Two lawyers speak out against new policy that 'ignores' really qualified people, 'squanders' a resource that's there
While labour shortages continue to plague many industries, the federal immigration department recently began an effort to solve it — but only for certain industries.
Ottawa promised to prioritize entry into Canada for those who have science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) experience.
“This new STEM-focused category-based selection round will support our science and technology sector and its workforce, by attracting even more of the skilled talent that companies need to drive innovation and realize their growth potential,” said François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
It will become part of the Express Entry system, which focuses on bringing in skilled workers. An increase in open spots will be added in 2023, and even more in the next couple of years, says the government.
More than 32,000 new technology workers have entered Canada through migration since April 2022, found a new report.
Thousands of others will be ‘languishing’
But while these new employees may be welcomed in certain industries, the government is missing the point, says an immigration lawyer.
“When the government now sets up a system that’s specific to certain occupations, it means that all the people who are not under those occupation are no longer going to be able to qualify; they’re going to be put on the back burner, while the government cherry-picks these certain occupations that they’re interested in,” says Matthew Jeffery, lawyer at the Law Office of Matthew Jeffery, Barrister and Solicitor in Toronto.
“There’s a lot of people already in the Express Entry pool — tens of thousands — and most of them are not in those occupations that the government is interested in so they’re just going to be languishing there.”
While the new system may be aimed at adding workers to a much-needed industry, it provides a “potential for political corruption,” says Richard Kurland, an attorney at Kurland, Tobe in Vancouver.
While no corruption has happened around this, selecting only certain categories opens the possibility for questionable political decisions, he says.
“Let’s say you’re a member of parliament, and you have an important constituent that has a company that needs left-handed cabinet makers, and so you can go down the hall to immigration national headquarters and on the floor of that they run IT, and you tap a guy and say: ‘I need left-handed cabinet makers for a small town in Alberta,’ and lo and behold, no one’s going to know, those 300 cases get positively selected.”
“But you can see some problems. It’s not exactly transparent and other people in queue may have a thing or two to say about it.”
“What I’m smelling in the water is political juice to maximize political benefit for a federal party. That’s inappropriate. It’s good ink, and if you are talking about a good immigration story, you’re not talking about something else.”
The targeted approach may do more harm than good, says Jeffery.
“There’s a shortage of workers across the board in Canada and by ignoring all these really excellently qualified people, we’re squandering a resource that’s there of people who could be brought to Canada to join the workforce, enhance the Canadian economy and society.”
COVID brings in new ways of selecting
This way of choosing selected immigrants was effectively created a few years ago, according to Kurland in response to an emergency situation.
“The genesis for what we saw right now is during COVID, when federal and provincial governments saw that what we really needed was specific skill sets to look like we’re addressing COVID: appearance is very important, and so they can go into this electronic inventory and select health-care workers. Bottom line here, now that Canada’s electronic selection system is fully operational, we can select who we want, when we want, to a micro-level.”
As well, by reaching for a limited amount of immigrants, the government ends up playing catch-up to the true reality of the country’s economic needs, according to Jeffrey.
“There’s so much lag time… because the processing times are going to be a year or more in just about every case, so by the time these people actually get here, a tendency is to leave that [policy] in place rather than revisit it on a regular basis.”
“Over time, the actual need for those workers may disappear completely but the system will continue to bring in this type of worker,” he says.
Technology enables government’s mandate
However, the government does have some powerful new ways to address labour issues, says Kurland.
“They have leveraged information technology, as well as artificial intelligence systems, to produce the highest output we have ever seen at the lowest cost we have ever seen — so the system is working, all they need is a target,” he says.
“If they can do anything at all, they can perhaps increase consultation and establish priorities: ‘Who needs what skills and where?’”
By targeting occupations that need to be licensed, such as health-care workers and engineers, the government is not really addressing the shortages today, says Jeffrey.
“You can’t just bring in a foreign nurse in Canada and expect him to begin working immediately as a doctor or nurse because there’s very onerous licensing requirements set up by the provinces that act as a roadblock to that,” he says.
“In fact, it’s so difficult for a foreign doctor to qualify as a doctor in Canada, that many of them just abandon the whole idea of doing so because it’s so difficult to do that.”
