OVERHAUL OF THE CANADIAN IMMIGRATION SYSTEM (2006)
Chambers of Commerce have been the leading voice calling on government and business to realize the scale of the challenge facing the province through a looming skills shortage in every sector, every industry, and in every region of the province.
The numbers speak for themselves as to the need for skilled labour injection into Canada to maintain a competitive business climate. With the advent of baby boomers starting to retire, there will be a net increase in need of positions in both the white and blue collar sectors. In short BC is facing a demographic timebomb that will see province’s labour force participation rate fall from 72.8% to 67.3% by 2015. Perhaps more worrying still is that this shift will occur as the province creates 1,000,000 new jobs over the next 12 years, with only 650,000 students in B.C. finishing grade 12 during the same time frame.
The Province of BC has recognized our skills shortage as critical for sustained economic viability of BC by announcing $400 million in Budget 2006 for skills training and immigration skill development. In addition to the announced spending, the Province challenged industry to work with the Province to ensure this money was used efficiently and effectively.
Budget 2006 is a good start but is just that, a start. While the creation of mechanisms to train workers is critical, it is just as important that we begin accessing the significant pools of underutilized labour that already exist in the workforce; these groups range from aboriginals, to people with disabilities, to women.
While these are important areas the key is immigration. Net international migration is now the single largest contributor to population growth in BC and it is estimated that by 2011 a full 100% of the net labour force growth will be through international immigration. The challenge is the fact that the current immigration system is simply not ensuring that the immigrants we attract are being used to their full capacity.
Quite simply the current immigration system is not capable of attracting the ready-to-work immigrants with the required skills base to B.C. in a timely manner. The design of the immigration system discriminates against skilled tradespersons by prioritizing managerial and professional type people.
In 2004, immigrants successful under the skilled immigration program with skilled and technical, intermediate and clerical and elemental and labourers accounted for only 22.4% of principal applicants. In contrast, those classified as managerial and professional accounted for 72.3%.
The Chamber does not disagree that we need to ensure that we attract immigrants with managerial and professional skills the province and the country is facing a skills shortage from the board room to the shop floor. Any system that does not recognize the need to address this simple reality at all levels is failing to address the needs of the economy – the intended focus of the immigrant program.
At present the pass mark for qualifying as a skilled immigrant to Canada is 67; this is assessed by reviewing education, skills, language and family. Conducting a quick test on the governments self assessment tool shows that a skilled tradesman with high school education, fluent English and three years experience will not qualify as a skilled immigrant unless he has French language skills and immediate family already in Canada.
In addition to these limitations, immigrants applying for a working visa are also challenged with the Federal Government process. First, an individual must apply for a working visa which is a lengthy process (6 months). Unless the individual can make a case that their skills are in demand and a Canadian is not available to take the position, the immigration case is rejected. The problem with this system is the process involves both HRDC as well as Immigration. If HRDC statistics show a lack of demand, the case is lost. Unfortunately, the statistics do not factor in localized or specialty needs. They are based solely on surveys and reports which are often flawed as Immigration and HRDC do not collaborate with firms that require the skills.
In Prince George a welder from the Philippines, a specialist doctor from the UK and a patent lawyer from Australia were all initially denied immigration for this very reason. In all three cases, the industry sectors clearly showed local and provincial demand for the workers. In each case a 6 month process of approval was the average and the employers were either not included in the process, or were told there were workers available even though ads and employment agencies showed otherwise.
In addition to skilled workers many industries in BC, particularly hospitality and other tourism focused sectors rely heavily on the ability to attract and retain workers through the Working Holiday Visa Program. As the province looks to tourism as a significant growth sector this program will become increasingly important to the economic prosperity of business, communities and the province.
Despite the obvious importance of this program the Chamber believes that this program could be significantly enhanced to better serve the economy.
Currently, applicants can apply for a working visa for only 1 year. After this year is up the applicant must go through the same application process if they wish to remain in legal employment in the province.
The Chamber believes that this placed significant, and unnecessary, burden on the worker who may be willing and able to remain gainfully employed; to say nothing of the cost to business of continually training and recruiting new staff.
Given the rigorous application process inherent in the granting of a Working Holiday Visa the Chamber feels that granting a visa for only a one year period does not serve the interests of the applicant, or more importantly the economy.
With this in mind the Chamber feels it is important that the government takes a proactive approach to this issue by extending the length of the visa to no less than 2 years.
While The Chamber fully agrees with this goal, we have serious concerns regarding the government’s ability to deliver in terms of the capacity of the government, but more importantly through the structures currently put in place to process applications.
Immigration services abroad are provided through a network of approximately 80 offices in Canadian Embassies, High Commissions and Consulates. The visa offices may process applications differently depending on the application and the visa office. The length of time it takes to process an application can also be different in each mission or visa office. The reality is that we resource visa offices in different countries to varying extents, the effect of which is to slow down immigration from some countries while speeding up immigration from others. Approximately 50% of cases emanating from Africa and Asia are processed in thirty-three months, while it takes twelve months from Europe and twenty-one months from the Western Hemisphere. In some cases, the wait can be up to five years or more, depending on the location.
The massive backlog of unprocessed visa applications has resulted in a system that can neither cope with incoming applications, nor process the ever increasing backlog. Estimated at up to 120,000 in 2003, and not getting any smaller, this backlog is responsible for the lengthy wait times at the various overseas offices. Such delays have created an unofficial quota system by discouraging residents in certain countries from applying to Canada.
Also putting Canada at the bottom of the list for hotly sought-after immigrants are policies that force the holders of temporary work visas (immigrants who have entered the country legally and are currently working) to leave the country in order to apply for permanent residency status. The European Union allows workers with five years of service to stay on a permanent basis, without having to leave and return.
If Canada is to have a viable immigration policy, it needs a system that gives potential immigrants assurance that their applications will be processed in an efficient manner within a reasonable and predictable period of time. Otherwise, they will look to other countries.
Even more distributing is the fact that some of these limitations are also experienced inter-provincially. Recently, the Premiers of Alberta and BC discovered that a welder in one Province was not recognized or able to work in the next Province!
THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS
That the Federal Government;
1. overhaul the permanent immigrant system by reviewing the point level required and by restructuring the allocation of points to emphasize the skills required by the economy;
2. immediately allocate the necessary resources in offices abroad to process immigration applications more efficiently and effectively.
3. enhance the overall training strategy to ensure that visa officers receive sufficient and appropriate training and have the necessary tools and means to assess immigration applications more effectively and efficiently;
4. introduce a fast track credential recognition and assessment process to ensure immigrants can fully utilize their skills;
5. provide education overseas to better prepare immigrants for integration into Canada;
6. shift resources away from processing family class immigrants to cut the wait time for skilled and economic immigrants from its current 18-24 months;
7. amend the Working Holiday Visa Program to ensure that successful applicants are provided the ability to work in BC for no less than 2 years; and
8. review the connection between HRDC, Immigration Canada and firms desiring a specific skill and seeking to hire an immigrant due to lack of local talent to ensure the process is driven by a true reflection of supply and demand rather than process.
