TPP - the TFW Program on steroids

The Human Resources Committee, HUMA - 6 Libs, 3 Cons, and 1 NDP - released its report on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program yesterday, after a month of hearing from 43 witnesses as varied as Lululemon and the Migrant Mothers Project.

Industry complaints initiated the study. The committee was asked to find a balance between employers desperate for TFWs for jobs they are unable to fill with Canadians and the rights of workers.  

I looked up a few of those desperate employers on various Canadian job search sites. If they're not desperate enough to be advertising these job vacancies where Canadians can find them, why exactly is government in the business of engineering TFWs to fill them? 

Here's just part of the dissenting report submitted by the lone NDP committee member alongside the main report : 

International Mobility Program and the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The previous Conservative government split the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in two – the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which covers streams requiring a Labour Market Impact Assessment, and the International Mobility Program (IMP), in which no assessment of the impact on the Canadian labour market is required. 

The IMP is actually much larger than the TFWP (nearly twice the size in 2014), yet the committee review paid no attention to the IMP, the role that the IMP plays in the Canadian economy, and the impact that it has on workers. This is very disappointing. 

This is of particular concern since the Liberal government is looking to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. In addition to harming our economy, this agreement will expand access to the IMP, allowing employers to bring in foreign workers without any assessment of the impact on the Canadian labour market, even if Canadian workers are available to do the job. This has led some to describe the TPP as “the temporary foreign worker program on steroids.”

You gotta admit I called it.

Back in 2013, 38% of foreign nationals came in under the TFWP, but 62% came in under the IMP. 

Then there's the ICTs, or Intra-Company Transfers, which Jason Kenney helpfully told us when he was Employment Minister were "often hard-wired into trade deals". 

ICTs "enables international companies with a presence in Canada to transfer their existing employees to their Canadian location".  And if you don't already have a branch in Canada - well, we got an app for that:

"Foreign businesses wishing to establish a Canadian enterprise may use the ICT Start-Up Visa program to bring key workers to the country to open a new office and begin doing business."

Back in June, Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk told a room full of union officials that she plans to toast the day the Liberal government shuts down the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, but in the meantime they've "already quietly made one change, removing restrictions on the number of workers seasonal employers can bring in through the program this year."

Of course all this will be moot if the TPP goes through. 12A :

Canada shall grant temporary entry and provide a work permit or work authorization to Professionals and Technicians and will not:(a) require labour certification tests or other procedures of similar intent as a condition for temporary entry; or(b) impose or maintain any numerical restriction relating to temporary entry.

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Selling the doubleplusgood TPP to Canadians

When she signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal above a NZ casino two months ago, International Trade Minister Chrystia Freetrade was at pains to reassure us that signing it was not the same as ratifying it, and besides there would be conversations with Canadians about it first. 

"Signing does not equal ratifying. Signing is simply a technical step in the process, allowing the TPP text to be tabled in Parliament for consideration and debate before any final decision is made."

Yesterday in Washington DC, PM Justin Trudeau called for "an increasingly integrated North America" and extolled "the investment opportunities for U.S. business on the billions of dollars of infrastructure projects announced in the Liberal budget."
Here's what he said about the TPP :

“In our conversations with Canadians, with industries which are ongoing, there are a lot of people in favour of it and there are a few who have real concerns and we’re looking at understanding and allaying certain fears ...”   

This March 10 presser from the International Trade Committee explains what JT means by "allaying certain fears" :





Second line : "The committee's primary objective is to assess the extent to which the agreement would be in the best interests of Canadians."

So will there be a whole other trade committee to assess the extent to which the TPP is not in the best interests of Canadians?

Because here's what JT's "few who have real concerns" about the global corporate rights pact are concerned about :

TPP opens floodgates to unregulated temporary foreign workers

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could see hundreds of thousands of additional temporary foreign workers (TFWs) entering Canada without any consideration of their impact on the local labour market leading to worsening unemployment among Canadian workers, labour groups warn.

The Canadian Workers Advocacy Group(CWAG) points out that 230,000 TFWs enter Canada annually under the labour mobility provisions of existing agreements, and the magnitude of the latest trade deal means that the numbers will increase significantly.

