CPQ Logo and Tag-line (Quebec Employers Council is the official English name for the Conseil du patronat du Québec but the tag-line - S allier pour la prospérité - appears to be unilingual) QEC s comments for the consultations on temporary foreign workers - June 2016 Quebec Employers Council Phone: 514-288-5161 1010 Sherbrooke Street West, #510 or 1-877-288-5161 Montreal, QC H3A 2R7 Fax: 514-288-5165
CPQ Logo and Tag-line The QEC s mission is to ensure that companies are provided with the best possible conditions to bring sustainable prosperity to Quebec in a competitive world, especially in terms of human capital. At the point of convergence of employer solidarity, the QEC s leadership provides an indispensable reference in its areas of involvement. The QEC exerts its considerable influence to work constructively towards a more prosperous society in which entrepreneurship, productivity, wealth creation and sustainable development are the conditions needed to improve the standard of living of the population as a whole. Quebec Employers Council June 2016 Legal Deposit Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec National Library of Canada Second Quarter, 2016
QEC s comments for the consultations on temporary foreign workers June 2016 Introduction The QEC is pleased to offer its comments for the consultations on temporary foreign workers to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. The issue of temporary foreign workers in Canada is directly tied to at least two of the QEC s priorities: the availability of a skilled workforce and smart regulation. Clearly, the QEC subscribes to the principle that companies should first look to the local labour market. However, the reality for some companies and in some regions is that, with all the employers best intentions and good will, the workforce in Canada will never be sufficient to meet the needs. A number of initiatives cannot succeed without temporary foreign workers. In turn, those workers provide jobs for other Canadian workers who would not have found them otherwise. In addition, a good proportion of the foreign workers often bring unique expertise to Canada, thereby creating and developing new, innovative systems. Our recommendations have four main thrusts: flexibility, simplification, the pathway to permanent residence, and seasonal workers. Flexibility and simplification Temporary foreign workers provide a source of labour that is essential to the prosperity of companies in Quebec and Canada. Labour needs are often short term; they reflect the constantly evolving economic reality in which the companies are operating. It is therefore necessary to adopt strategies that are flexible enough to better respond to the specific needs of companies in different sectors. The changes made to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program by the previous government make the process of hiring those workers more complex, more expensive, and slower. In spite of the laudable objectives, these changes have a negative impact on a number of employers who are dealing with recruitment problems that are very real, for both skilled and less skilled workers. They increase the difficulties in a recruitment situation that is increasingly onerous. The difficulties are found especially in sectors like video game development, which is booming in Quebec and especially in Montreal.
The QEC makes the following recommendations about skilled temporary foreign workers: Retention Reduce the delays in processing hiring requests for temporary workers in order to provide companies with greater certainty; Remove the requirement for a plan to transition to a Canadian workforce for workers in high-wage positions. This requirement also runs counter to the objective of lightening the burden of regulations; Despite the intention to handle the 42 specialized trades with more flexibility, experience suggests that they are handled in an arbitrary, opaque and dilatory fashion. This adversely affects the ability of the companies using those trades to secure profitable projects, thereby threatening Canadian jobs; Remove the LMIA requirement from professions with a demonstrable shortage; Abolish the four-year maximum cumulative duration for permits; Review the requirements for wage levels to be linked to the provincial median wage and the 10% rule for young employees. Temporary immigration is an effective approach to addressing companies urgent and one-time labour needs. It is therefore necessary to invest not only in attracting skilled foreign workers but also in settling them permanently in Canada and in Quebec. These workers generally possess qualifications that are in demand around the world; these candidates, therefore, are those whose chances to integrate into society and the labour market are much greater than for other candidates. The QEC makes the following recommendations: Ease the pathway from temporary foreign worker to permanent resident; Encourage temporary foreign workers to remain in Canada by providing information and simplifying the process. Unskilled temporary foreign workers The labour shortage is the greatest danger facing some industries, including agriculture and agri-food. This is even the case since the changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program made the problem worse. In spite of the laudable objective, an objective we share, it remains very difficult to find Canadian workers willing to live and work in small rural communities. A new Conference Board of Canada survey, commissioned by the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, reveals that the agricultural sector has a shortfall of almost 60,000 workers a figure that is expected to exceed 100,000 in 2025. It is estimated that this crisis cost the sector almost $1.5 billion in 2014. We also have no need to reiterate that the agricultural processing industry is subject to major constraints and is facing strong competition from producers from elsewhere.
The seasonal nature of agriculture must be appreciated and taken into account. It must apply also to agri-food processing, not just primary agriculture. Other issues with unskilled workers include the limit of 10% of a company s workforce, the one-year limit for the duration of a job, and the refusal to process requests from employers in the food service and hospitality sectors, and in the retail trade in regions where the unemployment rate is 6% or above. On this last point, it must be noted that a region s unemployment rate can be relatively high (higher than 6%) and yet, at the same time, some businesses may have a labour shortage because of a disconnect between the supply and demand of the available and sought-after skills. The QEC therefore makes the following recommendations about unskilled temporary foreign workers: Simplify the administrative requirements for recruiting foreign agricultural workers and adopt a simpler process, given that the same employers are generally calling back the same workers to work in the same place year after year; Along the same lines, use what the Fondation des entreprises en recrutement de main-d œuvre agricole etrangère (FERME) calls the Nexus approach for successful users with exemplary behaviour; Eliminate the 10% per workplace threshold for low-wage temporary foreign workers in all areas with a labour shortage, such as agri-food, for example. Remove the four-year duration limit and allow mobility of agricultural workers among employers with approved LMIAs; Facilitate access to permanent resident programs for unskilled workers in positions that are permanent by nature note that permanent residence may involve not insignificant issues for seasonal temporary foreign workers and may not always be desirable, even for the workers themselves; Reconsider the processing fees for applications made under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in favour of a more reasonable fee scale; Review the exclusion for the food service and hospitality sectors, and for the retail trade in regions where the unemployment rate is 6% or above; Re-establish the length of validity of a work permit for that category of worker to two years, renewable.
Conclusion Employers in Quebec and Canada hope that the government will make the rules governing temporary foreign workers more flexible, more predictable and simpler. This is because they are a major obstacle to businesses winning contracts and maintaining Canadian jobs. We are certain that the federal government does not wish to see economic development initiatives all over the country limited because of a lack of workers in areas that are booming. We trust that the government will pay close heed to employers and will choose solutions that meet the needs of employers in Canada in general and in Quebec in particular. The QEC is grateful to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities for the attention it will be giving to the concerns of Quebec employers. We hope that they will be considered as this study proceeds so that companies can prosper, continue to attract talent, and provide high-quality and sustainable jobs for Quebeckers and for all Canadians.