Perennial issue that has been raised for years. I always found the federal initiatives were more talk than action, given the regulatory bodies are all provincial.
One can only hope that the work underway to reduce barriers to internal trade includes mutual recognition within Canada among provincial bodies and that governments at both the political and official level also consider reducing the impact on those with foreign equivalent certification:
….The result is a system that still underutilizes skilled immigrants, leaving many in precarious work — despite critical labour shortages and an aging population — and is estimated to cost Canada $50 billion in lost GDP each year.
“Are we actually recognizing foreign credentials better? Not really,” said Rupa Banerjee, associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and Canada Research Chair of economic inclusion, employment and entrepreneurship of Canada’s immigrants.
Rather than addressing barriers newcomers face that prevent them from applying their existing qualifications, “we’ve circumvented this issue of foreign credentials as much as possible by really prioritizing people with Canadian education and experience.”
There is no “convincing evidence that credential recognition has gotten demonstrably better” said Tricia Williams, director of research at the Future Skills Centre.
“For every example of a regulated profession that’s gotten better, there’s others that have stayed the same.”…
Surprising that none of the experts mentioned note that the majority of students, particularly attending business programs in colleges, are not among the talent Canada seeks:
…Banerjee notes that immigrants and non-permanent residents are often younger and come in as international students, who are more likely to participate in the labour market. Their reduced numbers further accelerate the decline in much-needed labour supply amid a rapidly aging population.
Scotiabank economist Rebekah Young agrees that the drastic cuts to both permanent and temporary immigration are going to have an impact on the economy.
Thousands of international students and workers on post-graduate work permits, once planning to stay, are now taking their talent elsewhere due to uncertainty surrounding immigration and the high cost of living.
“When you look at international students and those who have come into rigorous, recognized programs and disciplines in high demand and sectors of high productivity, there’s a real opportunity cost that Canada loses out on,” Young said.
Banerjee said the rising cost of living further discourages foreign students from investing their lives in Canada as they often face barriers in the job markets and earn significantly less than their Canadian peers upon graduation as they struggle to find jobs that match their qualifications.
For example, in 2023 international students with a bachelor’s degree earned a median annual income of $52,000, 20 per cent lower than Canadian graduates who earned $65,200, according to new research from Statistics Canada. This is partly because these students are over three times more likely than Canadian graduates to work in sales and service jobs that tend to pay less….
Good qualitative research, setting the stage for access to settlement services and other supports (but relatively silent on priorities, trade-offs and numbers:
…Privileges and precarity
Some interviewees arrived in Canada with financial resources and family support, allowing them to manage the high costs of education and living expenses. Others, however, took on substantial debt to finance their studies, reflecting their willingness to invest in future opportunities despite economic risk. While privilege granted access to education, and the potential for permanent residency status, their success was often constrained by precarity, including financial instability, cultural adjustment challenges, legal uncertainties and discrimination.
Solving these challenges requires collaboration across education, immigration and employment systems. Universities must provide better support, such as work-integrated learning opportunities that connect education to careers. Immigration policies must become more transparent and predictable. Employers need to recognize their role in addressing hiring barriers and creating pathways for international graduates to gain meaningful work experience.
Finally, appropriate settlement services are key to helping international students build long-term futures in Canada. Many of our interviewees started their journeys excited to study, settle and eventually become part of Canadian society.
But along the way, barriers like precarious work, limited career options and immigration challenges often left them disillusioned, even after getting permanent residency. With the right supports, these graduates could navigate those hurdles more easily and stay engaged in their goals — finding meaningful work, putting down roots and contributing to their communities for the long term.
This is a pivotal moment to rethink how Canada views and supports international students. Without adequate policies and services to support their long-term success, many are at risk of leaving Canada, taking their skills, education and potential economic contributions elsewhere.
Ensuring that these graduates feel valued and supported is essential for retaining talent and strengthening Canada’s competitive position in the global race for skilled workers.
Not convinced by the recommendations of the EE Task Force with respect to the public service given the overall representation is largely comparable and in some cases, better than other equity groups as recent disaggregated data indicates (How well is the government meeting its diversity targets? An intersectionality analysis), private sector case may be stronger:
….The roots of Black inequality may be different in Canada than those seen elsewhere. Nonetheless, no country escapes the legacy of centuries of slavery endured by Africans. Slavery existed in colonial Canada, and after it was abolished in 1834, Black people who fled American slavery by seeking freedom in Canada experienced racism here, such that the majority of them returned after the Civil War. Historical policies and practices actively put Black communities in Canada at a disadvantage.