This is on top of the 165,000 TFWs who enter the country on average per year with a positive Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIA).

CWAG also expressed concern that unlike other trade deals, the TPP includes developing countries such as Vietnam and Peru, and corporations will use the intra-company transfer provisions of the trade agreement to bring in low-wage workers and displace Canadians.

The minimum wage is 65 cents per hour in Vietnam and $1.27 per hour in Peru."

Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich : The New Truth About Free Trade

"I used to believe in trade agreements ...."

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz : "TPP worst trade deal ever" 

"I think what Canada should do is use its influence to begin a renegotiation of TPP to make it an agreement that advances the interests of Canadian citizens and not just the large corporations."

The Star : Joseph Stiglitz told Freeland that Canada should reject the TPP 

Economist Joseph Stiglitz says he has told his “friend,” International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, that Canada should reject the Trans-Pacific Partnershipbecause it’s a badly flawed trade deal.

The controversial but not-yet-ratified trade agreement could tie the hands of the Trudeau Liberals on two key parts of its agenda — fighting climate change and repairing relations with aboriginal people, the Nobel-winning professor warned Friday.

Stiglitz said he relayed some of his concerns to Freeland personally in January, when the two were attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland."

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One minute against austerity in Montreal

A one minute time lapse of yesterday's student strike against austerity in Montreal. 
Austerity - that's when your government impoverishes its citizens by decimating public services like education and health in order to balance its lining of corporate pockets with tax breaks.

“Our services are worth more than your profits” is the slogan of the march.

Quebec police declared the march illegal before it began - itself an illegal move on their part in Quebec - highlighting why the Cons' didn't want to fix that bit about *illegal* strikes in Bill C-51.

Ricochet : Everything you need to know about Quebec’s latest student strike

Flashback to G&M last May : Canadian businesses accumulating ‘dead money’ faster than other G7 countries :

"Statistics Canada data shows Canada’s corporate cash hoard was $626 billion in the last quarter of 2013, a jump of six per cent over the previous quarter — more than the federal debt and almost a third of the country’s gross domestic product."

Let's hear that once again : "Canada’s corporate cash hoard was $626 billion ... more than the federal debt and almost a third of the country’s gross domestic product."

"The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found that CEO pay for Canadian public companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange has ballooned by 73 per cent between 1998 and 2012, the latest figures available."

So naturally we really really need to bring in a half a million temporary foreign workers who will eventually have to join the underground workforce as Canadian graduate students intern for free and the many of the rest of us struggle to make ends meet with several part time jobs with no benefits.

Think the Quebec student strikes aren't about you?

We will now go to our corporate sponsored media who will interview someone stuck in traffic whining about being inconvenienced by the strike, followed up by Dan Kelly, head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, whining about how expensive TFWs are.

Meanwhile I'm trying to remember when 75,000 people showed up in the streets of any other Canadian city for something other than a funeral. 

h/t Kev @ Trapped in a whirlpool for G&M and Ricochet links
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Microsoft, Christy Clark open foreign worker turnstile outpost in Vancouver

Back in May our media were pretty excited about the jobs jobs jobs angle to Microsoft opening a Centre of Excellence in Vancouver :

CBC : Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre to bring 400 jobs to Vancouver

Vancouver Sun : Microsoft to open new centre in Vancouver, 400 new jobs

HuffPo : Microsoft Canada Announces Vancouver Centre, 400 Jobs

.... all of them pretty obviously based on the same Microsoft press release

Yesterday CBC was somewhat less buoyant about that whole 400 jobs angle, given they will all be going to foreign IT workers :

Foreign workers: Microsoft gets green light from Ottawa for foreign trainees

   Tech giant exempted from new rules for finding Canadians to fill jobs

which garnered some 2500+ furious comments about those jobs not going to Canadians.

As noted here at Creekside last June, truth is those jobs never were going to Canadians. .

Microsoft has been planning to expand their Vancouver sales office since 2007 to circumvent US H1-B immigration restrictions on importing foreign IT specialists :

Amid challenges getting enough foreign programmers admitted into the U.S., Microsoft plans to open a development center in Canada.

