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Canada’s Voice for the Employment and Training Sector

Reforming the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

MARCH 2013 – CANADA

Partly in response to the controversy raised by the decision of a consortium of Chinese companies to hire only Chinese citizens to work in their British Columbia mines, the Canadian government announced significant changes in the popular Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, which allows Canadian employers to temporarily hire foreign workers to meet their immediate needs for labor.

First, the federal government will introduce user fees for employers applying for temporary foreign workers through the labour market opinion process so that these costs are no longer absorbed by taxpayers. According to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, the country spends more than $35 million to process applications from temporary foreign workers, a hefty bill that is absorbed neither by the employers nor the workers recruited. In addition, employers will have to make greater efforts to hire Canadians, particularly in regard to the duration and extent of advertising, before obtaining the right to use the TFW program. Finally, the government will amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations to ensure that companies cannot require proficiency in a language other than the two official languages ​​in the hiring of employees under the TFW program (source).

Along these same lines, the Economic Action Plan 2013 proposes to allocate $44 million over two years, starting in 2013­2014, to the Citizenship Program in order to improve the processing of applications. According to the spokesperson of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, this amount is likely to be covered by higher costs related to citizenship applications for newcomers to Canada, as there has been no increase in the last 20 years.

For more information: www.budget.gc.ca/2013/home-accueil-eng.html

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