John Ivison: Ottawa’s tech-talent drive finally puts some economic elbows up

Positive commentary on the new streams:

It’s been said that moving to the U.S. is part of Canada’s culture.

But times change. Social media was humming this week with reaction in the U.S. to a new immigration policy launched by the Canadian government. American high-tech entrepreneur Srinivasan Balaji tweeted to his nearly one million followers that work visa holders in the U.S. who are “stuck in an endless green card line” should be aware of a new program in Canada that is attempting to lure engineers that the U.S. is “repelling.”

Another user said: “Canada is eating our lunch. This is bad news for America.” The policy in question was unveiled by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, at the Collision tech conference in Toronto on Tuesday.

As part of a new Tech Talent Strategy, Canada will open a work permit stream for holders of the H1B visa, which allows U.S. employers to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations.

Other strands include bringing in employer-specific work permits for up to five years in companies the government deems “innovative”; a digital nomad strategy to allow people working for foreign companies to stay in Canada for six months; and the option for people waiting for permanent-resident status to apply for a work permit while their application is processed.

“There is no question that we are in a global race for the same pool of talent with competitors around the entire world,” Fraser said.

The Trudeau government has been loath to view the world in competitive terms, preferring to hand out participation medals. The consequences of de-prioritizing competitiveness and productivity are apparent in this country’s GDP-per-capita numbers, which are sliding — as is, consequently, our relative standard of living.

But Fraser was speaking in terms that will encourage those who despair about the country’s economic future. He said he is enthusiastic about the “ambitious goals” being set “because they are not just about numbers, they are strategic.”

The news was greeted with enthusiasm by Mikal Skuterud, economics professor at the University of Waterloo, who hailed the policy as one that is “at long last, aimed at leveraging immigration to boost real economic growth.”

The Liberal government has been enthusiastic about raising immigration rates for a number of reasons, ranging from the popularity of its family reunification policies in politically important seats around our big cities, to the impact on economic growth of bringing in a million people a year, as happened last year.

But while GDP rises almost in lockstep with population growth, such a dramatic influx puts strains on services like health and on the housing market. Critics of unplanned immigration, like Andrew Griffith, a former director general at Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, have long argued that the country should “bring in fewer people and treat them better.” But he said the new tech strategy is a good initiative to tap into the available talent pool and into frustration with the U.S. immigration system.

“It should bring in immigrants that boosts productivity, rather than drains it,” Griffith said. He pointed out that this is a government that has found it much easier to make announcements than manage complex systems.

Fraser talked of streamlining and fast-tracking the International Mobility Program for talented individuals, but this is still an immigration system with an 800,000-case backlog across all lines of business. Frustration with the U.S. immigration system could very quickly become exasperation with Canada.

But the intentions are good. Twenty years ago, the numbers of permanent residents coming to Canada outnumbered the temporary residents, according to numbers compiled by Griffith. Last year, the 437,000 new permanent residents were a fraction of the 1.6 million temporary residents, half of whom were covered by the International Mobility program or the Temporary Foreign Workers program; half of whom were students. It is open to debate whether it is responsible for the government to bring in so many low-skilled people when the impact on health and housing systems is so clearly deleterious.

That discussion is likely to get more pointed if, as the OECD suggested this week, unemployment starts to rise. But it is long overdue that Canada gets its elbows up in the global battle for talent.

Source: Ottawa’s tech-talent drive finally puts some economic elbows up