The changes include, in particular, the development of a list of the most in-demand occupations for these provinces (Regional list of occupations under pressure). If an employer plans to hire a foreign worker whose occupation is on this list, it will be easier and cheaper to do so due to less stringent requirements for placing advertisements. Currently, under the existing rules, an employer planning to hire a foreign worker must first place a job advertisement in the press. If no Canadian citizen or permanent resident responds to the ad within a long period, only then does the employer have the right to invite a worker from abroad. Under the current changes, if the occupation is on the list of particularly in-demand occupations in that province, the requirements for placing job advertisements and the timelines will be somewhat relaxed.
Under the new rules, a guide has also been prepared for employers planning to hire a foreign worker (available on the website of Citizenship and Immigration Canada). The creation of provincial working groups is also planned, tasked with assessing the labor shortage situation for various occupations in that province. Since August of this year, such groups have already been operating in Vancouver and Calgary.
Before the program changes, an employer wishing to invite a foreign worker also had to obtain a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) from Service Canada, a division of Human Resources and Social Development Canada. The LMO is a document confirming the right to employment (employment confirmation). When applying for an LMO, the employer was required to find or train a worker from among Canadian citizens or permanent residents; guarantee that the wages and working conditions accepted in the region for the foreign worker would be the same as those for Canadian workers in the same occupation; and have the foreign worker train local workers, etc.
As can be seen from the above, the process of obtaining an LMO is not simple at all. Therefore, the main point in Minister Solberg's announcement is that obtaining an LMO is cancelled for occupations included in the regional list of particularly in-demand occupations. Most likely, these will be some of the High-Skilled Occupations. Occupations classified as Lower-Skilled Occupations will most likely still require obtaining a permit. For workers hired temporarily for agricultural work and under the Live-in Caregiver program, the LMO process is mandatory.
Commenting on such initiatives by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, experts call them correct but not revolutionary. It looks more like a 'declaration of intent'. The procedure as a whole will remain unchanged; lists of particularly in-demand occupations have existed before, albeit in a different form. For now, only additional bureaucratic bodies are being created to assess the state of the labor market and make recommendations on which occupations require permits and which do not. This is more like an experiment, and so far it only concerns three provinces - Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec.
If Quebec has always stood apart, the choice of the western provinces as a testing ground for new initiatives is quite understandable. First, Alberta is currently experiencing an economic boom driven by high oil prices (Alberta is an oil-producing province, and as long as oil is expensive, the province will thrive). Second, Minister Solberg himself is from Alberta, and therefore the problems of this region are most familiar to him.
Assessing the situation with the changes from the perspective of further immigration to Canada, it is undoubtedly that for a certain group of specialists, this will allow them to gain additional points needed for the immigration process along with a job offer. However, it is unlikely that this group will be large. Moreover, those who have the opportunity to receive a job offer in Canada are quite capable of successfully going through the immigration process without it. But the possibility of choosing Alberta as a place to settle after obtaining an immigration visa is truly worth considering.
Elena Ryabinina.