Canada Welcomes Largest Influx of New Immigrants in a Century
Over 300,000 Immigrants Came to Canada in 2018, The Highest Number Since 1913
The numbers are in: according to Statics Canada, 321,065 immigrants arrived in Canada in 2018, the highest immigration number since before the First World War.
The final quarter of 2018 brought 71,131 immigrants to the country. All in all, accounting for non-permanent residents, refugees, and asylum seekers, Canada’s population grew by 528,421 people. According to Statistics Canada, 80.5% of this population growth is due to international migration.
This level of growth has not been seen since the 1950s and marks a significant milestone for the country. This is the largest number of immigrants the country’s seen since 1913 when Canada welcomed 401,000 immigrants. It’s also the fourth-largest in historical data that dates to 1852.
What’s more, despite indicators of a sluggish economy, this population growth has helped boost employment; most of these newcomers are of working age.
These impressive numbers really drive home the importance of immigration for a country with an ageing population. With 80% of the year’s population growth coming from migration, it’s hard to make a case that the country doesn’t need newcomers.
The federal government seems to agree, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented that Canadians are still “overwhelmingly in favour” of immigration during a recent news conference in Mississauga.
Still, the government is taking steps to strengthen border security, as the new federal budget has confirmed significant investment (estimated at $1.18 billion) in a new border-enforcement strategy.
This strategy is aimed at “detecting, intercepting and removing irregular migrants,” according to Global News, and seems designed to address concerns over border security. The budget also includes money to help speed up refugee claim processing, as well as greater resources for immigration and refugee legal aid.
Irregular border crossings are still a point of contention for certain critics of Canada’s immigration system, and this budget item may help address common complaints surrounding asylum seekers, case processing, and the ongoing backlogs facing Canada’s system.
It’s amazing to see Canada open its arms to so many newcomers, and it’s even more amazing to see the impact these people can have on their new home.
Photo Credit: "Ottawa fireworks 9" by Harvey K is licensed under CC BY 2.0
How to Hire (and Keep) Internationally Trained Foreign Workers
A Guide to Help Business Owners Navigate the Process of Hiring Permanent Foreign Workers
For businesses struggling to fill vacant positions with skilled, qualified individuals, there’s a solution right at your fingertips.
Looking outside of Canada to successfully hire foreign workers is an effective way to battle the labour shortage while helping immigrants settle into their new home and become contributing members of our society.
If you are interested in permanently recruiting foreign employees for your business in Canada, consult the services of an immigration and refugee law office to ensure you get the advice you need.
First, Let’s Talk About Why You Should Hire Foreign Workers
Hiring internationally trained foreign workers not only benefits your business by helping you fill vacant roles, but it also significantly impacts the employee and their ability to integrate within our society.
While you strive to survive in the international market, you can rest assured you’re gaining talent that boasts the most potential for your growth.
The benefits of hiring foreign workers include:
- Meet staffing requirements
- Gain a competitive edge
- Tap into new markets
- Become more effective
- Build your network
Who Can Work in Canada?
Newcomers with permanent residency status in Canada – these individuals are authorized to work for any employer they choose.
Work permit holders – Most of these employees will have employer-specific work permits, meaning they can only work for the specific employer they’ve identified as such on their work permit.
International students – During academic study breaks, such as winter holidays and summer, most full-time post-secondary students with a valid study permit may work off-campus for up to 20 hours per week. They are also usually eligible for a Post Graduate Work Permit after they complete their studies in Canada.
First Steps
Hiring internationally isn’t as easy as posting an ad on Indeed or Monster and sorting through a stack of resumes. First, you must show a need for a foreign worker in your business. This means you need to prove to the government that your business is struggling to hire a Canadian worker.
Related Article: Is it Getting Easier to Hire Temporary Foreign Workers?
Obtain a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA)
The Labour Market Impact Assessment helps determine if your business is struggling to meet staffing requirements and cannot find Canadian workers to fill those vacancies. Start by submitting a LMIA, get assessed, and if positive, this indicates a need for a foreign worker to fill the job and that no Canadian worker is available.
If no LMIA is required, you are still obligated to provide information about the vacant position(s) to the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) through their website.
