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Yet the censuses also show aboriginal residents still lag far behind other city dwellers. They’re more likely to be jobless or earn less money
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Improving the urban aboriginal experience - The Globe and Mail - 0 views
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These disparities have many native and municipal leaders calling for a new pact for Canada’s rapidly growing urban aboriginal population – such as a landmark accord initiative in Edmonton, begun six years ago, which established aboriginals as equal partners in seeking solutions.
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In 2005, Edmonton and its native community created the Urban Aboriginal Accord, which aims to address native issues. A survey conducted for the accord found that four in 10 felt Edmonton was an unwelcoming and unfriendly city to aboriginals. “They’re a major part of our community, and yet they were kind of separated from our community,” said former city councillor Ron Hayter, a long-time champion of the accord’s creation.
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Crafting the accord took time. Edmonton drew from the lessons of an unsuccessful attempt in Winnipeg, ensuring its aboriginal community was driving the dialogue, not consulted after the fact. Edmonton had to show its native residents it was serious about developing a better and more inclusive relationship, Mr. Hayter said.
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Statistically, it’s too early to tell whether the accord has helped improve the well-being of Edmonton’s aboriginals. Mayor Stephen Mandel knows more work remains to make the city a welcoming and prosperous home for aboriginal residents. More job opportunities and better housing are required, he said, as well as a deeper understanding of the challenges aboriginals face as result of historical abuses and systemic discrimination.
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Mr. Mandel would also like to see greater funding support from Ottawa for municipalities with large aboriginal populations. “The accord was the start of it and only the start,” he said. “We have a long way to go, a heck of a long way to go.”
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http://www.employment.alberta.ca/documents/RRM/RRM-BI-mature-workers.pdf - 0 views
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With the workforce aging in Alberta and across Canada, labour force participation by mature workers is attracting increased attention. As people live longer, healthier lives, many wish to stay active in the workforce or to volunteer in their communities. Mature workers have developed valuable skills and abilities and a lifetime of knowledge and work experience. At issue is not only the need for increased labour supply, but how to minimize the loss of experience, corporate memory, leadership and mentorship that can occur when people retire. Without taking action now to address the impacts of an aging workforce, there will be a significant decline in Alberta's labour supply. In 2006, the Government of Alberta acknowledged the need to increase the labour force participation of mature workers in its comprehensive labour force strategy, Building and Educating Tomorrow's Workforce (BETW). Between October 2007 and February 2008 an online public consultation on Alberta's aging workforce gathered input from Albertans on their priorities, issues and experience with an aging workforce. Following this, government has developed an action plan to support increased labour force participation of mature workers. The action plan is based on the following assumptions: * With the aging population, increasing mature worker labour force participationmay be important for improving productivity and encouraging economic growth.* Mature workers have identifiable work-related needs, such as the need forincreased flexibility, which are not being fully addressed. * Market forces and employer practices will have a positive influence on increasingthe workforce participation of mature workers; however, policy changes may be necessary to remove some barriers and to sustain strong labour market participation. Engaging the Mature Worker: An Action Plan for Alberta identifies four overarching goals to support mature workers in the labour force.
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After wild ride, employers have plenty at stake in this campaign - 0 views
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job-creation plans
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job retraining programs.
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To me that's not good public policy because it's essentially paying for jobs
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he says, adding the federal government should instead be looking for ways to increase productivity, such as by helping companies invest in labour-saving equipmen
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Instead of needing help to create jobs, Alberta firms are unique in that they need help finding labour, says Dale Allen, president of the Acheson Business Association and head of SciTech Engineered Chemicals.
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"And that means it's now becoming difficult to get labour," says Allen, whose company of six employees produces environmentally friendly products such as organic salts for cleaning gas plants. "Everybody is competing for the same people."
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To help the situation, Allen says the federal government should try to recruit skilled workers from countries like the United States and Great Britain, which are still going through economic difficulty. Bringing in unskilled, temporary foreign workers is a more time-consuming and costly practice for companies, he says.
