Immigration Canada

Harper wants end of Mexican visa, after Canada fixes immigration law

By Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press | November 28, 2012

OTTAWA - The end of a much-maligned visa for Mexican travellers to Canada would be a good thing for both North American countries, Prime Minister Stephen Harper affirmed Wednesday.

Harper offered his government's most conciliatory view to the visa that it imposed in 2009 to stop an influx of bogus refugee claimants. It came after his Parliament Hill meeting with Mexico's president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto.

Mexico was stung by the visa requirement, viewing it as heavy-handed and unexpected.

"We would ultimately like to see visa-free travel with Mexico," Harper said at a joint news conference, standing next to the new, young telegenic Mexican leader, who will be sworn in Saturday as president.

But first, the government is working to change its immigration system first so there is not a recurrence of past problems, Harper added.

"We have changed laws. We're in the process of changing our systems," said Harper.

It would be in the interest of both countries to get rid of the visa, he added.

Pena Nieto acknowledged the Canadian rationale for imposing the visa, breaking with the harder line against it taken by his predecessor Felipe Calderon, who is completing the single six-year term that Mexico's constitution allows.

"As Mr. Harper said, this is the result of excessive refugee claims that were perhaps unfounded — citizens of our country who claimed refugee status, which got them access to social security benefits in this country."

Pena Nieto said he asked about the Canadian legislative changes during his meeting with Harper. "I do hope that once the legislation is approved in the near future we will be able to avoid this requirement."

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Centre for International Governance Innovation argued in favour of the visa's removal in a joint paper prior to Pena Nieto's arrival.

Pena Nieto was making the one-day whirlwind visit to Ottawa after travelling to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama, just three days before being sworn in as Mexico's new president.

Obama praised Pena Nieto's ambitious reform agenda and expressed confidence the two countries would strengthen economic and trade ties and increase security along their border.

Pena Nieto was in Canada to reach out to Mexico's other North American trade partner.

Prior to his arrival, the incoming Mexican leader said he wants to encourage Canadian investment in his country's state-run oil company.

But he made clear Thursday that his country has no intention of privatizing the company, Petroleos Mexicanos.

In its joint paper, the chamber and CIGI noted Canada's energy sector has new opportunities in Mexico as Pena Nieto takes power.

"With President-elect Pena Nieto's promise to allow foreign investment in the Mexican petroleum sector, there is, for example, a window of opportunity for Canadian energy firms to look for opportunities in Mexico."

Canada Shows How U.S. States Can Fix Immigration

San Jose, California May Day March (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Republicans seem ready to play ball on immigration, if only to patch up their image with Hispanics. It would be a pity if this political moment -- which comes only once every few decades -- was squandered on minor and temporary fixes. U.S. immigration policy needs a fundamental rethinking.

This isn’t as daunting as it appears. For inspiration, Americans need look no farther thanCanada.

Canada’s provincial-nominee program, while not perfect, avoids the economically meaningless distinctions between skilled and unskilled workers that bedevil the employment-based U.S. immigration laws. It also puts in place incentives to treat foreign workers not as foes but as friends whose labor and skills are vital to the economy.

Most reforms of the U.S. system under consideration won’t put American employers in a position to make competitive bids to ensure the steady supply of foreigners they need.

There is talk about raising the cap on visas for skilled workers -- called H1-Bs -- and scrapping the limit on green cards so that applicants from some countries don’t have to wait longer than others. Right now, no more than 7 percent of the roughly 140,000 employment-based green cards issued every year can go to residents of one country. (That creates a 10- to 15- year wait for immigrants from India and China, the biggest suppliers of graduates from high-demand STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math.)

Behind Curve

As for the unskilled, a guest-worker program for Mexican labor that would make it easier for migrants to get temporary visas for seasonal work is gaining traction.

Such changes might address the most egregious defects in immigration policies, yet the discussion shows how behind the curve the U.S. is compared with other countries. Canada andAustralia, for example, skip the temporary work-visa step completely and offer fast-track permanent residencies to highly skilled workers and their spouses before they even arrive in the country. Australia offers almost as many employment-based green cards as the U.S., even though the American population is 14 times bigger.

Canada’s provincial-nominee program is the best model for the U.S. Under this system, 13 provincial entities sponsor a total of 75,000 worker-based permanent residencies a year, and the federal government in Ottawa offers 55,000. Each province can pick whomever it wants for whatever reason -- in effect, to use its quota, which is based on population, to write its own immigration policy.