"The new software development center will open somewhere in the Vancouver, British Columbia, area and will be "home to software developers from around the world," Microsoft said in a statement on Thursday."The Vancouver area is a global gateway with a diverse population, is close to Microsoft's corporate offices in Redmond, and allows the company to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S.," Microsoft said."

As Microsoft’s deputy general counsel Karen Jones repeated to Businessweek last May : Vancouver Welcomes Tech Companies Hampered by US Work Visa Caps :

“The U.S. laws clearly did not meet our needs,” she says. “We have to look to other places.” Microsoft opened a small office in Vancouver in 2007, when U.S. visa applications for the first time quickly surpassed the congressional limit. 

Microsoft will hire and train 400 software developers from around the world to work on mobile and cloud projects. Jones says Microsoft didn’t choose to expand in Vancouver “purely for immigration purposes, but immigration is a factor.”

The Canadian government will grant the imported IT workers 24 month visas to work at Microsoft's Centre of Excellence - 12 months more than is required by rules under intra-company transfers before they can be cycled into the US. They are not required to apply for LMIAs due to a special exemption deal between BC and Ottawa, with a special Microsoft exemption on top. Citizenship and Immigration Canada :

"Even though Microsoft’s Rotational Program is generally 18 months in duration, a 24-month work permit will be issued so that the employee may continue to perform Rotational Program job duties until they are transitioned by Microsoft into a new position elsewhere."

So Microsoft gets an immigration turnstile outpost in Vancouver, and in return they promise to hire a few paid Canadian interns.

As also noted here last June, lead lobbyist on this file is frequent CBC Power&Politics panelist Geoff Norquay of Earnscliffe Strategy Group, who formerly worked for both Harper and Mulroney.  Currently lobbying for Microsoft, CIBC, and Shaw, Mr. Norquay has previously represented Monsanto, BC Fish Farmers, Shell, and SNC-Lavalin  :

Client name: Microsoft Canada 

Lobbyist name: Geoff Norquay, Consultant 

Initial registration start date: 2006-04-06 to present

Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada

• Discussions with federal officials in the Departments of Employment and Social Development, Citizenship and Immigration, Industry Canada and Privy Council Office regarding the establishment of the British Columbia Excellence Centre to facilitate entry into Canada of foreign nationals to work in software development on a rotational basis under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program.

Meanwhile out here in BC, Christy Clark and her ministers of jobs and technology have been meeting with other Microsoft lobbyists this the past year : "To support Microsoft's efforts to communicate its various activities in BC relating to the recently announcement BC Centre of Excellence in Vancouver."

Microsoft also has several Centres of Excellence in India, Ireland, Cairo, Dubai, etc. 

In July Microsoft announced it was cutting 18,000 jobs or about 14% of its full-time workforce, with further cuts pending to its 80,000 external staff.

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Joe Oliver, CFIB, and the Fraser Institute

FinMin Joe Oliver admitted last week that his department had outsourced government policy to the lobby group Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and further, had not done their own analysis of CFIB's work even though the lobby group represents the businesses the new policy was intended to benefit. The new CFIB/FinMin policy takes $500M from the EI fund and gives it to small businesses - ostensibly to create jobs.

CFIB wasted no time taking credit for this piece of government policy.

On their webpage CFIB shows this photo of CFIB President Dan Kelly at the government's "Jobs and Opportunities" dedecked lectern, with FinMin Joe standing demurely off to the side. 
A sidebar on the main page headlined "We Make a Difference - Victories" boasts :
"Big breakthrough on payroll taxes: CFIB joined federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver to announce the creation of the Small Business Job Credit".

CFIB certainly has the right to flaunt their influence over Con policy. 

Two and a half years ago, they announced their success in lobbying the government "to make the Temporary Foreign Worker Program more responsive to the needs of employers", including a 10-day response time to LMOs, "a simplified online application process", and "a new more flexible wage structure". 

And lo, Human Resources Minister Diane FInley made it so.

In fact, over the past four years from Nov 2010 to Nov 2014, Con MPs have quoted the CFIB more than 280 times in the House and in committee on everything from the Wheat Board to Canada Post to the temporary foreign workers program to federal budgets.

