| Alberta labour leaders are concerned about new federal government regulations that will make it easier for Alberta employers to hire temporary foreign workers in a wide variety of occupations.
The federal government created the new regulations specifically for Alberta and British Columbia in order to address the labour shortage in the two provinces. Employers will have to jump through fewer hoops in order to hire temporary foreign workers in over 150 different occupations that are in high demand, including skilled trades, white collar professional jobs and service and retail jobs.
Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, says the new regulations will make it "laughably easy" for employers to hire foreign workers.
"The Harper government is handing employers a really big stick that at least in some cases is going to be used to demand concessions from Canadian workers and displace Canadian workers and probably put a downward pressure on wages," he says.
McGowan says he finds it ironic that a government that is opposed to market intervention has decided to take this step.
"The market is always right except when it’s in favour of average working stiffs," he says.
McGowan says guest worker programs in other countries have created "ethnically based job ghettos" and have led to "abuse and exploitation of foreign workers" and he’s concerned the same thing will happen here.
He says if the federal and provincial governments made it financially easier for Canadian workers to go back to university or to learn a skilled trade that would go a long way towards addressing the labour shortage. He points out that mature students currently can’t get student loans unless they sell off all their assets first.
D’Arcy Lanovaz, president of the Alberta chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), says the federal and provincial governments should have done more planning to address the labour shortage.
"It should’ve been and could’ve been planned for, but the government failed to do so. I think quite frankly everybody predicted this," says Lanovaz.
Lanovaz argues that post-secondary institutions haven’t been given enough funding to train adequate numbers of professionals and skilled workers. He adds that in some cases if employers paid more they’d be able to retain their workers. He says school boards and the health region often can’t pay employees enough to prevent them from leaving for the private sector and that’s due to inadequate provincial funding.
Gord Christie, of the Calgary and District Labour Council, agrees with McGowan that there needs to be more emphasis on re-training Canadian employees. He’s also concerned that temporary foreign workers might be afraid to complain about exploitative working conditions out of fear of being deported.
Christie says one step that would go a long way towards alleviating the labour shortage would be increased wages in certain low-paid sectors.
"If we had a living wage I would suggest to you every job in this province could be filled," he says.
Christie says employers can’t expect to pay employees "really, really low wages" at the same time as the cost of housing in Calgary "has gone through the roof" and inflation is much higher than anywhere else.
Christie also wants to see more emphasis on hiring immigrants who currently can’t get employment in their profession because their foreign credentials aren’t recognized.
Meanwhile, employers are welcoming the new regulations. Caroline Casselman, director of community and public affairs for Canadian Tire, says two different Canadian Tire stores in Alberta have already hired 69 foreign workers from Mexico.
"It is a very competitive labour market out there. Each individual dealer
is offering very competitive salaries and has advertised extensively in Canada, but it’s at a critical level at this point where there just hasn’t been the response," she says.
"It’s difficult for a retail job to compete with something happening out in the oilpatch. There’s only so much you can do."
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg said at a press conference last week that the federal government has increased funding for apprenticeships and for settlement assistance for new immigrants, including language and career training. Solberg said the new regulations are necessary because the Alberta government predicts there will be a shortage of 350,000 workers in the province over the next few years. |
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