Danielle Smith: I agree with what this texter said, is that there are certain jobs that we cannot fill. I noticed this when I was at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, is that when you get to a certain level of wealth and education, there are certain jobs that you cannot fill with Canadian-born residents. So we became reliant on things, like the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, with a path to permanent immigration with the Provincial Nominee Program.
Danielle Smith: And I came to the conclusion that may be the only solution for us to solve this demographic problem that we have, but in addition to fill the needs of our economy, and in addition, make sure that those who are arriving in Canada have the very first thing that they need to allow them to be successful, which is a well-paying job. So I've been a big fan of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the Provincial Nominee Program, which is why I am very interested in how this might be changing.
Danielle Smith: The liberals announced over the break that they were going to come up with a Municipal Nominee Program. So I want to know a little bit about how this would work. My only beef about this is that maybe there are too few spaces being offered. We're talking about 5,000 new spaces created for the program. I don't know if that's yearly, or if that's going to be in total over a pilot period of time, but 5,000 doesn't get you very far.
Danielle Smith: If we're looking at having 300 to 350,000 newcomers to Canada over the next three years, so a million people. 5,000 chosen by an individual municipality is not much, and how are they going to piece it out? Who gets the priority on this? Let's see what Dr. Raj Sharma has to say about it. He's a Calgary immigration lawyer and joins us now to give us his thoughts. Raj, thanks so much for being with me.
Raj Sharma: Thanks for having me on.
Danielle Smith: So first, why don't I get your perspective on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the Provincial Nominee Program. Just to see if your view on it differs from mine, because I had always looked at that as an avenue to bring people to Canada, get them assimilated into the program, learn the language, see if they fit into the workplace, see if they even like it here. And then allow them to use it as a fast track to seek a nomination under the provincial program. Am I looking at it in too rosy a way? Are there some problems with it?
Raj Sharma: Well, I think the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has obviously been tweaked over the years. The low-wage or low-skilled Temporary Foreign Worker Program started under Paul Martin and the liberal regime. It was, again, a pilot I think at that time, and one that increased exponentially. And so, since 2013 or so, almost every immigration program that Canada's regime has started as a pilot, but the Temporary Foreign Worker Program paired with the Provincial Nominee Program, does allow a pathway to permanent residence. As you said, for individuals that have come here, worked here, contributed, and I'm a big fan of both.
Danielle Smith: Now I remember there was a pretty epic scrap at the time between the labor minister, Thomas Temporary, and who happened be the citizenship and immigration minister at the time, a certain Jason Kenney, because at the time the Redford government wanted to expand the number of people we could receive through the Provincial Nominee Program. And I think the minister's response, Kenny's response was, "Well, you know what? If you want to get more, then you've got to convince some other province to take less." And I always wondered whether or not there was an under appreciation for how important that program was.
Raj Sharma: Well, there's a philosophical difference that we've now seen. With the.. the liberal government, and Jason Kenney's regime. Jason Kenney was adamantly against this fragmentation or decentralization of immigration. Jason Kenney was very clear that immigrants choose to come to Canada, and not choosing to come to specific regions within Canada. I think he was, in fact, incorrect on that front. I think the liberals, and again this is interesting because one would imagine conservatives would devolve immigration to the local level whereas the liberals, one would think, that would keep it centralized.
Raj Sharma: So what we've seen under the liberal government, is a 11% increase in the total slots for the Provincial Nominee Programs. I think that the PNPs are much better programs. The provinces know their markets, the provinces know their employers. So I would increase the Provincial Nominee Program. I have faith that local governments have insight as to their needs and that's what this new, Municipal program and it was announced, the liberals announced it during the election that they're going to bring this in, so we have it. It's going to be here. We don't have any details, and, the devil's always in the details.
Danielle Smith: Well, let's then talk about how the Provincial Program works, so that we can see if there's maybe some lessons to be learned about how it might roll out at the local level. Cause I know Claresholm has already done a lot of work on trying to attract individual workers internationally to come to their market. So it goes to the point that you were saying, that they know a local conditions best in a local municipality. So what is different about the provincial approach? How have they been able to prioritize based on the kind of occupations that they need? What have we seen in practice in Alberta?
Raj Sharma: Well, if you go back, Manitoba was one province that successfully utilized the Provincial Nominee Program and Manitoba and Saskatchewan their PNP, this population building exercise and have been successful. Now here, here's the issue. Almost 80% of newcomers that come to a province go through the largest city within that problem. So, what that's doing, of course it's driving up housing prices. It's, there's some concerns because these smaller communities need, of course as you pointed out, there's this demographic crunch. So, the smaller communities actually need immigrants, we simply don't have the birth rate and growth is only coming through immigration. So the trick is, how do we get immigrants to the smaller communities. Now this has been, there's been some challenges here. So when someone comes, for example, someone immigrates to Manitoba, and there's this intention to live in that smaller center.