Conditions of work permits include:
- The work they are permitted to perform
- Job location
- Hours of work
- Work permit expire date
Important Factors to Consider for Recruiting
For the sake of efficiency and proactivity, consider the following steps before initiating the recruiting process for permanent foreign workers.
Communicate – Ensure everyone involved in the hiring process understands the value of hiring foreign workers due to their unique skill set and credentials.
Train – Educate your staff on diversity and the importance of cross-cultural workplace environments.
Evaluate Effectively – Emphasize the candidate’s skills and experience for the job rather than where they came from or where they gathered their education and experience.
Transparency – Clearly outline the selection and interview process in your job descriptions for all postings.
Welcoming – Let all potential candidates know that your workplace values international credentials and competencies, is inclusive, and welcomes diversity.
Comply – Ensure your organization complies with all relevant federal, provincial or territorial laws that govern the recruitment process.
Recruiting 101
Find high-quality candidates and fairly review their qualifications.
H4: How to Find Internationally Trained Workers
There are many provincial and federal level resources available for your business to seek out the help of internationally trained foreign workers.
- Local job banks
- Canada’s online job bank
- Job fairs
- Universities and colleges
- Settlement service provider organizations
Ask around – your current employees, friends, or family members may have someone in mind that would love to be a part of your team!
To ensure you get the best options available, consult the services of an immigration law firm.
Hiring Best Practices to Follow
Maintaining your vision for the role, staying organized, and communicating to your staff and your prospective new hires are just a few examples of how to ensure hiring success.
With clear and concise job descriptions, careful selection, a consistent interview process with objective, concise questions, and fair, accurate assessment practices, you’ll get the best possible employee for the job.
Tip: When hiring for similar positions, try using a set of criteria that is consistent and equitable. Consider using an evaluation table to help you compare candidates. You can also hire an HR representative to help you navigate the interview process.
Integrating and Retaining Internationally Trained Workers
It’s not enough to have the ability to hire internationally trained workers. You have to adopt practices that ensure your organization can retain these new hires.
With a few initiatives, your business can be successful in this endeavour.
Career Development
The benefits of proper training and mentorship opportunities lead to career advancement among all workers. Foreign hires should benefit from the same opportunities. With career development opportunities available for all workers, your organization will benefit from a boost in productivity, employee retention, and the ability to attract new hires.
Ensure your organization’s training programs include the following:
Skills Training – Comes in the form of technical, academic, literacy, essential skills (computer technologies), and team building skills.
Language Training – To set your new employee up for success, consider implementing English and/or French language training sessions or directing them to the best option available in their area.
Cultural and Communications Training – This enables your workers to communicate effectively, boost their confidence, express their ideas, and interact more freely with the employees of your organization.
Organizational Training – As you would with all new hires, permanent foreign workers will greatly benefit from training that focuses on the vision, mission, norms, procedures, and expectations of your organization.
Mentoring Programs – Allocate mentors to foreign workers to help them integrate into your organization better. Their dedication and experience will prove to be excellent examples for your new hire. Additionally, a mentor will help expand the worker’s networks and competency of the Canadian workplace and culture.
These programs provide a warm, welcoming environment that promotes workplace diversity. It also ensures your current staff are more culturally aware.
Make Your Workplace Inclusive and Welcoming
By broadening your employee diversity and including people from all walks of life, you’re setting a positive example for the Canadian workforce. An inclusive workplace will benefit everyone by:
- Improving morale
- Fostering dedication
- Ensuring all workers are welcome by peers, managers, and executives
- Providing formal orientation/introduction so they feel valued and included
- Holding social events to celebrate your organization’s cultural diversity
Stop struggling to fill the gaps in your business. With the right approach, your business can flourish with the help of skilled workers from abroad.
How Easy is it to Immigrate to Canada?
Hot-Button Debate Over Immigration, Refugees Ignores Human Experience and Challenges
How easy is it to immigrate to Canada? How easy is it to make a refugee claim? With a federal election right around the corner, hot-button issues are becoming even more polarized and divisive.
Canada’s stances on immigration and refugees are no exception, generating high-profile demonstrations and reactions from various groups across the political spectrum.