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ATB: Unemployment Rate Only Part of the Story - 0 views
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Since reaching its peak last April at 7.6%, the Alberta unemployment rate has recovered to 5.7% as of March 2011. However, to say the labour market has completely recovered because the unemployment rate has fallen misses an important point. The average length of unemployment in Alberta was 16.8 weeks in the first quarter of 2011, still up near the peak of 17.7 weeks reached in Q2 2010. This is substantially longer than before the recession, when the average duration of unemployment was around 8 weeks (see graph). This is a sign that the current labour market consists of two distinct groups of job seekers: those who have the skills and qualities employers want, and those who do not.During the boom years the length of unemployment was abnormally low in Alberta as employers, suffering from labour shortages, couldn't afford to be too selective. However, with labour demand cooling with the recession, individuals who currently do not have the skills employers desire face a tough hiring climate.The unemployment rate and the duration of unemployment indicator have followed similar (although less dramatic) paths at the national level,indicating that this phenomenon is not unique to Alberta.Long-term unemployment is a much larger problem than short-term as it leads to myriad of other social troubles. Over the coming quarters, the duration of unemployment might trickle back down slowly as the economy improves, although the root of this problem (lack of skills/skills mismatch) can't be solved by more economic growth - the solution lies in things like further education and re-training.
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Working Temporarily in Canada: Who Can Apply - 0 views
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most cases you will need a written job offer or contract of employment from your employer in Canada before you apply for a work permit. You will also need to provide evidence that you meet the requirements of the job offer.
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need a positive labour market opinion (LMO) from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC)
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most cases, if you need a work permit, you will also require written confirmation from HRSDC that your employer can hire a foreign worker to fill the job. This is called a positive labour market opinion or LMO. It is up to your employer to get this written confirmation.
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After your employer gets confirmation that you can be offered a job, the employer will send you the LMO confirmation letter. In some cases, you can submit your work permit application while you wait for the LMO
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Does Local Firm Ownership Matter? - 0 views
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A data set for U.S. counties that includes residence status of firm owners is used to assess whether per capita density of locally owned businesses affects local economic growth, compared with nonlocal ownership. The database also permits stratification of firms across different employment size categories. Economic growth models that control for other relevant factors reveal a positive relationship between density of locally owned firms and per capita income growth but only for small (10-99 employees) firms, whereas the density of large (more than 500 workers) firms not owned locally has a negative effect. These results provide strong evidence that local ownership matters for economic growth but only in the small size category. Results are robust across rural and urban counties.
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Edmonton Chamber of Commerce - 0 views
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To support the development of a robust all-inclusive labour market in the Edmonton region that fosters skill development and capacity building, and attracts a diverse young workforce eager to participate in the Edmonton region and northern economies on a long-term basis
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To support the development of a robust all-inclusive labour market in the Edmonton region that fosters skill development and capacity building, and attracts a diverse young workforce eager to participate in the Edmonton region and northern economies on a long-term basis.
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Maytree » Recommendations for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program - 0 views
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Recommendation #1: Eliminate the Low Skill Pilot Project for temporary foreign workers.
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increase the pool of workers to fill low-skilled jobs on an ongoing basis, employers should make these jobs more attractive to people already in Canada, whether immigrants or Canadian born. In addition, Citizenship and Immigration Canada should increase family class and refugee admissions to provide more labour force participants who, as permanent residents, have rights and access to services to prevent exploitation. Increasing points in the Federal Skilled Worker Program for demand occupations, the trades, and validated job offers will also broaden the pool of workers
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Recommendation #2: Monitor recruitment and working conditions of temporary foreign workers.
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workplace safety and employment standards come under provincial jurisdiction, temporary foreign workers are a federal responsibility. The federal government should therefore provide leadership and support to provinces to help them monitor and enforce the working conditions of temporary foreign workers
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egulate recruitment agencies
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#3: Strengthen the “labour market opinion” process.
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Implement a monitoring system to follow up on employers who were issued positive labour market opinions to ensure the proper treatment of temporary workers and others in the workplace.
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Between 2005 and 2008 there was a 5.7% decline in permanent residents (from 262,241 in 2005 to 247,202 in 2008) and a 37.6% increase in temporary entrants (190,724 students and temporary workers entered Canada in 2005, and 272,520 entered in 2008).
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Experience in other countries has demonstrated that similar “temporary guest worker” programs have resulted in the creation of an undocumented underclass and its accompanying difficulties.