Here's a few from one week this past October :

With CEO Dan Kelly sitting on the Advisory Committee to the Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the CFIB currently have 46 lobbyists listed to lobby 39 separate government institutions on 28 matters of policy for the year 2014, including "fair access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program" and "support for Bill C525 (An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code) that secret ballot voting should be mandatory prior to union certification."

At left, also from Press Progress, is the short version of the apparently joint $550M CFIB/FinMin EI policy. 
Estimated to create 25,000 person-years of employment over the next several years, this figure was later corrected by the parliamentary budget officer to 800 jobs at a cost of $687,500 per job.


However CFIB President Dan Kelly explains the whole jobs jobs jobs thing wasn't even the point :

"The job-creation benefit of it is essentially secondary to the fact that this is essentially an EI cut because employers and employees should not have to pay higher EI premiums than is needed to pay for the cost of the program. So this is essentially returning EI rates back to their break-even level."

No fault to the CFIB here - they're just doing their job for their guys, 109,000 small and medium Canadian businesses and franchises.

Perhaps notable though is that according to their Contact page, the CFIB Exec Vice President was formerly Director of Environment and Regulatory Studies at the Koch-funded Fraser Institute while the VP of Communications interned there.

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Eat the banksters

Between September 2008 and August 2010, Scotiabank received a $25 billion bailout amounting to 100% of the bank's value - or as Steve and Jim preferred to call it at the time : "liquidity support" ***.

Last year Scotiabank made a record $6.7 billion in net profit and CEO and president Brian Porter netted a total compensation package of $6,902,242 for the same year.

Nonetheless, Scotiabank announced yesterday it will cut 1,500 jobs, including about 1,000 in Canada.

Aren't you glad you moved your bank account to a local credit union as soon as you heard about their use of temporary foreign workers over Canadians?

Meanwhile, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz - estimated salary for 2013 of $436,100 – $513,000 - suggested that unemployed Canadian youth should work for free to pad out their CVs if they can't find paying jobs .

Kids in the Basement Should Take Unpaid Work, Says Poloz

"The Bank of Canada estimates about 200,000 young people want to work or work more, and Poloz said they may be scarred by prolonged unemployment that prevents them from moving out on their own. “I bet almost everyone in this room knows at least one family with adult children living in the basement,” Poloz said."

Poloz did not mention that "scarred" Canadian youth suffering twice the unemployment rate of the general population are having to compete for jobs with a global market of temporary foreign workers encouraged by the same cabinet that approved his Bank of Canada appointment. 

Nor did he mention that an average student debt of $25,000 also likely precludes moving out of the basement, should your parent(s) be fortunate enough to have one from which to subsidize business with your free employment.  
Marginalised communities, people with low-income backgrounds, and single parents are less likely to be in a position to assist their youth to upgrade their education to a marketable skill so that they will be in a position to compete with the 285,000 "higher calibre immigrants" Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander intends to import next year.

Yeah, you pretty much have start off rich, Poloz did not exactly say.


*** During the 2008 to 2010 crisis of confidence in global credit markets, "liquidity support" granted to Canadian banks was a pre-emptive bailout relieving them of the necessity of having to sell off assets to pay down their debts.  
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Happy Temporary Foreign Workers Labour Day!

Bloomberg, Dec 2010 : Europe’s largest oil-field service provider, Saipem, wins $1 Billion onshore contract from Husky for the Sunrise Energy Project in Canada.

Nine months ago, Fort McMurray Today reported that 270 unionized welders and pipefitters contracted to that Husky Sunrise tarsands project were laid off and replaced by cheaper temporary foreign workers from Mexico, Ireland, Portugal and Italy.

A commenter under another FMT article explained:

"We had to conduct a handover to Saipem (a mostly Italian workforce), detailing to them where we had stopped work so that they may continue. In the final week, Saipem foreign workers were actually in the facility working side by side with us; a very uncomfortable situation for those of us about to be laid off."

Yesterday, CBC's Kathy Tomlinson revisited that story : Canadians expose foreign worker 'mess' in oilsands"

"Canadian tradesmen from a huge oilsands construction project are waving a red flag about safety hazards and near misses, which they blame on the use of foreign workers who aren't qualified and can't speak English.