After Caribbean immigration to Canada increased throughout the 1960s, governments refocused immigrant recruitment on Asia. This had the effect of slowing growth in the Black community. Excessive and discriminatory policing practicesin the Black community produced alienation and demoralization. Recent historical research reveals that government security agencies made covert efforts to discredit Black activism, further destabilizing community life. Black men were subjected to heightened scrutiny and exclusion. This environment exacerbated Black Canadians’ employment problems.
The worsening trend of Black disadvantage must be addressed. Reversing it will require new thinking and action at all levels of government and society. The federal government only recently started to move beyond traditional approaches of addressing the challenges faced by racialized minorities to recognize the extraordinary disadvantage facing Black Canadians.
Recently, the federal government promised to include Black workers as a distinct employment equity group. This is a positive step, but it is only a step, and so far, only a promise. In 2020, a Black class-action lawsuit against the federal government alleging systemic employment discrimination in the Public Service of Canada not only proposed the creation of a separate Black employment equity category, it also recommended establishing a Black Equity Commission to develop measures and co-ordinate efforts, and setting up an external reporting mechanism for discrimination complaints. These and many other sensible measures were contained in the report of the federal Employment Equity Act Review Task Force released in December. They are needed to counter Black employment exclusion, and the government should not resist the changes that the report recommends.
Provincial authorities must also act. In Ontario, employment equity was scrapped amid concerns of “race quotas,” but federal experience shows this fear is baseless. Meanwhile, opportunities have been lost.
Support for Black communities must extend beyond tokenism to include meaningful investments in education, job skills training, and community development. By acknowledging and rectifying historical injustices, we can uphold the ideals of multiculturalism and ensure the Canadian dream is achievable for all.
Rupa Banerjee is Canada Research Chair and associate professor of human resource management and organizational behaviour at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey is William Dawson Chair and assistant professor of post-Reconstruction U.S. and African Diaspora history at McGill University.
Jeffrey G. Reitz is professor emeritus of sociology, and R.F. Harney Professor Emeritus of Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies, at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Insightful although the differences between racialized groups is not new:
New research has found that the Canadian dream is proving elusive for some racialized second-generation Canadians born since the 1960s, despite having higher educational levels than their white counterparts.
A new study, entitled “Is the Canadian dream broken? Recent trends in equality of opportunity for the racialized second generation,” found that educational attainment and employment earnings are not uniform across groups of racialized second-generation Canadians, with some groups experiencing further disparities below the mainstream average.
And while educational levels for some racialized groups have surged, employment earnings were lower for most groups compared to the mainstream population, the study found. It also discovered intergroup differences.
The study, by researchers at four universities and released on Wednesday, defines the Canadian dream for immigrants as equality of opportunity and the chance to achieve financial security. Even if the first generation lives in poverty, the next generation will be able to pull itself out of poverty and achieve economic success, according to this definition.
“I don’t think the Canadian dream is accessible to everyone equally,” said Rupa Banerjee, one of the authors of the study and associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“For some, the Canadian dream is holding pretty well, but for others, it’s failing. And that failure has really, really serious and significant repercussions, not just for them and their family, but for the entire society,” added Banerjee, also the Canada Research Chair in the economic inclusion of immigrants.
“We’ve always kind of been smug that Canada is not like Europe or Canada is not like the U.S., that we’re much more multicultural. We believe in pluralism. But I think that’s a bit of a myth that we’ve kind of felt good about but doesn’t really exist, and in that sense, the Canadian dream is failing.”
The study defines second-generation as Canadian-born individuals with at least one immigrant parent.
It looked at educational attainment and employment earnings in three of “successive 10-year birth-cohorts” of second-generation Canadians from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, specifically 1966-1975, 1976-1985, and 1986-1995.
It focused on people 26 to 35, using data from the 1981, 1991, 2001, 2021 Canadian Census of Population and the 2011 National Household Survey. Examining the progress of five racialized groups, South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, and Latin American, it compared them to third-and-higher generation white Canadians.
The study sample would have completed their education and begun their work careers.