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IV. Evaluating the Nominee Programs: Institutional Design and Practice - 0 views
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Alberta’s “semi-skilled” nominee stream for lower-skilled workers – a hodgepodge of narrow, sector-specific pathways – currently makes temporary foreign workers in the food and beverage processing, hotel and lodging, manufacturing, trucking, and foodservice sectors eligible for nomination.[
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Employers and workers in these sectors follow a relatively complex application process.[xcii] First, employers specify the number of nominations they intend to make, and outline the job description and requirements, settlement and retention plans, and any sector-specific requirements to the provincial government. This process allocates a specific number of nominations to each employer directly, limiting the maximum number of nominations according to sector.[xciii] Once allocations are made, employers are eligible to select foreign workers who meet the basic education and worker experience requirements for nomination.
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In Alberta, lower-skilled foreign workers must be employed with the nominating employer for a minimum period of six months before they are eligible for nomination. Other requirements for education and experience in workers’ home countries vary across sectors. After nominated workers have been approved as nominees by the province, they apply CIC for permanent residency status.
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process of allocating nominations to employers before they select individual nominees disadvantages workers in at least two ways. First, it further discourages workers from accessing existing employment protections such as minimum employment standards in the face of employer abuses, by giving employers sole discretion to “reward” workers with nominations. Given that these nominations represent a direct path to permanent residence status in Canada, they are obviously extremely valuable to workers. As Yessy Byl, the Alberta Federation of Labour’s Temporary Foreign Worker Advocate, points out, some employers “use this program as a further excuse to exploit workers who desperately want to immigrate.
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Many dangle the possibility of nomination in the AINP to ensure acquiescence to unreasonable requests such as unpaid work, additional work, etc.”[xcvi] Second, by limiting the number of allocations made to each employer, this system is likely to increase competition among workers for nominations and may even discourage employers from participating in the nominee program altogether because they regard it as arbitrary and unfair.
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MPNP requires employers to notify temporary foreign workers, within their initial six months of work, that the employer intends to nominate them through the MPNP. This requirement has the advantage of minimizing worker uncertainty about their future status while they are still ineligible for nomination under provincial requirements.
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further reform might be for the province to remove the six-month work requirement, making foreign workers eligible for nomination as soon as they begin work in Canada. This would at least provide the opportunity to do away with the temporary “trial period”, during which workers are arguably most vulnerable. Such a reform, however, may also serve to increase employer control ever further and calls into question the overall legitimacy of a program that gives private actors such broad scope to nominate immigrants without even basic requirements to prove their bona fides. Realistically, these challenges point to the inherent inadequacy of the TFWPs as an entry point for permanent economic immigration through an employer-driven nominee program. Palliative reforms that fail to recognize underlying problems of regulatory devolution and resulting institutional mismatch are unlikely to generate the kinds of outcomes for vulnerable foreign workers that fairness and sound economic policy-making are likely to demand.
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employer beliefs that individuals from certain countries of origin are better able to perform this or that job create racialized profiles within particular sectors and industries.
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Left to the sole discretion of employers, the effects of nominee selection processes in this area will likely be to ossify and entrench aspects of race and gender discrimination as part of Canada’s economic immigration system.
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Employers in Manitoba, for example, have been active both in lobbying for an expanded nominee program and in developing surrounding institutions and services.
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developed a network of services for foreign workers that have been widely hailed as successful innovations – at least in those workplaces and urban environments where workers are able to take advantage of them.
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Alberta’s nominee program requires employers to provide workers with in-house language training services or to arrange for provision by a third party. Likewise, the AINP obligates employers in most streams to design an accommodation and settlement plan for nominees that “demonstrate employer support and assistance toward successful integration of the workforce, community and society integration.”[cvi] While these seemingly modest requirements may appear to be positive developments in the direction of improving workers’ security and likelihood of successful settlement, the implied trend is clearly toward the devolution of support services away from the provincial government and toward private actors, the effects of which remain largely unevaluated.
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There are two specific criticisms directed at this aspect of regulatory devolution. One is that obliging employers to provide essential settlement services further skews barging power to the disadvantage of workers by enmeshing their personal and family lives even more closely with authoritative decision-making processes undertaken by their employers. Jenna Hennebry has pointed out that:
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Manitoba leaking nominee workers - Member News - Community - The Canadian Tourism Human... - 0 views
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Between 2005 and 2009, Manitoba received 13,089 immigrants through the provincial nominee program, nearly 40 per cent of the 33,722 nominee immigrants who landed in Canada in those years. Alberta, with 14 per cent, was a distant second.
