizens. Agencies cannot mislead workers about their rights, intimidate or threaten them, ask for a performance bond, or pressure them to lie to Canadian officials.

Under the Fair Trading Act, companies that break the rules can expect to be fined up to $100,000, repay up to three times the profits earned in an offense, and/or forfeit the $25,000 security.

So why should employers in Atlantic Canada pay attention to what is happening in Alberta? Because it may very well be an indication of new rules and regulations that could be headed our way.

More and more Canadian provinces are implementing new rules for employment agencies and employers recruiting overseas that aim to protect temporary foreign workers. Manitoba was the first province to enact this type of legislation in April 2009 with the introduction of the Worker Recruitment and Protection Act (WRPA). Under WRPA, all Manitoba employers wanting to recruit temporary foreign workers are first required to register with the province and anyone engaged in foreign worker recruitment, including agencies, is required to obtain a license from the province. Recruiters must provide an irrevocable letter of credit in the amount of $10,000 and employers and recruiters are prohibited from charging fees from foreign workers to find them work. Fines for breaching obligations under WRPA are as high as $25,000 to $50,000.

Variations on the Manitoba model have been implemented by British Columbia and Alberta, and will soon be implemented in Nova Scotia though Bill 53, which makes a series of amendments to the Labour Standards Code. The details of the Nova Scotia regime have yet to finalized, however, they will likely be based on the Manitoba model.

We anticipate draft regulations will go to Cabinet sometime this fall, and be proclaimed shortly after. It appears the new regulations will require every employer who recruits foreign workers to register with the province. The registration process is designed to be as facilitative as possible for employers, and will likely be done online without a fee. In addition, recruiters will be required to have a license to recruit Nova Scotian employers, whether the recruiter is based in Nova Scotia, elsewhere in Canada, or overseas. A nominal fee will be charged for the license and a security will be required. Again, the details of this process will not be known until the regulations are before Cabinet later this fall.  However it seems the license fee will be approximately $100 and the security will be roughly $5000. After the registration and licensing regimes are introduced, there will be a transition period before each becomes a requirement for employers and recruiters.

These new regulations in Nova Scotia will create additional immigration hurdles for prospective and current employers of foreign workers. Employers that recruit and hire foreign workers must ensure they are registered and that they only work with licensed recruiters. Employers must comply with provincial laws to remain eligible to hire foreign workers and avoid fines.

Although Nova Scotia is currently the only Atlantic province with this type of legislation in the works, employers in other provinces may want to turn their attention to the new changes. Given the rate at which provinces across Canada are implementing similar rules, it may be just a matter of time before New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador develop their own provincial regimes.

 Source: http://www.stewartmckelveyblogs.com/HRLaw/alberta-crackdown-on-employment-agencies-could-atlantic-canada-be-next/

Average Canadian family paying more than $11,000 per year for public health care insurance

English: Canadian per capita health care spending by age group in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CALGARY, AB—An average Canadian family of two adults and two children will pay about $11,400 in taxes for Canada’s so-called “free” health care in 2012, calculates a new report from the Fraser Institute, Canada's leading public policy think-tank.

The report, The Price of Public Health Care Insurance: 2012 Edition, calculates the amount of taxes an average family pays to all levels of government in a year and the percentage of the total tax bill that goes towards public health care insurance.

By estimating the average income for six types of Canadian families, the report breaks down how much money each will contribute to public health care insurance in 2012:

A family of two parents with an average income of $106,808 and one child will pay $10,623.
A family of two parents with an average income of $113,226 and two children will pay $11,401.
A family of one parent with an average income of $46,134 and one child will pay $3,418.
A family of one parent with an average income of $50,964 and two children will pay $3,429.
A family of two adults with an average income of $96,458 and no children living at home will pay $11,358.
Unattached individuals earning an average income of $37,812 will pay approximately $3,707 for public health insurance.
"There’s a widespread belief that health care is free in Canada. It’s not; our tax dollars cover the cost of it. But the way we pay for health care disguises exactly how much public health care insurance costs Canadian families and how that cost is increasing over time," said Nadeem Esmail, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-author of the report.

The report notes that since 2002, the cost of health care insurance for the average Canadian family increased by 59.8 per cent before inflation. By way of comparison, the cost of public health care increased more than twice as fast as the cost of shelter, roughly four times as fast as the cost of food, and more than five times as fast as the cost of clothing.

"We also found that the cost of public health care insurance grew 1.6 times faster than the average income over the decade," Esmail said.

In addition, the report calculates that the 10 per cent of Canadian families with the lowest incomes (less than $12,500) will pay an average of about $487 for public health care insurance in 2012. The 10 per cent of families earning an average income of $55,271 will pay $5,285, while families among the top 10 per cent of income earners will pay $32,628 towards public health care insurance this year.