Anti-Black racism is real, study author says
According to Banerjee, the study’s main findings include:
Chinese and South Asian populations have maintained high educational levels, whereas Black individuals, and to some extent Filipino and Latin American individuals, show declining trends across cohorts.
Despite a higher proportion of second-generation individuals holding university degrees, earnings were lower for most groups compared to the mainstream population, with pronounced declines observed over time among Black second-generation men and women.
Changing characteristics of immigrant parents do not fully account for these trends, raising questions about longer-term integration processes among different ethno-racial minorities in Canada.
Banerjee said the study shows that anti-Black racism is real and Canada is not a post-racial society.
Yet another poll showing a decline in support for current high levels of immigration over the past year given the impact on housing, in particular.
Public support for immigration has fallen sharply over the past year as Canadians increasingly tie affordability and housing concerns to a historic influx of newcomers, according to survey results published on Monday.
Forty-four per cent of Canadians think immigration levels are too high, up from 27 per cent last year, according to a survey conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with the Century Initiative, an organization that advocates for Canada’s population to hit 100 million by 2100. This was the largest change in sentiment between surveys that Environics has observed in four-plus decades of polling on the topic.
Just a year ago, public support for immigration was stronger than ever, Environics found. But since then, Canadians have been consumed by a number of economic worries, including high inflation, rising interest payments and a worsening housing crisis, which is pushing up resale prices and rents across the country.
At the same time, Canada is growing rapidly. Over the 12 months through June, the population expanded by around 1.2 million people, bringing the total number of residents to 40.1 million. At 3 per cent, this was the largest 12-month increase since 1957; international migration accounted for almost the entirety of the expansion.
This surge has led to a spirited debate about immigration and Canada’s ability to absorb so many people so quickly. The results from Environics are similar to other recent surveys, including a Nanos poll for The Globe and Mail that found more than half of Canadians want the country to accept fewer immigrants than Ottawa’s plan.
“We see these results as a clarion call for action,” said Lisa Lalande, the chief executive officer of the Century Initiative. “You cannot address demographic decline through immigration without having these corresponding investments” in housing and other areas.
The survey was published just before the federal government unveils its next three-year plan for immigration this week, covering 2024 to 2026. Last year, Ottawa said it was aiming to admit 500,000 permanent residents annually by 2025, part of a steady increase since the Liberal Party came to power in 2015.
As the Liberals struggle with weaker support in the polls, the Century Initiative is hoping the government doesn’t water down its immigration plans. “Now is not the time to pull back on immigration,” Ms. Lalande said.
Of late, the population increase is mostly driven by the arrival of temporary residents, such as international students and workers, many of whom wish to settle permanently in Canada. There are no limits on the issuance of temporary visas, although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week that his government was considering a cap.
Under Mr. Trudeau, the Liberals have made high immigration a cornerstone of their economic agenda. They argue that not only will immigration lead to stronger growth, but it will also help fill jobs as Canada gets progressively older.
David Williams, vice-president of policy at the Business Council of British Columbia, said this is a naive view of how economies work. He pointed to a stagnation in gross domestic product per capita as a sign that average living standards were not improving, despite the high intake of newcomers. Furthermore, there is ample research that indicates immigration has little effect – positive or negative – on per-capita output or average wages.
“Canada’s immigration policy has really become disconnected from the academic evidence,” Mr. Williams said. “There seems to be a view in Ottawa that ever-increasing immigration levels is a panacea for all of the structural problems in Canada’s economy.”
Rupa Banerjee, a Canada Research Chair in immigration and economics at Toronto Metropolitan University, said the country has struggled for a long time to build homes in sufficient quantities. “People are getting this wrong impression that the immigration situation is causing the housing crisis,” she said.
The Environics survey found the largest declines in support for immigration in British Columbia and Ontario. There was a sharp divide by political party: Nearly two-thirds of Conservative Party supporters agreed with the statement that “there is too much immigration to Canada,” compared with 29 per cent of Liberals and 21 per cent of New Democratic Party backers.
Still, the results suggest that Canadians see the upsides of immigration. Around three-quarters of people agreed that immigration has a positive impact on the economy, down from 85 per cent last year.
The survey was based on telephone interviews conducted with 2,002 Canadians between Sept. 4 and 17. The results are accurate to within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points in 19 out of 20 samples.
