Tightening of foreign worker rules affecting supply of doctors – The Globe and Mail

A small part of the Temporary Foreign Workers program that most Canadians would not have problems with but nevertheless affected by the changed rules:

A tightening of the rules in the last three years – including the most recent overhaul, announced last month – has convinced some recruiters to give up on the TFW program altogether.

“Many, many, many recruiters that were doing this work back in 2011 have dropped off,” said Joan Mavrinac, head of the regional physician recruitment office for Essex County, which includes the border city of Windsor, Ont.

“Then, with the changes in 2013, we’ve become far fewer and now the changes in 2014, I think, are going to effectively kill the program [for doctors.]”The TFW program had been under fire for more than a year when Employment Minister Jason Kenney and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced sweeping reforms designed to prevent unscrupulous employers from importing low-wage foreign workers to displace Canadian employees.

The reforms include a 10-day turnaround time to process applications for highly skilled, high-wage workers, but they do not address any of the unique concerns of doctors, many of which stem from the fact MDs are generally self-employed.

Tightening of foreign worker rules affecting supply of doctors – The Globe and Mail.