Raj Sharma: The fact [inaudible 00:06:28] in section six of the charter allows mobility within Canada. So we're not like Germany, where we can resettle people in different regions, for example. So some of the challenges have been that people will take it provincial nomination, say that they intend to live there. But in reality, as soon as they become a resident of Canada, they end up moving to a larger center. So, that's going to be the trick. How do we get individuals, immigrants? How do we pick them? How do we select them? So that they actually go to these municipalities and stay in these municipalities.
Danielle Smith: That's interesting, because I think what they did in Manitoba, if I'm remembering this correctly, because they have a large Mennonite farming population. So I think there were a number of Mexican Mennonites that they targeted, so that they were identifying a group that already had a built in base of community support, but also wanted to be in the farming world so that they [crosstalk 00:07:23]. By definition, you're going to be in the smaller centers in the rural areas.
Raj Sharma: Absolutely. And look people go where they have ties. For example, family and jobs, and my dad ended up in a small coal mining town, in interior B.C. because his brother-in-laws were there. So, he landed in Toronto and that's how we ended up in an Elkford, B.C. This is ... personally, I don't know how the new [inaudible 00:07:54] is selecting or what the program envision. I would imagine that, communities such as the Mennonites, for example, the church groups or perhaps, [inaudible 00:08:03] members could approach the municipalities and say, well, I think he's got, my relative has the skillset. He's got the education and experience, and here's the job offer.
Danielle Smith: Right. Now the question would be 5,000 new spaces. I mean we have, I want to say we've got 365 municipalities in Alberta alone. I think there's several thousand in Saskatchewan. So if you spread it all out, there certainly wouldn't even be enough for one nominee for every small town. So I'm wondering, are they making an error in setting the numbers so low? Should they have come out of the gate saying that it was going to be a much higher number?
Raj Sharma: Well, it's a pilot. So there's another ... there's a couple of pilots on the go right now. There's the Atlantic and the Northern pilot. It's trying to get those immigrants out to eastern provinces. And there's also the rural and Northern immigration pilot that's going on right now as well. So I assume if all goes well, the program could be expanded. Conversely, if it doesn't go well, it could be shut down and reworked. Now, for example, there's been other programs that have been colossal failure and they've been allowed to go on far too long. For example, the Federal Entrepreneur Program or the Federal Investor Program, these so-called "millionaires" were coming to Canada and paying less than taxes than Filipino nannies.
Danielle Smith: Oh dear. So when you say it's been a failure, it's been a failure because of the inequity or it's been a failure because of it's failed to attract people?
Raj Sharma: When I say failure, it's failed to achieve the policy objectives. So the policy objective behind the Entrepreneur and the Federal Investor Program was that these millionaires would come here and they would create jobs and pay taxes into the public purse and that ultimately failed. That's why both programs met their demise, but unfortunately these went on far too long. Again, I have a lot of critiques about that, Jason Kenney has a lot of critiques about the Federal Investor Program. And there's the Quebec Investor Program, individuals like the [inaudible 00:10:21] for example, came through the Quebec Investor Program. So they use the Quebec program and then immediately go elsewhere, move to B.C. for example. So I'm a big fan of the sort of iteration ... These pilot projects, we try them, see the work, meet the policy objective, if they don't then retool and rework.
Danielle Smith: Let me pause you for a minute, because I think that there is this notion, especially since we've had such hard times in Alberta, that if we have jobs available, it should be Alberta born residents who have the first stab at that. So I understand that there's that notion out there, but I also know the stats from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Chambers that we always have tens of thousands of jobs that go unfilled because they are in rural or remote areas or they're in professions that the Canadian-born residents don't want, so let me get your take on that and how you would respond to that potential criticism. Raj Sharma is my guest, he's a Calgary immigration lawyer. We return after this on CHQR radio.
Danielle Smith: Hang on, because I've got a few of you who are raising the same issue. One person says, "Congratulations to the Trudeau government after four plus years, they've managed to create a government policy that isn't completely useless and leaves the country worse off than they started. Well, at least until we get the details. I'm sure they'll manage to find a way to ideologies this to reflect progressive values and seed rural Canada, probably Alberta and Saskatchewan, in order to create liberal support." That's so funny. I looked at it the other way. I just thought how does Alberta and Saskatchewan get our allocation when it's such a small number? Isn't it just going to be Ontario and Quebec once again or Atlantic Canada? The places that vote liberal who are able to take advantage of this program.