The Century Initiative was co-founded by Mark Wiseman, chair of Alberta Investment Management Corp., and Dominic Barton, the former global managing partner of consulting giant McKinsey & Co. Mr. Barton also served as chair of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, which recommended to the Trudeau government in 2016 that it raise its annual intake of permanent residents by 50 per cent over five years.
“We do not believe in growth at all costs,” Ms. Lalande said. “That growth must absolutely be accompanied by investments in infrastructure, both physical and social.”
Dr. Banerjee said the federal government could do a better job of communicating its plans for how these newcomers will integrate into Canada. Otherwise, she said, people are left with the impression that there is no plan.
“For several years now, I’ve been slightly concerned that we shouldn’t take this high support for immigration for granted,” she said. “It’s very precarious, to be honest.”
Interesting to contrast Canadian and foreign-born along with party. Striking that more immigrants feel levels too high compared to Canadian born. Party differences less surprising:
Overall, there is too much immigration to Canada: Canadian-born 43 percent, Foreign-born 47 percent, Liberals 29 percent, CPC 64 percent, NDP 21 percent
Many people claiming to be refugees are not real refugees: Canadian-born 33 percent, Foreign-born 45 percent, Liberals 29 percent, CPC 49 percent, NDP 21 percent
There are too many immigrants coming into this country who are not adopting Canadian values: Canadian-born 48 percent, Foreign-born 46 percent, Liberals 38 percent, CPC 65 percent, NDP 27 percent
Overall, immigration has a positive impact on the economy of Canada: Canadian-born 72 percent, Foreign-born 81 percent, Liberals 85 percent, CPC 64 percent, NDP 89 percent
The other question that is interesting to look at the breakdown between Canadian and foreign-born pertains to those immigrants considered to be high priority. Not surprisingly, immigrants place higher priority on family immigration and international students but a lower priority on refugees. Both give priority to higher skilled compared to lower skilled:
People with good education and skills who move to Canada permanently: High priority: Canadian-born: 66 percent, Foreign-born: 67 percent
Family members of current residents of Canada, including immigrants: Canadian-born: 38 percent, Foreign-born: 43 percent
Refugees who are fleeing conflict or persecution in their own countries: Canadian-born: 58 percent, Foreign-born: 47 percent
Workers with specialized skills that are in high demand in Canada: Canadian-born: 76 percent, Foreign-born: 80 percent
Students who come to study in Canadian colleges and universities: Canadian-born: 29 percent, Foreign-born: 45 percent
Lower skilled workers who are hired to come to Canada for a short time to take on hard-to-fill jobs: Canadian-born: 34 percent, Foreign-born: 33 percent
Good overview, largely from the more pro-current approach side, as we await the levels plan release:
Canada is set to unveil the latest targets for how many new residents it hopes to welcome in the coming years.
The annual announcement of permanent resident levels, something Immigration Minister Marc Miller must do in Parliament on or before Nov. 1, is the kind of dry fare that has traditionally drawn little attention, serving largely as a governmental formality amid high levels of public support for immigration.
And, as the government seeks to maintain public support for immigration, some say how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals approach immigration — and the messaging around it — will be key.
The government’s current immigration plan, unveiled in 2022, aimed to bring in 465,000 new permanent residents this year, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. The immigration ministry is on track to meet the 2023 target.
The upcoming plan, however, will look at the numbers for the next three years.
Recent polls suggest that Canadians’ appetite for more immigration may be waning. A Nanos report in September showed 53 per cent of Canadians wanted Ottawa to accept fewer immigrants, up from 34 per cent in a similar poll in March. Then, an online survey by Research Co. in October found 38 per cent of Canadians said they believe immigration is having a mostly negative effect, up 12 percentage points from research conducted a year ago.
“Some people are feeling there’s too much immigration, when it comes to the fact that it’s driving up the housing cost, exacerbating the housing shortage, making the connection between immigration and health care and education,” says Toronto Metropolitan University professor Rupa Banerjee, whose research focuses on immigrant employment integration.
“Immigration is on people’s radar more and the plan will be scrutinized a lot more closely.”
So far, the government has seemed inclined to stay the course.
“I don’t see a world in which we lower it, the need is too great,” Miller told Bloomberg in August. “Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at.”
Magdalene Cooman of the Conference Board of Canada said Canadians need to understand the immigration plan’s long-term objectives are to address the country’s aging population and boost economic growth.