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Although immigration falls under federal jurisdiction, Ottawa has signed agreements to let provinces and territories establish criteria for, and seek out, immigrants to fill a province's specific economic needs. Manitoba was the first to sign such an agreement in 1996 and has been the most successful at using the program.
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In Manitoba, where the provincial government has touted the nominee program as one of the saviours of the provincial economy, nominees are far more likely to be poor and working below their skill level than in other western provinces.
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Between 2000 and 2008, 82.6 per cent of Manitoba nominees remained in the province. That compared to 86 per cent in Saskatchewan, 95.6 per cent in Alberta and 96.4 per cent in British Columbia
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Nominees who leave are most likely to move to Alberta, B.C. and Ontario
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Immigration program useful but flawed, Kenney says - Politics - CBC News - 0 views
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report found that retention rates vary: the lowest is in Atlantic Canada at 56 per cent and the highest were in Alberta and British Columbia, both above 95 per cent.
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there is inconsistent monitoring and evaluation of each province's program and no systematic way of collecting performance information. It also concludes that "there is a continued need for strong emphasis on program integrity as it pertains to fraud and misrepresentation."
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federal government wants to see more "evidence-based" identification of labour shortage needs in the provinces, the report says in its recommendations section. It also wants clarification on the role of visa officers abroad and on the provinces themselves in detecting fraudulent applications and suggests more training is necessary to cut down on fraud.
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Evaluation of the Provincial Nominee Program - 0 views
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Alberta 4,698
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Manitoba 13,089
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British Columbia 6,085
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Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program Attraction, Integration and Retention of Immigrant - 0 views
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Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program Attraction, Integration and Retention of Immigrant
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Guide 5289 - Spouse or Common-Law Partner in Canada Class - 0 views
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during the five years before you submitted your sponsorship application, you failed to meet your obligations to pay support to your children or former spouse(s) and a judgment order was issued requiring you to fulfill your alimony obligations, but you have not yet reimbursed the amounts due;
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during the five years before you submitted your sponsorship application, you failed to meet your obligations to pay support to your children or former spouse(s) and a judgment order was issued requiring you to fulfill your alimony obligations, but you have not yet reimbursed the amounts due;
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Can you travel to Canada when you owe child support - 0 views
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Can you travel to Canada when you owe child support? In: Child Support [Edit categories] Answer: Improve Just a guess but how would the border agents ever know? They have never asked me about that, and I've been back and forth a lot. Travel to Canada now requires a passport, and passports can be revoked/suspended for failure to pay child support.
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I was turned down for a passport due to past child support. What can I do? - 0 views
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U.S. citizens who are in arrears of child support in the amount of $2500 or more are not eligible for a passport.
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the only way to travel to Canada and return to the U.S. is if you have a valid passport. The only way to get a passport is to make arrangement to pay the back child support.
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U.S. citizens who are in arrears of child support in the amount of $2500 or more are not eligible for a passport.
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VI. Lessons for Ontario (and Others) - 0 views
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Employer-driven recruitment and nominee selection processes place serious limitations on the opportunities to address foreign workers’ employment-related insecurities through the PNPs
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PNPs act less as a “response” to the problems of temporary status and more as a extension of existing trends
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Manitoba have innovated significant legislative reforms and promoted third-party participation in order to correct some of these imbalances, Ontario should also consider alternative models for provincial economic immigration, with the overarching goal being to reduce employers’ reliance on TFWPs and to put decision-making power back into the public hands.
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In jurisdictions where PNPs are likely to remain employer-driven, provincial and federal governments should work together to ensure strong regulatory standards and to take the lead in settlement service provision
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III. Overview of the Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs) - 0 views
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According to all PNP agreements signed to date, provincial governments hold exclusive authority to establish program criteria, nomination quotas, and administrative schemes, leaving the federal government with a limited role to monitor basic admissibility requirements under the IRPA and to negotiate evaluation processes for each provincial program. The language of the framework agreements indicates unequivocally that these programs are designed for the provinces to occupy maximum jurisdictional space.