Danielle Smith: Oh, and listen to this. "I'm Fabrizio listening to 770 right now. I was born in 1991 and I'm from Brazil, first time listening to the radio and everything interests me, especially because I planned to move to Canada one day," and he is, indeed, contacting us from Brazil, so thank you for listening Fabrizio, but there is this other question that someone is raising here. Has the government given any thought, if we're going to have 350,000 people coming to Canada each year, that's essentially adding the equivalent of a pretty substantially-sized city every single year as they said, "Do we have the infrastructure to support it? Do we have the healthcare system to support it." And I think there's sort of two sides to this. If you're bringing in a young workforce, they tend to be the ones who are earning the tax dollars and paying the income, then they're not using the services as much, especially if they come in directly to a job that's available for them. It's as you age that you end up using the services more.
Danielle Smith: Raj Sharma is my guest. He is a Calgary immigration lawyer, but Raj, I think that that's sort of important for us to understand if we're going to have support for these types of programs, there has to be this recognition that everybody benefits from having newcomers arrive in. There are some people who just think, well that might be taking my job. How do we respond to that?
Raj Sharma: Well, I think the proof is in the pudding, which is that ... every study indicates that there's a demographics crunch happening. I mean, right now we have four workers for every one retiree [inaudible 00:13:19]. That number is going to change dramatically in a matter of a decade now. Where you're going to have something like two to one. So these are simple demographics that can't be ignored. And there's communities including communities in Quebec that we're starving for newcomers and immigrants to do certain jobs that they certainly could recruit. Now interestingly, you made this point about Ontario and Quebec perhaps gobbling this number up. I don't know why the Quebec government announced that they're not going to increase their immigration numbers and Quebec has its own deal. I'm not sure whether Quebec will allow to [inaudible 00:14:01] entrance to these agreements with the federal government.
Raj Sharma: And I would ... obviously I'm not the immigration minister, and there's no danger of me becoming the new immigration minister. But if I was immigration minister, I would probably issue multi-year work permits, open work, to families to come to Canada. And if they come as PRs, there's really nothing holding them or tying them to a particular in this policy. So I would probably grant multi-year work permits and then at the end of a two year, three year period within the municipality, then grant them permanent residency. So we'll see whether they're coming as PRs or whether they're coming under most of your work permits.
Danielle Smith: Okay. So we'll watch and see. I'll probably get you back on again when we get more details of the program. When you look at the lay of the land in Alberta, where do you think the need is the greatest? Do you have any sense of that? Because as you mentioned, I mean people will move where their family is and they will move to the biggest centers. So you probably have a disproportionate number of people who arrive and settle in Calgary and Edmonton. But where is the actual need?
Raj Sharma: Well, I mean if you look at, for example, Claresholm. Claresholm has been really pursuing this sort of avenue or, options. And so hopefully ... this program is separate than the rural and Northern immigration pilot, but there's communities like Claresholm. It could be southern Alberta as well. But again, if I was a policy maker, I would enter into agreements with specific municipalities. So I wouldn't give it a blanket that's every province fits in [inaudible 00:15:41], I would enter into specific municipalities that can establish that there's an economic case.
Danielle Smith: And that would make sense because then if you were able to bring in one family, then you'd create a core that becomes a support network for other families coming in, as well.
Raj Sharma: Yeah, absolutely.
Danielle Smith: Okay. The other problem when you talk about smaller municipalities is, do they have the resources to, for instance, to support somebody with English as a second language learning needs and those kinds of things? That may be one of the barriers to having more of these programs operate.
Raj Sharma: You know the interesting thing is, immigration and [inaudible 00:16:15] population in Canada, it's sort of 80/20 [inaudible 00:16:18]. The pressure or the strain is actually in the larger centers because that's what the demand is the greatest, housing, for example. Again, anecdote is not evidence, but I grew up in a small coal-mining town. You have massive resources. You have housing, for example, because the town overbuilt-- when I left there's 3000 or 3,500 and so you have available housing. You've overbuilt schools. For example, my graduating class probably was the largest, at 60. You still have two schools that's built. You'd be surprised, you might actually have more resources in these smaller centers because they perhaps overbuilt and the population is declining.
Danielle Smith: Well, that kind of flips it on its head. Thank you so much for giving us this perspective. I look forward to talking to you about it again.
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