Stand-outs from her report :

• a foreign worker taking a blowtorch to a propane tank to defrost it, 
• Canadians with better qualifications passed over for jobs while foreign workers from Europe continued to show up 
• foreigner workers arrived without Canadian-standard trade certification but "under government rules, they have a year before they must take their test." after which they can take it again later if they fail,  and 
• "Probably 75 per cent of [foreign] ironworkers on site were only at the level of a labourer."
• When refused LMAOs, Saipem used "intra-company transfers" instead [which I wrote about here.] 

But back up a bit. The company that brought in those workers - Italian oil and gas services contractor, Saipem.  Haven't we heard about them before?

Dec. 2012 : Saipem CEO resigns after Algeria corruption probe

July 2013 :Milan court rules Saipem guilty of corruption in Nigeria ... 

July 2013 : Saipem drilling rig sinks off Angola One person missing

"The Italian oilfield services provider said that one of the jack-up rig’s three legs collapsed, causing the rig to suddenly tilt and start taking water. The incident, according to Saipem, occurred during the rig positioning on location between the coasts of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, in approximately 40 meters of water. 6 crew members have sustained minor injuries. At approximately 10:30 am CET, the rig, with no personnel on board, capsized and sank. "

Sept. 2013 : Milan prosecutors investigate Saipem for alleged market manipulation and insider trading

May 2014 : RBC Investor and Treasury Services - SAIPEM  - Class Action Notice 

"As a result of the company's untimely disclosures of relevant information, particularly its involvement in an Algerian corruption scandal from 2007 to 2010, and it is alleged that Saipem paid bribes to win a series of contracts worth around $11 billion which led to significant stock drops in January and June 2013. Various (criminal) investigations against Saipem by the Consob, the Italian market regulator, and Italian prosecutors are ongoing."

July 2014 : Australian unions fury at Coalition`s gas job sell-out

"Saipem's enormous pipelay vessel Castorone will start work soon off the Australia coast.  The Government issued a regulation eliminating the need for any worker on a craft not tethered to the Australian mainland to have a work visa. That would free foreign companies with the contracts to lay pipework and other vital infrastructure on huge projects such as the Browse Basin gas field to hire thousands of foreign workers instead of Australians."

Gosh, just like here.
But no, not any of those stories ... 
Ah I remember - it was Arthur Porter, SNC-Lavalin, and Saipem!

In 2005, Saipem won a contract with SNC-Lavalin for the Horizon oilsands project, owned by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.
In 2006, SNC-Lavalin and Saipem awarded "joint partnership contract" to build LNG Terminal in New Brunswick.

Four years later, SNC-Lavalin had signed a deal to award soon-to-be CSIS watchdog Dr. Arthur Porter of Sierra Leone (currently on the lam from Canadian law in Panama) and his company Sierra Assets Management, 3 payments totaling $10-million for consultancy fees regarding a gas project in Algeria.  The $1.2 billion Rhourde Nouss gas project deal was awarded to SNC-L the same year by Sonatrach, Algeria’s national oil company.

In 2013,  Algerian police raided SNC offices in Algiers regarding "allegations of bribery and kickbacks involving Sonatrach and public officials and agents hired by SNC-Lavalin to procure a number of large infrastructure projects."

G&M February 2013 : SNC-Lavalin bribery probe widens to Algeria :

The investigation focuses on one of the company’s agents in Algeria, Farid Bedjaoui, a jet-setting money manager hired to help secure at least $1-billion in contracts with the country’s state-run oil company, Sonatrach. Mr. Bedjaoui was educated in Montreal and occasionally resides there

Sources close to the investigations in Europe and Canada believe that SNC and the Italian oil services firm Saipem SpA relied on Mr. Bedjaoui, the nephew of former Algerian foreign affairs minister Mohammed Bedjaoui, to obtain contracts from Sonatrach.

Mr. Bedjaoui is one of several foreign agents hired by SNC who have fallen under suspicion for allegedly paying bribes.

Several Saipem executives are under investigation, including the construction unit’s recently suspended chief operating officer, Pietro Varone, who was so close with Mr. Bedjaoui that the two men launched a wine-making company together outside Naples.

