To fill Canada’s growing labour shortages in construction, natural resources and similar industries, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced plans today to make it easier for skilled tradespersons to immigrate to Canada.

The announcement is the latest in a series Minister Kenney has made about transforming Canada’s immigration system into a fast and flexible system focused on jobs, growth and prosperity.

“Our Government recognizes that our country faces a critical shortage in certain skilled trades,” said Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney. “That’s why we are taking concrete steps to address this problem at a national level.”

Under the modernized Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) to be unveiled later this year, CIC intends to create a separate and streamlined program for skilled tradespersons. Skilled trades include occupations in construction, transportation, manufacturing and service industries. Skilled tradespersons are in high demand in Canada particularly in the natural resources and construction sectors.

Currently, FSW applicants are assessed against a 100-point grid, with a pass mark of 67. The grid takes into account the candidate’s official language ability, education, work experience, age, whether they have a job offer in Canada (arranged employment), and their overall adaptability (which awards points for things like previous work or study in Canada, spouse’s education and relatives in Canada).

Some criteria in the FSW grid, such as years of education, have traditionally favoured professionals and managers more than skilled trades, and thus skilled tradespersons only make up 3 percent of all FSWs entering Canada. During CIC’s consultations on FSWP modernization over the past year, stakeholders also agreed that changes were necessary to make the program more accessible to tradespersons.

The proposed FSWP Skilled Trades program would create a means for skilled tradespersons to be assessed based on criteria geared towards their reality, putting more emphasis on practical training and work experience rather than formal education. The new skilled trades stream would avoid some of the complexities of the traditional points grid. Skilled trades applicants will, however, need to meet minimum language requirements, given the importance of language as a determinant of immigrant success.

“Above all, our Government remains focused on promoting economic growth and long-term prosperity,” said Minister Kenney. “Attracting skilled tradespeople is important for maintaining Canada’s momentum in the global economy.”

If approved, further details about the Skilled Trades program and the revised FSWP are expected to be announced later in 2012. The full regulatory changes to the FSWP will also be published in the Canada Gazette in due course.

from www.cic.gc.ca

from The Globe and Mail

Jason Kenney has had it with incremental measures.

“It frustrates the hell out of me,” the Immigration Minister told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board on Wednesday. “We’re bringing hundreds of thousands of people into the country to end up, many of them, unemployed or underemployed in an economy where there are acute labour shortages.”

That’s how he justifies the federal Conservatives’ drastic plans for immigration – shifts in who comes here, and how, that the government is now pushing more urgently than before. Ottawa wants to transform the immigration system within a year and a half to allow international companies and Canadian professional organizations to assess the education and credentials of any would-be newcomer. Under the new system, employers, not bureaucrats, will decide who comes to Canada.

“Employers are going to do a much better job at selection than a passive bureaucracy,” he said, “because they can’t afford to recruit people to come to Canada who can’t work at their skill level on arrival.”

But to create the 21st century immigration system that he says Canada lacks, Mr. Kenney contends that the country first needs to deal with a staggering backlog. Last week, Ottawa announced that hundreds of thousands of people who have waited for years have been bumped from the skilled-worker application list. The move has appalled critics, prompting threats of class action lawsuits from immigration lawyers. But Mr. Kenney insists the plan, if harsh, is a lawful and necessary step to purge the immigration system and get it working again.

“We could continue with this incremental approach to backlog reduction and eventually by about 2018 we would get to a working inventory. By returning these applications now we’ll get to the working inventory in about 18 months’ time,” he said.

Mr. Kenney was also clear that implementing his idea of immigration means sending an unambiguous message about what he considers Canadian values – and that goes for people who want to take their citizenship oath wearing the niqab, a veil that covers the face.

“I’m not saying that wearing a niqab is barbaric. I am saying that the whole citizenship process is an opportunity for us to instill in people a sense of Canadian – read broadly, western liberal democratic – values, including the equality of men and women,” he said. “And I think most of us would regard a … tribal practice forcing women to cover their faces illiberal.”

Transforming Canada’s immigration system is a good idea, says Maytree Foundation president Ratna Omidvar – just a little belated.

“He’s imagining a system that we should have had 10 years ago.”

Ms. Omidvar said she’s concerned, however, that a new emphasis on language skills will exclude the immigrants from emerging markets that Canada needs most. And, she argues, focusing on a perfect future immigration system will leave behind those newcomers who are already here, and struggling.

“The government needs to invest more resources in internships, in mentoring, in bridge training programs,” she said. “All this talk about fixing the system for the future takes our eyes off the ball.”

Mr. Kenney’s plan to ensure Canada primarily brings in people who can do well here and help the economy is a way to “stop the madness,” as he puts it, of having chronically underemployed immigrants when employers across the country face severe labour shortages. And he said it will allow Canada to better compete for the world’s top talent up against not only Australia and New Zealand – “we’ve been letting them eat our lunch on this,” Mr. Kenney said – but also emerging powerhouses such as Brazil.

Critics have charged that the federal Conservatives’ approach is xenophobic, draconian or too market-driven. But Mr. Kenney argues Canada’s doing people a disservice by bringing them without a shot at a decent job.

“To string them along for years as they get stuck in survival jobs, as their skills deteriorate and they deplete their savings, is almost inhumane.”

One fundamental challenge is Canada’s balkanized system of professional credentials.

It’s tough to ensure the engineers coming to Canada meet the Canadian definition of “engineer,” Mr. Kenney said, when there isn’t one – when each province has its own professional body and system of evaluating qualifications.