Provinces may pick applicants left over from the federal program. They can also solicit their own applicants from anywhere in the world. In a direct attempt to poach talent from the U.S., some provinces are sponsoring H1-B holders stuck in the American labyrinth.

The government in Ottawa can’t question either the provinces’ criteria or their methods of recruitment. Its role is limited to conducting a security, criminal and health check on foreigners picked by the provinces, which has cut processing time for permanent residency to one or two years -- compared with a decade or more in the U.S.

Richard Kurland, a lawyer who is considered Canada’s top immigration expert, notes that provinces use the program for diverse goals such as enhancing existing cultural or ethnic ties with other countries. Not surprisingly, the most popular reason is economic: to augment the local labor market.

The program gives British Columbia the same flexibility to sponsor, say, bricklayers as it gives Ontario to sponsor computer programmers. It doesn’t treat the entire Canadian economy as monolithic and pretend that distant federal bureaucrats can effectively cater to local job markets. (Canada’s federal program is a different story altogether.)

Provinces Choose

There is no built-in bias against the labor needs of any province. By contrast, thanks to the high skill-low skill distinction in the U.S., California’s economy is able to import foreign workers more easily than, say, Florida’s agrarian one. Although some Canadian provinces, such as Saskatchewan, struggle with retention rates, by and large this hasn’t been a huge problem as immigrants’ skills are matched to the availability of local jobs. All of this has made the program popular with provinces. Some of them are lobbying to have their quotas expanded or even eliminated.

Above all, the program is far more in tune with the spirit of true federalism than U.S. immigration policies are. Provinces have a natural interest in their economies and the federal government in national security. Canada divides the federal and provincial roles in accordance with their primary interests, ensuring a balancing of both.

Such an arrangement might seem untenable in the U.S., given that the Constitution gives the federal government the authority to set immigration policy whereas Canada’s explicitly makes it a joint federal-provincial responsibility.

Nothing, however, prevents the U.S. government from giving states greater latitude in setting their own immigration policies. Last year, for example, the conservative Utah Legislature passed a compact asking Congress for a waiver to carry out a more compassionate and employer-friendly program, including a path to legalization for unauthorized immigrants.

Under such a system, states such as Arizona, where restrictionist fervor runs high, would certainly be free to spurn foreigners. Yet they would have to face the economic and political consequences as businesses relocate to where workers are plentiful.

Odds are, just as in Canada, most states would become friends rather than foes of immigrants.

States Decide

This route would go some way toward facing the illegal issue -- which is wholly the result of the lack of legal avenues for low-skilled foreigners to work and gain permanent residency in the U.S. When these avenues were available under the bracero program, a guest-worker arrangement with Mexico that the U.S. scrapped in 1964 because of union opposition, there was no such problem.

States that need low-skilled workers would be able to obtain visas and permanent residencies on their behalf just like states that want high-skilled workers. Initially, the states could give these visas to current illegal residents, as Utah would most certainly do, although they wouldn’t have to.

The bigger issue would be deciding how many immigrants each state can admit. Ideally, employers would alert state authorities to their needs. States would weigh those requests against their ability to provide public services and tell the federal government how many background checks they should need in a given year. Canada placed caps on each province, Kurland explained, because the federal government in Ottawa was unable to quickly process applicants and avoid backlogs.

Given that the U.S. already has a large immigration bureaucracy dedicated to performing labor certifications and other tasks that would be redundant under such a system, it should be able to handle all state requests expeditiously. At any rate, working toward a system that is able to respond quickly and efficiently to state needs would be the final goal.

Canada’s provincial-nominee program is humane, efficient and economically rational -- everything that U.S. immigration policy should be but isn’t. If the U.S. doesn’t reverse course, it might lose out in the global competition for skilled labor and never solve its problem with low-skilled undocumented workers.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-28/canada-shows-how-u-s-states-can-fix-immigration.html

The ‘dos and don’ts’ of overseas recruitment: Canadian focus

Skilled worker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BY DANIEL HIRSCHKORN, REGULATED CANADIAN IMMIGRATION CONSULTANT (ICCRC- R506558) DIRECTOR, WESTERN CANADIAN IMMIGRATION SERVICES
Pipelines International — December 2012

Over the last decade, recruiting foreign workers has gained popularity due to the shortage of skilled workers in the Canadian oil and gas industry. Here, Western Canadian Immigration Services explains how best to go about hiring foreign employees.