Well, I'm sure when we sign off on those investor-state rights trade deals with Europe, CETA and TTIP, all this will go much more smoothly, right?

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Chris Alexander, Minister of IMPs and ICTs

When Jason Kenney grandly announced his new temporary foreign worker program reforms last week - Putting Canadians First! - he slyly handed off the greater part of his troubles to Chris Alexander - Minister of Gollumization, Citizenship, and Immigration - and now also Minister of IMPs and ICTs.  

We don't hear much about IMPs (outside of childrens' books) - the International Mobility Program under which the majority of workers enter Canada. They do not have to pass a labour market test (LMIA) to determine whether they will be putting Canadians out of work because, as our new MinIMP explained, the program is intended to benefit not individual businesses by filling specific jobs, but rather "Canada as a whole".

Via Kenney's ministry, Employment and Social Development Canada :

Of the 221,273 foreign nationals who entered Canada in 2013, 38% came in under the TFWP, but 62% came in under the IMP - 83,740 vs 137,533

Then there's the ICTs - Intra-Company Transfers - also not reliant on LMIAs to safeguard Canadian jobs because they were created to allow multinational corps to move their skilled workers easily from country to country.

You may recall this whole TFW fiasco first blew up in the public eye because the Royal Bank farmed out part of its IT work to iGATE, a company that straddles US, Canada and India, who then cycled its workers in and out of Canada for training by RBC staffers they would later replace under an intra-company transfer. 
As RBC CEO Gord Nixon explained at the time, only one of them came into Canada as a TFW, and besides, RBC "does not get involved in the hiring practices of the companies it hires."

In BC, eight US construction workers were granted entry to BC by the CBSA under an ICT after a US company got the contract to build a wood-waste storage building near Prince George. These "specialized workers" included a former rancher and an apprentice roofer and produce clerk. Yea NAFTA! and all that, but don't we have enough ranchers, apprentice roofers, and produce clerks looking for any kind of work in Canada already?

Asked about the union-backed court case protesting import of the eight US workers, Kenney referred reporters to Chris Alexander, but a year ago he stated : "The obligations we have have for intra-company transfers are often hard-wired into trade agreements."

G&M, May 17, 2014 :

"The final text of the much-vaunted Canada-European Union free trade agreement (CETA) is expected to include a list of occupations that can be fast-tracked into Canada and would allow European firms to bring European workers into Canada through inter-company transfers ...  

The Conservative government has described the deal’s provisions for temporary entry of labour as “the most ambitious ever in a free trade agreement.”

Still you can't please everyone.

B.C.’s deputy premier and natural gas development minister Rich Coleman is worried Canada is going to "fail" if companies cannot hire temporary foreign workers for the 100,000 jobs needed to develop LNG export projects on the coast.

The Kitimat LNG project is co-owned by Canadian branches of U.S. energy giants Chevron Corp. and Apache Corp. Will they be bringing in their own workers?
TransCanada, once billed in the US as "an American company with operations in Canada", is slated to build a $1.9-billion pipeline link for Kitimat LNG project. 

In February Mr. Coleman announced there was "no question the industry will be looking to foreign workers to get up and running", and in March he touted the importance of being on 

"a continent with a lot more people south to us ... so we have access to other skilled labour on the continent and there are people who are very good at doing certain jobs - specialized welders." 

One presumes he isn't referring to the TransCanada welders on the southern leg of the Keystone XL Canada to Texas project : 

"Over 72 per cent of welds required repairs during one week. In another week, TransCanada stopped welding work after 205 of 425 welds required repair.

Inspections by the safety agency found TransCanada wasn’t using approved welding procedures to connect pipes, the letter said. The company had hired welders who weren’t qualified to work on the project because TransCanada used improper procedures to test them."

So. PM-hopeful Jason Kenney's TFW Program "will now refer to only those streams under which foreign workers enter Canada at the request of employers following approval through a new Labour Market Impact Assessment." 
For everything else - the difficult politically damaging bits - there's the guy wearing the IMP ears.
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Yo! BC welders and pipe fitters!