In January, 2009, the provinces agreed to sit down and hash out these differences. Three years and $50-million later, nine professions have come up with matching processes. Another six are in the works. Mr. Kenney’s ultimate goal is to set up national groups to assess immigrants’ credentials before they show up. At the same time, he’s about to put out a call for companies to do a similar pre-assessment of international education.

“Dropping immigrants into our labour market to sink or swim, even if they really don’t have a reasonable shot at getting their licence, it’s a waste of human capital. It’s an opportunity cost for our economy,” he says. “So by creating a better qualified pool of prospective immigrants who are going to have much higher rates of success in getting their licenses, they will all do much better.”

Faced with a massive skills shortage and a surge of job openings, Western Canadian employers are looking to an old source for new workers: hard-up Ireland.

This week, two delegations of employers – one from Saskatchewan led by Premier Brad Wall, the other headed by British Columbia and Alberta construction industry representatives – are making a push to entice Irish citizens to leave their economically devastated country and come to Canada, as the ancestors of more than one in eight Canadians did generations earlier.

“We have a construction boom; they have a bust,” said Abigail Fulton, vice-president of the British Columbia Construction Association, whose 11-member delegation is meeting with Irish government, industry and union representatives in Dublin this week. The meetings, she said, are intended “to lay groundwork and develop an inventory of people who are looking for work” – then match the names to companies looking to fill more than 100,000 construction jobs expected to open up in B.C. and Alberta in the next five years.
Like the Alberta-B.C. delegation, the Saskatchewan group, which includes 27 employers, has a big presence at the Working Abroad job fair in Dublin this weekend, giving Canadian exhibitors close to 40 per cent of the booths. The Saskatchewan government has set up a website that greets potential Irish emigrants with the message “Welcome to your future” and hundreds of job postings. The province is even sending immigration officials to help applicants speed the process of moving to Saskatchewan, while Mr. Wall will greet job seekers on Saturday.
“They’re pushing it really hard,” said Chris Willis, a Canadian immigration consultant based in Hudson Heights, Que., who has attended the twice-annual job fair for the past six years. “This time it’s very much a Canadian-focused show.”
Among the exhibitors is Kevin Dahl, co-owner of Nipawin, Sask.-based K&R Contracting, which builds giant metal storage bins attached to grain elevators across the Prairie provinces and has had trouble holding on to employees. “This past year we needed 15 to 20 and couldn’t get any more than 12,” he said. “We’d hire a bunch of guys and they’d just disappear. There’s so much work in Saskatchewan that if you have a bad day, you can start 10 other jobs tomorrow.” He’s hoping to hire up to 10 metal workers this weekend.
With its steady economy, common language, similar training and work standards –not to mention shared history – Canada is one of a handful a popular destinations for Irish workers.

Moreover, the Irish economy holds few opportunities. Four years after the bursting of its property bubble – and its reputation as one of the strongest economies in the world – Ireland’s unemployment rate is stuck at 14.2 per cent, and the number of construction jobs is down more than 60 per cent from its peak in 2007. Construction activity is expected to sag to €6.5-billion ($8.7-billion) this year, one-sixth its level in 2007. “There’s not a huge amount of light at the end of the tunnel at the moment,” said Jimmy Healy, spokesman for Ireland’s Construction Industry Federation.
As a result, people are leaving the country of 4.6 million people in droves. In the year ending April, 2011, 40,200 Irish nationals emigrated, up 45 per cent from the same period a year earlier and triple the level three years earlier, according to the Irish Central Statistics Office.
Meanwhile, Citizenship and Immigration Canada reports 3,729 temporary foreign workers entered the country from Ireland in 2010 – up 25.7 per cent from the year before – either through the country’s one-year “working holiday” program for those under age 35 or after obtaining four-year permits under the temporary foreign workers program through their Canadian employers.
Ms. Fulton said her group had met with a warm reception so far. “They see this as a partnership more than us coming over and snagging all their workers. They want their workers to find jobs and return when their economy improves.”

via The Globe and Mail

The Government of Canada recently announced a 10-year multiple entry visa that will now be available for Indian citizens.

After an initial visa screening, applicants can get a visa that allows them to visit Canada often – as long as their passports are valid – for up to 10 years,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ed Fast, announced at a preliminary session of the fifth Parvasi Bharatiya Divas last week.

“This is great news for Indian business people travelling to Canada,” the minister said. “It will no doubt lead to more partnerships that will benefit both of our countries.”

At meetings Preneet Kaur, Minister of State for External Affairs with the Government of India, stated that Indian citizens living abroad play an important role for India’s prosperity “by sending remittances back home, making investments, transferring technical knowhow, and projecting India’s soft power by popularizing its culture, films and dance.”

She also commented on the growing relationship between Canada and India, “We have already signed the historic civil nuclear agreement. In the near future, India and Canada will sign the social security agreement, conclude a bilateral investment protection agreement and complete an ambitious comprehensive economic partnership agreement. India-Canada ties are developing at a time of enormous opportunities in India. We need $1 trillion in the infrastructure sector over the next decade and foreign investment (and trade) will continue to be an integral part of our growth.” ‘

According to David Johnston, Canada’s Governor General, by 2017 Indian immigrants will be one of the strongest groups in Canada and play an important role in Canada’s success. Indo-Canadians are flourishing: they have been Federal Cabinet Ministers, Provincial Premiers, and anchors of Canada’s principal national television newscast.

The Canadian Government’s Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) quotas for visas without a job offer are set to expire on June 30, 2011. We are working hard to get our clients ready to file for July 1 when the quotas are expected to reset and the new list of eligible occupations will be announced. Nurses, Restaurant Managers, and Professional Occupations in Business Services to Management: your wait is almost over. Contact us now for iMigration Canada’s Individualized Assessment at no charge.