What is a temporary foreign worker? A foreign national in Canada working is a ‘temporary foreign worker’.

A company interested in hiring a foreign worker would apply for a Labour Market Opinion (LMO). The Canadian Government Body Service Canada handles these applications and assesses the impact a foreign national would have on the local labour market. A positive or neutral determination would result in an approval for the company.

Part of this assessment is an examination of wages offered by the company to foreign workers. An approval, at the least, stipulates that the employer pays ‘equal or greater wages’ to what locals would be receiving in the same position and location.

A recent immigrant should not to be confused with a temporary foreign worker. Recent immigrants have the authorisation to remain in Canada permanently and at some point will presumably become a Canadian citizen.

The Social Insurance Number of a temporary foreign worker will always begin with a ‘9’. If companies are unsure about a new hire, this is one indicator that you can leverage to then legally ask “can I see your work permit please?”

How to determine the wage threshold

Approximately one year ago, the wage employers were required to pay foreign workers could be best described as the ‘average wage’, a calculation factoring in market research and based on the arithmetic mean. Recently this has changed – Service Canada is now requiring a company to match the median wage of the position. Some would argue that the median is more accurately indicative of the reality of the test group at hand, while others would point out that the median skews the reality, especially when comparing a workplace of hundreds of unionised workers to a workplace of six non-union workers.

Once that first step of applying through the LMO is approved (processing times vary by region from one month to four months), the selected foreign worker for employment must seek approval from Citizenship & Immigration Canada. This is done at the Canadian Embassy based in the workers’ country of residence. For example, a South African welder living in Hungary would apply through Vienna, Austria, for admission to Canada to work.

Bringing workers in

There is a list of countries whose citizens do not require visas to travel to Canada. Workers from these countries can apply at the port of entry for admission as a worker. While this may pose some risks, it is an option that companies should consider, but not without a good understanding of potential ramifications for the individual and the variations in assessment.

With some exceptions, officers representing Citizenship & Immigration Canada at offices abroad will be assessing the foreign applicant’s medical condition, work experience, criminal past (more appropriately, a lack thereof) and general background. Interviews are often a part of the process. Approval rates to work in Canada vary based on country, from a 10 per cent approval rate in Cambodia (2008 statistics) to a near perfect approval rate in Iceland. Timelines for assessment also vary, from less than one month in Rome to 12 months in the Philippines and 24 months in Singapore (as at the time of writing).

Looking deeper into consultants

Most provinces in Canada prohibit charging a fee for finding employment. Citizenship & Immigration Canada and Service Canada is well aware of this. If approached by a company providing workers for ‘free’, some questions need to be asked. For semi-skilled workers, the minimum responsibilities of the company are to cover airfare and recruitment fees. For skilled workers, airfare is not required, but covering recruitment fees often is.

Balancing provincial with federal law can be confusing in this area, but it is best to err on the side of caution.

The licence required to provide any sort of immigration services is highly regulated. One must hold an immigration consulting licence or be a lawyer in order to provide these services. In fact, the regulations have tightened to the point that Human Resource departments are not allowed to provide any immigration advice or services unless they hold a licence to do so. This law has been in existence for more than one year, but the education of the general public is still in process. A quick ‘Bill C-35’ search online will provide the appropriate information.

It is important for companies that are unsure of the requirements to seek advice. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada, ignorance is no excuse. Foreign worker recruitment is a complicated process that can take several months from start to finish. It can involve as many as three layers of government over two countries, and it is important to remember that the decisions made can deeply affect the lives of the foreign workers to be employed.

Ottawa shifts immigration load onto private sector

Flag of United Nations Refugee Agency (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BY STEPHANIE LEVITZ THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — The federal government is seeking to offload some of its international promises to refugees onto the private sector.

They’re asking community groups to sponsor 1,000 of the refugees the Canadian government has told the United Nations it will resettle over the next three years.

But at the same time, they are restricting the groups’ ability to sponsor refugees themselves by placing caps on private applications.

The decisions are raising concerns from not-for-profit groups that they are being forced to carry out the Immigration department’s objectives instead of their own.

“This minister … has found little ways to tweak it into being more able to name groups and curtail what formerly was much more open for private sponsors to name who they wish,” said Edwin Wiebe, national co-ordinator of refugee programs for the Mennonite Central Committee of Canada.