While immigrants do need housing, health care and other government services, she said, people shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that newcomers are also part of the solutions to those challenges, and contribute to the workforce, whether it’s by building new homes or caring for those in hospitals.
“There is a reason why the federal government has moved in this direction,” said Cooman, the board’s interim associate director in charge of immigration research.
“Immigration is really the only way to increase population, to support population growth and to support the future of Canada.”
A recent report by Desjardins said the country’s working-age population (those 15 to 64) would need to grow by just over two per cent annually in order to offset the impacts of aging. That growth relies largely on immigration.
“What’s the optimal level of immigration to Canada? This can be a tough question to answer, as ‘optimal’ is in the eye of the beholder,” said the report. “It depends on the policy objective that immigration is meant to achieve.”
While the short-term strains of the population growth are already showing, the report suggested the federal government could restrict the admission of non-permanent residents such as international students and temporary foreign workers.
Despite the lagging infrastructure, the conference board’s Cooman warned that any pause to the long-term immigration strategy could create other unintended problems.
“I’m not opposed to increasing the levels because I understand the long-term growth strategy,” said Cooman. “But I am opposed to increasing the levels without a strategy to show us how all the infrastructure can be built to accommodate more people in the country. You can’t have one without the other.”
Whom Canada brings in matters, observers say.
Permanent residents come to Canada under the economic, family or humanitarian classes. In 2023, about 58 per cent of them will have been selected based on their education backgrounds and skills; 23 per cent through sponsorships by spouses or children and grandchildren; and the rest as resettled refugees and protected persons.
Using real wages as a proxy for relative productivity of different groups, the Desjardins report said economic immigrants in particular are outperforming the typical Canadian.
Several observers credit the immigration ministry with fine-tuning the way it selects economic immigrants by better matching the skills of candidates with the labour market needs, and targeting those with backgrounds in health care, transportation, trades, agriculture and STEM occupations. Officials, for instance, have relaxed some rules for immigrant physicians and created a special immigrant class to attract workers in construction-related trades.
To immigration lawyer Betsy Kane, the bigger challenge for Miller is to overcome the public backlash and explain his immigration strategy.
“Between the home construction effort and the easing of the doctor efforts, you’re potentially reducing the lag in public opinion,” said Kane, vice-president of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association.
Banerjee of TMU said the government has to be more specific in explaining the immigration plan than just floating the big numbers around.
“We are bringing in trades and transport workers and there’s a number of pilots now that are working to try and bring people into underserviced smaller and rural communities. Many of them are very small (scaled), but there’s been efforts,” said Banerjee.
“A lot of that is lost, because all we see in the headlines is ‘500,000 newcomers being admitted.’”
“We need to make sure these immigration targets also include temporary migration numbers. We cannot have uncapped temporary migration and then pretend that is all of the immigration,” said Banerjee.
In a letter to Miller this month, the Business Council of Canada urged the government to prioritize highly skilled economic-class immigrants to fill high-paying jobs, and raise the ratio of the economic immigrants in the mix from 60 per cent to 65 per cent by 2025.
While the number of job vacancies requiring lower levels of skill and education has declined significantly, the council said unfilled job openings for highly trained and educated professionals remain stubbornly high.
“Enhanced economic immigration is essential,” wrote Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the council, whose member companies support more than six million jobs across Canada. “If we do not seek this skilled labour, our economic rivals will.”
But employers aren’t the only group that would like to get a bigger piece of the permanent-resident pie.
Advocates for refugees are urging Ottawa to raise the levels of resettled refugees up from about 10 per cent to 15 per cent to accommodate the growing number of displaced migrants around the world, which now stands at 108 million.
“If we are able to increase Canada’s resettlement targets, it would support the reduction of the backlog,” said Gauri Sreenivasan of the Canadian Council for Refugees, adding that a recent government audit showed 99,000 refugees were waiting in the queue by December 2022.
NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said she’s concerned about the backlash against the immigrant community.
“No good will come out of that because we have already lived through racism and discrimination in Canada’s history,” she said. “The government has to have a housing plan and an infrastructure plan for our community.”
Of note, including the cautions by Rupa Banerjee and Syed Hussan:
The federal government is rolling out a “trusted employer program” that is meant to reduce red tape and make it easier for Canadian employers to bring in temporary foreign workers.