Populist rhetoric around immigrants and refugees paint an inaccurate picture of Canada; one with a revolving door approach, ignorance of budgetary concerns, and a blind eye that lets anyone into the country as long as they apply and say the right things.
This approach completely ignores evidence and historical data; Canada’s system is remarkably strict despite an outwardly welcoming attitude. What’s more, Canada’s got some of the world’s most restrictive visa rules, especially for visitors.
The immigration system, for all the changes in attitude that came with the 2015 federal election, has remained largely the same as it was under the previous Conservative government. Much of the populist rhetoric around immigration within Canada conveniently ignores that the strong system of bureaucracy was maintained and, in some cases, strengthened by right-wing politicians.
But the most contentious issue, by far, remains irregular border crossings and unfounded accusations of complacency. With many asylum seekers crossing “illegally” at the Canada-US border, pundits and politicians have stoked anger and resentment that somehow these people are “jumping the queue.”
This could not be further from the truth.
CBC News recently hosted a town hall in Saskatchewan where many immigrants and refugees shared their stories. These stories demonstrate the emotional and psychological toll Canada’s immigration systems have on those who use them, and that, despite successes, it’s not an easy system to navigate.
One of the speakers at this town hall, Ponziano Aluma, fled Uganda in 1981, along with his wife. He spent six years in a South Sudan refugee camp before settling in Regina in 1987. His wife died in childbirth while in the camp, and his child soon after. Aluma commented on immigration critics, saying that they “have no clue what they’re talking about.”
“The reasons why they are against immigration is not so much that it’s being done illegally, it’s just because they don’t want the kind of people who come now,” said Aluma.
Aluma also touched on the very concept of illegal immigration, and how it often gets confused and misrepresented.
“What seems to be happening is that people are confusing legal migration with asylum seekers,” he said. “But when it comes to asylum seekers, we know the concept of legality is almost absurd.”
Aluma gave an example of a woman fleeing a violent spouse or partner running from their home and jumping the fence into your backyard, knocking at your door for safety. Would people tell this woman they should have entered through the gate?
People arrive in Canada by any means necessary, regardless of hardship. Aluma added that even the people who “jump the fence” must still deal with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
Victoria Tran was one of 11 siblings who, along with her parents, squeezed onto a boat in Vietnam in 1979 to flee the communist regime. The boat held 700 people, including the Trans, but was only designed to hold 300. The landed at a UN refugee camp in Malaysia where they spent the next 13 months before they were sponsored to go to Canada. Tran described this as “the best than that ever happened in [our] lives.”
Immigrants don’t necessarily enjoy a smooth transition, either. Patrick Fernandez applied for permanent residency in 2017 so he could join his wife in Regina. Navigating the system and working through the application process took longer than two years.
A successful artist in his native Philippines, Fernandez gave up his reputation and career and spent a long time rebuilding it in Regina. Fernandez commented that people aren’t aware of how much newcomers go through to come to Canada.
As for the concept that these newcomers are a burden on the Canadian taxpayer, it’s a myth. Aluma, a Ugandan refugee, now works as an income tax auditor with the federal government. He worked hard upon arriving to support his surviving family in Uganda, and with his wife (herself an immigrant from Vietnam) works to support both his extended family and hers.
“If I was not in Canada, I would not be able to do these things,” he said.
The fact of the matter is that immigration and refugee claims do guarantee entry to the country. Far from it, they’re the start of long, often challenging processes that require careful diligence and hard work.
Photo credit: "Premier Notley celebrates at the Canadian citizenship ceremony16" by Ian Jackson/Government of Alberta, is licensed by CC BY-ND 2.0
IRB Conducting Internal Review of Hiring Practices After Controversial Member Re-Hired
Board’s Hiring Of “Dr. No” Despite Controversial Past Statements Raises Questions Of IRB Hiring Process
A former Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) Member who gained notoriety over comments about refugees in 2001 was re-hired in late December 2018, according to a Global News report.
Dubbed “Dr. No” for the volume of cases he denied, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk was an IRB Board Member between 1996 and 1998, who claimed he denied over 90% of all cases he heard.