"With a more precise estimate of what they really pay for health care on a personal level, Canadians will be in a better position to judge whether they are getting a good return on the money they spend on health care," Esmail said.

Source: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/news/display.aspx?id=18859

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Venture capitalists take lead role in immigrant visas

Image via CrunchBase

WALLACE IMMEN
The Globe and Mail


Venture capitalists are eager to become overseas scouts to lure potential technology stars to Canada as part of the federal government’s plan to fast-track immigration of promising entrepreneurs.

A statement from the immigration ministry last week said a Startup Visa program launching next year would set aside as many as 2,750 immigration places for innovators with investment backing from Canadian venture capitalists. But in an interview with The Globe and Mail, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney cautioned that he doesn’t want to he held to that number.


“I would be surprised if we get a few dozen entrants the first year,” Mr. Kenney said. “We’re starting this as pilot program. But if it works and picks up momentum, I can easily see hundreds of immigrants a year coming through this program.”

The federal government put a moratorium on new entrepreneur visas more than a year ago because the program had an eight-year backlog of applicants, and the vast majority of the 1,000 immigrants admitted each year opened small family businesses that didn’t create new jobs. A major change to the system is that applicants will have to be sponsored by Canadian venture capital or angel investor groups and be identified as having the potential to employ several Canadians in the first year of operation.

Immigrant entrepreneurs must secure an investment from the sponsoring fund, though the minimum amount has not yet been set, Mr. Kenney said.

The new program is slated to launch in January, and it will green-light applications at “lightening speed” compared with the earlier program, “because it will be starting without a backlog and it’s a priority for us. I think the timing for approval will be at most a few months,” Mr. Kenney said.

The program was developed through a series of consultations this summer between Ottawa and representatives from more than 20 startup accelerator programs, venture capitalists and angel investors. “There were concerns about ensuring it is not abused,” said Boris Wertz, who was in on the discussions and is principal and founder of Version One Ventures and the GrowLab accelerator in Vancouver. “But I think in general there is a great optimism among government officials and the entrepreneur community that this can provide a much better basis to attract entrepreneurs to start business in Canada.”

Richard Remillard executive director of Canadian Venture Capital Association in Ottawa, said his members “are looking to find the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, and that person could be in Bangalore or Singapore.”

The association – Canada’s largest, with 160 funds as members – was also involved in consultations with the ministry. About 80 of CVCA’s member companies invest in overseas startups, representing about 100 overseas investments a year. That compares with about 400 investments in Canada, he said.

“We’re looking at having to work more closely than before with Canadian offices abroad and trade commissions and consul-general offices. As awareness of this program spreads, we’ll look at those offices abroad as part of the scouting system for the industry.” Mr. Remillard explained.

The immigration ministry will still have to vet all Startup Visa requests like other immigration applications, Mr. Kenney said. “The visa will require security and medical checks and there may be some other criteria we set up, like a minimal language requirement. There’s no point in bringing people here to start a business if they speak zero English or French.”

Mr. Kenney said he wants to begin promoting the program overseas to get a jump on the United States, which is also planning to launch a startup visa program.

That plan is an amendment to the U.S. Immigration Act that would allow entrepreneurs sponsored by a qualified investor who invests at least $100,000 to get a conditional permit to come to the country to set up shop. The temporary permit would become permanent after two years if the business generates at least $500,000 and employs at least five people. The visa plan has been put on hold due to the leadup to the next U.S. election.

“We want to say, ‘look, the United States may have a dysfunctional immigration system, but Canada is open for business,’” Mr. Kenney said.

Canada’s plan is admirable, but there needs to be a bigger push toward implementation, says Alan Diner, partner and immigration practice leader at Baker McKenzie, who was a founder of the Ontario provincial nominee program. “The minister is justified in changing the program to find and bring in young entrepreneurs who can create growth and jobs rather than just open restaurants or laundromats,” he said. “But let’s get the program running and up to speed as fast as possible, because otherwise these young innovators will end up going to another country to set up their businesses.”

He said he still has doubts that Canada has enough venture capitalists to generate hundreds of new entrepreneur immigrants a year. “And I’m not aware that there are big bundles of capital that are not going to use.”

But Mr. Remillard said venture capital firms are hoping to find higher quality candidates for investment. “Our focus in the discussions was our role to look at the investment merits of the entrepreneurs. The same rigour with which our folks do their due diligence to potential investments will get applied to this new program,” he said.

And the advantage is they will do their innovation and hiring in Canada rather than overseas, he explained.

“I think Canada has a huge power of attraction now,” Mr. Remillard said. “We can offer political stability, an economy that’s market friendly. In a world where financial eruptions can occur, Canada is looking pretty good as an environment for newcomers to start a business.”

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