Officials say the Recognized Employer Pilot program will be open for applications as soon as September, first to employers in agriculture, then to all others starting in January.
It will provide employers that have “a history of complying with program requirements” with a permit to usher in foreign workers that’s good for three years, without the need to reapply within that period.
But experts and advocates are expressing some concerns over the level of scrutiny that will be in place to ensure workers are being treated well, as well as the economic conditions into which Canada will be bringing more temporary workers: a crisis of affordable housing, rising interest rates and high inflation.
The new measures come amid skyrocketing numbers of temporary foreign workers in Canada.
“There’s an overreliance on temporary workers at the detriment of Canadian workers, and in particular, newcomers,” said Toronto Metropolitan University professor Rupa Banerjee, Canada Research Chair of economic inclusion, employment and entrepreneurship.
“It also really shows how much the temporary foreign worker program is really about responding to employer demand. The employer lobby really is that strong.”
Currently, employers must undergo what’s known as labour market impact assessment (LMIA), every time they hire workers under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to ensure there’s a need to fill the job. They must receive a positive assessment from Employment and Social Development Canada in order to hire the foreign workers.
The number of temporary foreign worker positions approved through an LMIA annually have skyrocketed from 89,416 in 2015 to 221,933 last year, according to federal data.
Those numbers don’t include the hundreds of thousands of international students and graduates who have open-work permits, and those who arrive from more than two dozen countries that have shared mobility agreements with Canada.
“The Recognized Employer Pilot will cut red tape for eligible employers, who demonstrate the highest level of protection for workers, and make it easier for them to access the labour they need to fill jobs that are essential to Canada’s economy and food security,” Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said in a statement Tuesday.
Applications to the pilot program, which has a budget of $29.3 million over three years, will close next September.
To qualify, employers must have received a minimum of three positive LMIAs for the same occupation over the past five years from a list of occupations that have been designated as in-shortage.
Officials said employers will be subject to a more rigorous upfront assessment process than they currently undergo, based on their history and track record with the program, ensuring that it “targets employers with the best recruitment practices.”
Canada, like other countries, has been increasingly relying on foreign workers to address labour and skills shortages despite criticisms that the workers’ precarious immigration status has exposed them to abuse and exploitation by employers.
Foreign workers, especially those in low-skill, low-wage jobs, have reported owed wages and unpaid overtime, and complained about unsafe work conditions and a lack of employment standard enforcement.
“Things like that easily get swept under the radar. And an employer could easily remain on the trusted employer list while still engaging in, sort of, very mundane and regular forms of exploitation to workers,” Banerjee said.
“Without a lot of really careful oversight and auditing, it’s very easy to allow the kinds of abuses and exploitations that exist very routinely to go under the radar and get worse because it’ll be just easier to get more and more people in.”
Further facilitating the entry of migrant workers will create a more “flexible” labour force for employers but may further strain the tight housing market, access to health care and even the school system.
“Not only is it a concern of the workers themselves, but the level of scrutiny that needs to be put into place to ensure that this is a win-win, not just a win or lose,” said Banerjee.
“There’s a bigger story of, kind of, what does this mean for Canadian society and the ability to actually absorb these extra temporary foreign workers.”
Federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lawrence MacAulay said the new pilot will help secure Canada’s food supply chain.
“From Canada’s farm fields to our grocery stores, workers throughout the food supply chain provide an essential service,” he said. “It is vital that Canadian employers, including farmers and food processors, are able to hire workers who are critical to food production and food security in Canada.”
Syed Hussan, executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said what will matter is how employers are scrutinized.
“It’s not possible to identify good employers based on complaints or inspections. Workers don’t complain because, when workers complain, they face deportation, eviction, homelessness, lack of work and other reprisals from employers,” said Hussan.
“Employers want quicker access to temporary foreign workers because temporary foreign workers have the least rights.”
Boissonnault said the government over the past few years has strengthened protection of migrant workers by preventing employers from charging recruitment fees, providing workers with information about their rights and launching a tip line for complaints.
“These are steps in the right direction in demonstrating that we take our responsibility seriously,” Boissonnault told reporters.