In 2001 Dr. Luciuk made waves with an opinion piece that appeared in major Canadian newspapers titled “How ‘Refugees’ and Terrorists Get Into Canada,” in which he was highly critical of refugee claims made in Canada and Canada’s asylum system. Among other anti-immigrant sentiments, Dr. Luciuk wrote that “If the IRB continues to operate as it has, then just about anyone and everyone who wants to get into Canada will.”
In a 2015 commentary piece for the National Post, Dr. Luciuk expressed further critiques of Canada’s asylum system, cautioning against rushing claimants through and speaking in favour of taking a common sense approach that puts Canada’s needs first, as was done with his parents and other displaced persons. Dr. Luciuk is himself the child of refugee parents who fled both Soviet and Nazi occupations in Ukraine.
Despite Dr. Luciuk’s public comments, the IRB re-hired him in late 2018 as part of the Board’s Legacy Task Force. This Task Force is comprised of retired Board Members to provide dedicated support to the substantive elimination of the asylum claim backlog.
In a statement to Global News, IRB spokesperson Anna Pape said that Dr. Luciuk was re-hired following “a review of his past performance” and “after several members of the task force recommended him.” Despite this, the IRB is also conducting an internal review of its hiring process following questions about Luciuk’s past comments.
“The article was written many years ago and references a refugee determination system that has undergone significant change,” Pape added. “In any event, the IRB does not support the content or tone of that article.”
When reached for comment, Dr. Luciuk said the article in question “was written in a particular context, very different from present-day circumstances … [the IRB is] not the same board I experienced two decades ago.”
Regardless of Dr. Luciuk’s change in tone and stance, refugee claimants deserve to appear before an impartial tribunal. As Canada’s largest independent administrative tribunal, the IRB must ensure Board Members are impartial, as their decisions have a direct impact on the integrity of Canada’s refugee program and the lives of the persons appearing before them.
Yellow Vests and Convoys Scapegoating Immigration
Amidst Increasing Economic Frustration in Canada, Groups Call for Reduction in Immigration
On the morning of February 19, 2019, a convoy of trucks descended on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to protest the federal government’s perceived lack of support and action for Alberta’s energy sector.
The protestors under the United We Roll banner are focused primarily on getting the federal government to take action on pipelines and Canada’s oil sector, in addition to repealing federal carbon taxes. Starting in Alberta, the convoy has crossed the country to protest peacefully on Parliament Hill.
But given United We Roll’s origins in “Yellow Vests” groups (a Canadian version of France’s “gilets jaunes” anti-fuel tax movement), many commentators have denounced the movement for its close links to anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiment. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network states that Yellow Vests Canada has been co-opted by far-right groups, “including the most anti-Muslim groups in Canada.”
United We Roll’s organizers have taken steps to distance their convoy from the Yellow Vests, with head organizer Glen Carritt preaching politeness and professionalism, noting that the convoy has repeatedly said racist and discriminatory views are not welcome.
Still, in comments published in the Globe and Mail, Carritt also commented, “We still stand behind the ‘yellow vests,’ but whether you want to wear the yellow vest or not, we welcome all respectful, hard-working Canadians.”
Yet the United We Roll website’s homepage mentions opposition to the “UN impact on Canadian borders,” and various Yellow Vests groups have openly condemned the Global Pact on Migration. What’s more, several key figures in Canada’s Yellow Vest movement have openly promoted anti-immigrant and racist views, while others are focusing more on immigration issues than on the carbon tax and energy sector.
It’s important to note that right-wing groups and politicians in Canada provided inaccurate information about the UN Global Compact for Migration. This misinformation may have contributed to attitudes amongst Yellow Vests and the United We Roll convoy.
It goes without saying that there are many Canadians frustrated with the government’s handling of the Alberta oilpatch and apparent lack of attention following the Fort McMurray wildfires that the city is still recovering from. As economic concerns and frustrations grow, though, so too does the risk of scapegoating.
Immigration helps stimulate local economies. What’s more, Canada has a clear economic advantage with its attitude towards refugees. Instead of stoking fears and mistrust in difficult times, these groups protesting on Parliament Hill would do well to see immigrants and newcomers to the country as allies to help create strong economies and communities through Canada.