Refugee resettlement in Canada is a shared activity between the government and about 80 groups, which have formal agreements with the Ottawa to sponsor refugees.

Canada voluntarily accepts about 10 per cent of the world’s refugees. Last year, there were 7,365 government-assisted refugees and 5,585 privately sponsored ones, according to government statistics.

Between 2006-2011, the top five source countries for government-assisted refugees were Iraq, Colombia, Myanmar, Bhutan and Afghanistan, according to an analysis of statistics provided by Citizenship and Immigration.

Private groups also seek to resettle refugees identified by the United Nations, but often choose source countries or individuals with some connection to their religious or community organizations. Between 2006-2011, the top five source countries for privately-sponsored refugees were Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

But now there are caps on the number of applications private groups can submit, as well as other restrictions.

“We were not allocated any spot out of any African visa post. We received only 36 spots last year. How was I supposed to respond to hundreds of congregational requests to sponsor?” asked Khwaka Kukubo, an adviser to the refugee program at the United Church of Canada.

The government says the caps are in place so missions can work through the enormous backlog of applications, adding they don’t affect the number of privately-sponsored refugees who actually arrive in Canada each year.

But some say it reflects a change in government priorities.

“They are not willing to say, ‘OK, people want to sponsor out of Nairobi so we’ll have to find some way of putting more resources so those ones can come,’ ” said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

“Instead they say, ‘No, you can’t sponsor those ones. If you want to sponsor refugees, sponsor the ones that we will identify for you.’ ”

A spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration department said the decision to ask private groups to help settle 1,000 government-assisted refugees was made because research shows refugees fare better when they are brought to Canada by private organizations.

“By providing up to six months of income support for (UN-referred) refugees supported by sponsors, we hope to help organizations new to refugee sponsorship and encourage existing civil society groups to sponsor refugees who have few or no pre-existing family or community links in Canada,” said Remi Lariviere in an e-mail.

About the Author

By STEPHANIE LEVITZ The Canadian Press

A bridge so close: international students crossing the employment divide

The Lester B. Pearson Building is the home of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BY DENISE DEVEAU, POSTMEDIA NEWS

Hamid Omran knows all about building bridges.

A PhD candidate at the University of Calgary, Iranian-born Omran is also working 20 hours a week at Stantec - a professional consulting services firm - as a structural engineer specializing in pedestrian bridge design.

"My plan is when I get my degree is to get my three-year work permit and apply for residency here," he says.

Omran is one of many international students employers are recruiting to address skills shortages. In fact, when Omran was looking for a job to support his studies, he received multiple offers. He decided Stantec had what he was looking for in a career. "The projects are pretty cool compared to what I have done over in Iran."

He's not the only international recruit on the Stantec team. "There are people here from everywhere like China, Germany and Pakistan." Despite the language differences, he says, "everybody here can communicate pretty well."

International student enrolment has grown considerably in recent years, says Karen Bennett, associate vice-president of student services at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT)in Edmonton. Applications from international students have increased 10-fold over the last decade.

The attraction is easily explained, Bennett says. There are jobs to be had and opportunities to build a long-term career in Canada. "All the industries here are experiencing labour shortages. At the same time, CIC [Citizenship and Immigration Canada] is making it much easier for employers to hire graduates."

Rowan O'Grady, president of Hays Canada, an international recruitment specialist in Calgary, says when it comes to sourcing international talent, the greatest shortages are in the oil and gas sector. "At the next level is mining and resources companies, closely followed by construction."

With Canadian student enrolment in many of the engineering and technology programs declining, it comes as no surprise that employers in these sectors are sourcing talent hailing from other resource-rich countries such as the Middle East, South America and Australia.

CIC is helping their efforts with regulations that now allow international students to work off-campus up to 20 hours a week during regular academic sessions and full-time during scheduled breaks. In April 2008, CIC's Post-Graduation Work Permit Program was also improved to allow graduates to apply for open work permits for up to three years, depending on the length of time they have studied.

According to Philippe Couvrette, a CIC spokesperson in Ottawa, international students contribute significantly to social and cultural development as well as the economy. A report released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada for example found international students contributed more than $8-billion to the Canadian economy in 2010.

He also reports that CIC's Canadian Experience Class (CEC) program launched in 2008 is the country's fastest growing immigration program. It offers foreign student graduates and others with skilled work experience in Canada the opportunity to apply to stay as permanent residents and eventually become Canadian citizens rather than having to return to their home country to do the paperwork.