A video follow-up to my Sunday post, Prepping TFWs for the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  
Two Philippine press agencies reported on the Canadian Welding Bureau pre-accrediting welders in three schools in the Philippines and quoted a now-retired Canadian Welding Bureau Certification Services Representative as touting welding and pipe fitting jobs for temporary workers from the Philippines 

"when construction for the pipeline from Alberta to BC begins."

In light of the Canadian Welding Bureau's disclaimer in April 2014 denying their involvement :

"For the record, the CWB is not in the business of recruiting welders, either from the Philippines or elsewhere, or involved in any job placement schemes, contracts or agreements to enter Canada." 

... I'm posting the above video - presumed origin of the Philippine news reports. 
Transcript :

"Thousands of jobs for welders are expected to open up in the country within the next two years" 

"Thousands of jobs in the skilled trades were created in BC when the federal government gave the Vancouver Shipyards the $3.3billion contract to build ten new non-combat ships for the Canadian Coast Guard last year. This includes jobs in welding and pipe-fitting. Anticipating a possible shortage of qualified tradesmen, the Canadian Welding Bureau accredited test centres in the Philippines to screen well-trained welders. 

Bob Montes, Certification Services Representative, Canadian Welding Bureau, from Vancouver :

"The welders that we are training in Canada right now are not sufficient to fill that vacuum. That's why the Canadian government is looking, looking at hiring temporary workers from outside, and right now, the Philippines is very favorable place to hire welders. "

Montes adds that welders will also be in big demand when construction for the pipeline from Alberta to BC begins.  

He says Filipinos have a natural skill for welding and they have a huge plus over others.

"The advantage of the Filipinos is because they can understand and they can read and comprehend the standards. And when they come here, it's easy for the Canadians to give them instructions because instructions is a safety issue. If they cannot follow instructions, it will become a safety issue here. "

Montes says a skilled welder can earn from $50 plus per hour. 

Currently there are only three centres that are accredited by the Canadian Welding Bureau : Brilliant Metal Works, ZOIE Training Centre, and Primary Structures Educational Foundation - all in Cebu. 

Those who pass the test here can get a welding card that is valid anywhere in Canada. 

With this development, the Philippine Labour Office is confident that Canada will continue to hire more temporary foreign workers despite charges that the program is stealing jobs away from Canadians."

And voilà, Jason Kenney's new 10-day fast track stream for skilled temporary foreign workers is there to receive them.
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Update : Financial Post, June 25 : "B.C. is counting on temporary foreign workers to help fill as many as 100,000 jobs if LNG projects materialize as planned."
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Rich Coleman, Minister of LNG, in February 2014 :

"It's only foreign workers who possess the skills for some specialized work, he argued. "For instance, we don't have the skill sets in certain types of welding in Canada for these projects," Coleman said. "The best welders for these are actually from the Philippines."
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Prepping TFWs for the Northern Gateway Pipeline

This week Employment Minister Jason Kenney replaced the old LMOA, Labour Market Opinion Assessment, with the brand new LMIA, or Labour Market Impact Assessment - henceforth to be known as the LabourMinister Missing in Action program for its accelerated 10- working- day approval process to put TFWs in skilled trades.

Remember those 270 unionized welders and pipefitters laid off a Husky Sunrise tarsands project last October and replaced by temporary foreign workers? 
As one of the former workers explained : 

"We had to conduct a handover to Saipem, detailing to them where we had stopped work so that they may continue. In the final week, Saipem foreign workers were actually in the facility working side by side with us ..."

And that happened because under the old LMOA, the federal government had an agreement with Alberta to exempt welders, heavy-duty mechanics and iron workers from the rules about having to ensure Canadian applicants got first crack at those jobs.

So how is Jason Kenney's new LabourMin Missing in Action program going to work?

Ok, bear with me here.
In April this year, the Canadian Welding Bureau or CWB, the Canadian welding certification and registration org, put out an unusual presser/disclaimer :
CWB defines position on temporary foreign workers

"There have recently been publicized reports that the Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) is recruiting Filipino welders to fill welding jobs here in Canada, and in particular, to fill vacancies in the BC shipbuilding industry. These statements are incorrect. For the record, the CWB is not in the business of recruiting welders, either from the Philippines or elsewhere, or involved in any job placement schemes, contracts or agreements to enter Canada."