Good critical comments by Banerjee and Skuterud regarding possible abuse and the ongoing favouring of reduced labour costs to employers. That being said, for repeat users, simplification has merit but as in so many areas of immigration policy, these change fail to address the immigration-related challenges of housing, healthcare and infrastructure:
The federal government is making it easier for businesses to bring temporary foreign workers into Canada, announcing a new “recognized employer” program aimed at speeding up the approval process for companies with a track record of using foreign labour.
The three-year pilot program is designed to reduce the amount of paperwork companies need to submit to justify bringing in outside workers.
It’s the latest expansion of the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program, whose use has exploded over the past year as the federal government has eased restrictions on short-term foreign labour. And it comes alongside a record surge in immigration, which is increasing the country’s labour supply but also adding demand to Canada’s overheated housing market and public services.
Randy Boissonnault, the new Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, said the change to the TFW program would “cut red tape” and help companies manage widespread labour shortages.
The move was applauded by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which has long lobbied for a trusted employer carveout in the TFW program.
Some labour economists, however, warned that further expansion of the program could undercut wages in Canada and make it more difficult to identify companies that are exploiting vulnerable workers.
“It could be a good thing for addressing kinds of critical labour shortages,” said Rupa Banerjee, the Canada Research Chair in economic inclusion, employment and entrepreneurship of Canada’s immigrants at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“But if this kind of a system is not really closely monitored, scrutinized, audited, it’s easy for sort of mundane and everyday examples of abuse and exploitation to kind of become even more rampant in the system,” she said.
As it stands, companies need to submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) before applying to hire temporary foreign workers. The purpose of the LMIA is to show that there are no Canadians or permanent residents who are able to fill the job.
Under the new system, employers who can demonstrate “a history of complying with program requirements” will be given a three-year approval to bring in temporary foreign workers, and won’t have to submit an LMIA before each application. Eligible employers will need to have had three successful LMIAs in the past five years for workers who are deemed to be “in-shortage,” and will be subject to a “more rigorous upfront assessment,” the government said in a news release.
The pilot program will be open to agriculture businesses in September and employers from all other industries starting in January.
This is the second notable change to the TFW program in just over a year. Last spring, the federal government said companies could hire up to 20 per cent of their staff through the program’s low-wage stream, up from the previous 10-per-cent cap. And in seven industries with acute labour shortages – such as restaurants, construction and hospitals – the cap was moved to 30 per cent for a year, then extended to this fall.
The TFW program is largely used as a recruitment tool for farm workers. During the first quarter of this year, employers were approved to hire more than 25,000 workers through agriculture streams, according to figures published by Employment and Social Development Canada, which decides on LMIA applications. General farm workers are easily the most sought-after role in the TFW program, with more than 22,000 approved positions in the first quarter.
But as Ottawa has eased access to foreign labour, employers have ramped up their recruitment of low-wage employees from abroad. Companies were approved to fill about 22,000 roles through the program’s low-wage stream in the first quarter, an increase of about 275 per cent from four years earlier. Cooks are the No. 2 occupation of highest demand, with nearly 3,000 positions approved from January through March. Truck drivers, food counter attendants and seafood plant workers are also in high demand.
Diana Palmerin-Velasco, senior director of the future of work at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the announcement and said it could improve access to the TFW program for smaller employers.
“There are whole sectors of the economy that are dependent on temporary foreign workers,” Ms. Palmerin-Velasco said. “What we have heard from our members is that it’s not that easy for employers. There is a lot of administrative burden, it can be a very complex application process. And when we think about small businesses, it’s not really accessible.”
Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo, questioned the government’s rationale for expanding the program. The Canadian labour market has been exceptionally tight over the past year-and-a-half, as demand for workers has outstripped supply. However, in recent months, job vacancies have been trending down and the unemployment rate has risen.
“We’ve had a 25-per-cent reduction in job vacancies since May, 2022, and if you measure labour market tightness, that’s also been dropping,” Prof. Skuterud said.
He added that recent researchinto temporary foreign workers suggests that they tend to suppress wage growth within companies that use them. “And so we’re going through a period where real wages for low skilled workers in this country are not increasing. The most recent data looks like they’re decreasing. And so it’s all about where this government’s priorities are,” he said.
The federal government has shifted its immigration policy by recruiting thousands of foreign nationals to settle permanently in Canada in hopes they will fill specific jobs, a strategy that has drawn criticism from labour experts.