"The goal of the CEC is to ensure that Canada retains talented and motivated people who have already shown that they can put their skills as well as their experience to work," Couvrette says.

Gerd Birkle, a senior associate with Stantec, says that universities are an important avenue for businesses to acquire international talent and changes in the immigration laws have helped streamline the process.

"The fact that students can work off-campus 20 hours a week has opened up a different recruitment strategy for us," he says. "It's a different way to get students to come to us from the Middle East and China, for example. I would say every single graduate student on the 20-hour program will get a [full-time] offer."

Birkle says that as a consulting firm, it can be tough to compete with other sectors fighting for the same talent. "While we can't always compete on salaries, we can offer students a flexible and communal working environment and some very interesting work."

Omran couldn't agree more. "I have just celebrated the completion of the first bridge I worked on," he says. "I can't even begin to describe that feeling."

Immigration consultants hurt by ads

Fast Track Option of Popular BC Immigrant Investor Program Suspended For Review

BC's Government House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The BC government announced on Thursday that it is suspending the Fast Track nomination option in the business stream of the BC Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP).

Through the business immigration stream of the BC PNP, foreign nationals who invest at least $200,000 to $400,000 to start or purchase and expand a qualifying BC-based business, are nominated for permanent residency by the BC provincial government after two years.

Under the regular BC PNP business program, candidates receive a two year work permit, during which time they are required to meet the business requirements detailed in the PNP performance agreement.

At the conclusion of the two year period, the BC government reviews their business, and if it fulfills the conditions of the program, nominates them for immigration.

The Fast Track option of the BC PNP business program is a special stream that allows candidates who make a $125,000 deposit to the BC government to receive a nomination for permanent residency immediately upon arriving in Canada, instead of being required to wait two years and fulfil their PNP performance agreement first.

Applicants who do not meet the obligations set out in BC PNP performance agreement forfeit their $125,000 deposit but can still keep their permanent residency status.

The BC government said that it would review this Fast Track option to see if it contributes to the province’s economy and that the suspension will not affect the regular business immigration stream of the BC PNP.

Ottawa to create skilled immigrant pool, provinces would select applicants based on labour needs

Little Mink Lake (Lennox and Addington County, Ontario) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nicholas Keung
Immigration Reporter

Ottawa has reached a consensus with the provinces to establish a pool of skilled-worker candidates by the end of 2014 that will allow employers to cherry-pick potential immigrants to fill regional labour shortages.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Friday he is committed to working with his provincial counterparts to implement the Expression of Interest (EOI) system, whereby employers could screen and assess a pool of applicants for immigration consideration.

“We’ve had very fruitful discussions about the future of immigration in Canada,” Kenney said after the annual federal-provincial immigration conference in Toronto.

All the provincial government representatives — except Quebec’s immigration minister, who was absent from the meeting — agreed the immigration system has to be fast and responsive to regional economic needs.

However, Kenney was lukewarm to Ontario’s own immigration plan, unveiled earlier this month, that called for vastly increasing the number of skilled immigrants the province can hand-pick under the provincial nominee program — to 2,000 next year, and to 5,000 in 2014.

Currently, Ontario receives only a 5 per cent share of the 20,000 provincial nominees accepted across Canada each year.

“The concern for Ontario is that the number of immigrants coming to Canada is going down ... Moving forward, we do have to find a way to co-operate and collaborate to rectify the situation,” said Ontario Immigration Minister Michael Chan.

“All provinces want their provincial nominee programs expanded because immigrants coming in are successful in getting jobs that match their skills.”

To reduce backlogs in the federal skilled worker program, Ottawa allowed provinces to “mine” applicants in the queue earlier this year, and Ontario is expected to nominate as many as 700 candidates above its 1,000 annual quota.

A source from Kenney’s office said the minister cannot commit to Ontario’s request to boost that quota because he has to balance all the 60-plus immigration programs, and any additional quota for the province has to come from somewhere else.

Details of the EOI system, based on a system used in New Zealand and Australia, are not available. But Kenney said a formula will be developed to decide the “distribution of skilled immigrants across the country.”

A recent provincial report found that Ontario has seen its share of immigrants to Canada drop by one-third, from 148,640 in 2001 to 99,000 in 2011.

While 70 per cent of immigrants settling in other provinces belong to the “economic” class — skilled workers and investors, as opposed to refugees and people reuniting with family members — economic immigrants account for only 52 per cent of newcomers to Ontario.