The presser goes on to explain that while the CWB has operations in the Philippines and 35 other countries, its mandate is to ensure the safety of Canadians and yada yada yada.

The CWB was responding to news stories in the Philippine press that the CWB was indeed doing exactly what its disclaimer denies :

More jobs for Pinoy welders in Canada  and Canada wants more Pinoy skilled workers

"British Columbia is on the hunt for Filipino welders and pipe-fitters as it anticipates a shortage of such skilled workers to build 10 new non-combat ships for the Canadian Coast Guard.Anticipating a possible shortage of qualified tradesmen, the Canadian Welding Bureau has accredited test centers in the Philippines to screen well-trained welders, reports ABS-CBN news. 

“The welders that we are training in Canada right now are not sufficient to fill that vacuum that’s why the Canadian government is looking of hiring temporary workers from outside, and right now, the Philippines is a very favorable place to hire the welders,” said Bob Montes, certification services representative of the Canadian Welding Bureau. 

Montes added that welders will also be in big demand when construction for the pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia begins."  

And Bingo! - TFW welders for the Northern Gateway pipeline -- you know, to fill all those jobs Steve keeps promising us the pipeline will provide for Canadians - hence the new 10-working-day accelerated approval process for skilled workers.. 

"Currently, there are only three centers that are accredited by the Canadian Welding Bureau : Brilliant Metal Works, Zoie Training Center and Primary Structures Educational Foundation, all based in Cebu, Phillipines.Those who pass the test here will get a welding card that is valid anywhere in Canada.With these developments, the Philippine Labor Office is confident that Canada will continue to hire more temporary foreign workers despite charges that the program is stealing jobs away from Canadians."

Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) takes Cebu City by storm - August 2012

"A total of 120 students made it to the cut-off for the first batch of the Canadian Welding Bureau welding class ... with no less than the Canadian Consul to the Philippines Consul Robert Lee gracing the opening ceremony. 

"I want to make it my legacy sending world class Filipino welders to Canada before my retirement few years from now. We are proud to be part of this program being the first CWB welding school outside of Canada and the first in the whole world. With this CWB partnership with SKILLS, our people here in the Philippines will experience a world class training inside a welding facility designed using Canadian welding standards.”

The CWB training runs for eight (8) months holding classes five (5) hours daily from Monday to Friday. It is handled by Prof. Stuart Ring, a former teacher and a retired Canadian Pipe Fitter, duly certified by the Canadian Welding Bureau."

The Canadian Consul to the Philippines' words kinda reminds me of the Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, planting a tree at the campus of outsourcing giant Infosys in India in February.

And finally, a CWB presser from Dec 2012

Canadian Welding Bureau Applauds New Federal Skilled Trades Program to Assist With Shortage of Welders

Craig Martin, vice president of the Office of Public Safety for the Canadian Welding Bureau (CWB) :

"CWB Group has been working diligently for some time in many countries, pre-qualifying welders so they meet Canadian standards and are job-ready before immigrating to Canada," said Mr. Martin. 

"We've developed relationships with training institutions in the Philippines and Suriname so their programs adhere to Canadian standards for training and certification. We have also certified companies and qualified welders from countries extending beyond our borders for several years. A program like this is a proactive step forward because it will further allow more CWB qualified welders to enter the country, provide exceptional craftsmanship and fill the ongoing shortage."

So is there any actual "ongoing shortage" of welders?

Let's go to Service Canada, bearing in mind the Alberta Federation of Labour says the feds rely on self-reporting industry surveys for their labour shortage stats ...

Service Canada - Welders and Related Machine Operators - March 2013

"The labour pool may vary considerably depending on the requirements for the position. That explains why this occupation has high unemployment but also a labour shortage.
In the positions that require a lower level of skill, such as unskilled positions as welders or related machine operators, the labour pool consists of experienced metallurgical workers who have received in-house training. This group includes welder/fitter helpers (see 9612, labourers in metal fabrication) and the many experienced unemployed welders and welder helpers. 

Incidentally, this is the labour pool with the highest unemployment."

Ok then.

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