Since late June, the immigration department has invited almost 9,000 people to apply for permanent residency because of their recent work experience in certain occupations or because of their French-language skills. These individuals are being selected through the Express Entry system, which accounts for a large portion of economic immigration to Canada.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said last year that it would target immigrants who could fill roles in high demand. On May 31, the department announced it would focus on French speakers and people with experience in five fields: health care, skilled trades, agriculture, transportation and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Within health care, for example, the government is seeking immigrants with experience in 35 occupations, including dentists, massage therapists and registered nurses.
The government says its pivot to category-based selection of immigrants, which started on June 28, is meant to ease the hiring challenges that have frustrated many sectors of the economy over the past few years.
But this new approach has raised concerns among economists and policy experts, who warn that today’s labour needs could change quickly and leave the country with a glut of workers in some fields. Moreover, they say high-ranking candidates in Canada’s points-based immigration system could get overlooked as Ottawa prioritizes various groups.
Labour markets “are always evolving and changing,” said Robert Falconer, a doctoral fellow at the London School of Economics who studies migration policy in Canada. “We’re potentially overtargeting certain needs.”
Canada’s labour market is undergoing a transition. While employment has risen by a net 290,000 positions so far this year, job vacancies have tumbled about 20 per cent from their peak levels in 2022. The unemployment rate, now at 5.4 per cent, has risen half a percentage point from a record low set last year.
In some areas, there appears to be persistently high demand for labour. As of April, there were more than 150,000 vacant jobs in health care and social assistance, a record high – almost a fifth of all job vacancies in Canada.
These labour gaps “are just going to get worse as the population ages,” said Rupa Banerjee, a Canada Research Chair in immigration and economics at Toronto Metropolitan University. “Targeting those kinds of occupations has the potential to improve this mismatch” in labour supply and demand.
But in some white-collar industries, there has been a steep drop in vacancies. For example, job postings in software development have plummeted to below prepandemic levels on the hiring site Indeed Canada. (Software developers are among the STEM roles being targeted by the government.)
“We don’t know if the targets that are set today will really be indicative of the needs that we’ll have in five years’ time,” Dr. Banerjee said.
She noted that category-based selection echoes a situation in the late 1990s, when the government admitted thousands of technology workers during a boom period in that industry. Shortly afterward, the dot-com crash led to significant layoffs.
To date, IRCC has invited 8,600 people to apply for permanent residency over five rounds. Two of those rounds targeted French speakers, another two focused on candidates with recent work experience in health care occupations and one focused on STEM experience.
This is a departure from how Express Entry usually works.
Immigration candidates in the Express Entry pool are assigned a score through the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), accounting for such factors as age, education and employment history. The score corresponds to their expected Canadian earnings, based on the outcomes of previous cohorts of immigrants.
In the past, Ottawa would select a few thousand people with the highest scores every two weeks to apply for permanent residency. Policy experts likened this to a “cream-skimming” approach that would boost economic outcomes by targeting people with the highest earnings potential.
But in selecting people with certain attributes, the government is reaching deeper into the pool – and those individuals, with lower CRS scores, have lower expected earnings.
Last week, for example, IRCC invited 3,800 people in the French-language category to apply. The cut-off score for an invite was 375 – much lower than usual.
“It’s analogous to a university prioritizing other considerations, such as athletic ability or legacy status, in their student selection,” said Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo, via e-mail. “The inevitable trade-off is lower average academic quality of new admissions.”
IRCC is still selecting people from the broad pool of Express Entry candidates, but it has largely focused on category-based selections since late June. The categories are in effect for 2023 and subject to change thereafter.
Dr. Banerjee said this adds “uncertainty” to a system that, because of the points system, was more predictable for prospective immigrants. “People who perhaps have a higher score may be overlooked, and this could lead to a lot of frustration,” she said.
Recognizing foreign credentials is another issue, Mr. Falconer said. Just because someone is selected for their health care work experience doesn’t mean they’ll easily transition into a similar role in Canada.
He said he senses “mission creep” in how IRCC is trying to fulfill multiple objectives at once, such as boosting the number of French speakers through an economic immigration program.
“If we want to accomplish goals outside of economic goals, I think that’s fine,” he said. However, with the Express Entry system, “we should really see it as the economic productivity stream, where we do aim to boost productivity across Canada.”
Multicultural Meanderings 