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At the level of program design, current PNP agreements enable the provinces to establish their own criteria for making nominations and to set target numbers for nominees from year to year.
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Most provinces have created distinct sub-categories or streams in their PNPs based on skill level, family statues, or planned business development, and sometimes restrict these to specific industries and occupations.
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All existing PNP streams for lower-skilled workers require nominees to first become temporary workers admitted into the province through one of the federal TFWP streams and to work under a temporary permit for a minimum time period before they are eligible to apply as a nominee (6 and 9 months are common). Other program steams for higher-skilled workers allow nominees to be recruited form outside Canada and to arrive directly without first applying through the TFWPs.[lx]
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A second common feature of PNPs is that they, like the TFWPs, are essentially employer-driven and thus reflect strongly the interests and demands of influential private actors. Employers directly generate the demand for foreign workers, sometimes participate actively in developing specific PNPs, and invariably exert a high degree of practical control over nominee recruitment and selection processes.
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PNPs to provide access to permanent immigrants whose employment skills are specifically selected to meet these labour requirements is clearly attractive to businesses. PNP immigration processes also tend to be much faster compared to those at the federal level, closing the sometimes-lengthy gap in time between the point at which employers identify labour needs and the point when workers are actually available to fill these positions. PNPs may also allow employers to bypass the federal LMO requirements under certain conditions, which is significant since employers have expressed some frustrations with the time and resources they need to devote to fulfill these requirements.[lxv]
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[t]he PNP and the TFW Program are popular with some larger employers but often prove too costly for smaller ones to adopt.”[lxvi] Large businesses can more easily afford the significant administrative costs that can attach to recruiting, transporting, re-settling, and training nominees, such that the demands of these enterprises are most likely to dominate nominee programs
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recent example, Maple Leaf Foods spent an estimated $7,000 per worker to employ individuals in their Brandon, Manitoba processing plant, bringing them to Canada initially through a TFWP and subsequently nominating them for permanent residency through the Manitoba PNP.[lxvii]
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the federal-provincial agreements on immigration with Ontario and Alberta contain annexes that provide provincial governments and employers with greater flexibility in assessing labour market needs, without requiring input from HRSDC in the form of an LMO
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Ontario and Alberta annexes explicitly recognize that pursuant to s. 204(c) of the IRPR, CIC is authorized to issue a temporary work permit without requiring a prospective employer to seek an LMO if requested to do so by the province
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Under these sub-agreements, Ontario and Alberta agree to establish procedures and criteria to govern this authority, and to provide annual estimates of the number of temporary work permits issued by this route
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A few critics of the TFWPs and PNPs in Canada have pointed out the overriding problem of employer control both in the policy-setting realm and in the actual workplace. Their criticisms raise concerns about effects on national immigration policy, on labour protection policies, on the realization of actual protections for vulnerable workers, or as some combination of these
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[s]ome argue that letting employers choose who enters is against all the principles that have shaped Canada as an immigration country
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Alboim and Maytree target the devolution of decision-making and program development from the federal government to the provinces and private interests, resulting in fragmentation of immigration priorities and procedures
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Others have focused specifically on the fact the PNPs bind foreign workers closely to employers, exacerbating rather than relieving some of the real insecurities that figure prominently in the TFWPs
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Some proponents of existing PNP models have countered that the problems associated with employer control over economic immigration are overstated and maintain that market-based incentives will effectively penalize abusive employers. These parties believe that economic immigrants will be attracted to responsible employers, such that employers will have adequate incentives to place voluntary restraints on formal and informal bargaining power.
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But this argument rests on the dubious assumption that information about employer practices is readily available and that it will be accessible by temporary foreign workers – who, as discussed below, face significant barriers related to language, education, cultural, and access to support services. Without this information, so-called “reputation effects” are unlikely to place serious restraints on employers’ actions
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Overall, it is generally clear that implicit standards of self-regulation fall well below what is necessary to protect workers, particularly in light of the broad employer discretion now inherent in existing PNP models. The main questions, taken up in the following section, are about what aspects of nominee program design premised on this discretion actually contribute to workers’ insecurities and about whether responses by governments and third-party actors can be considered sufficient to meet the resulting concerns.
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Value Added Immigration: Lessons for the United States from Canada, Australia and the U... - 0 views
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