300,000 Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada with TFWP visas

The latest figures from the Canadian government show that there are now over 300,000 workers in Canada with work permits allowing them to work for one or two years under the Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). The number of work permits has grown rapidly in recent years. In order to work in Canada under the TFWP, workers must first apply for a TFWP work permit and then a Canadian entry visa.


The number of TFWP workers in Canada trebled between 2002 and 2011. Over 192,000 Temporary Foreign Workers entered Canada in 2011 alone.


TFWP work permits are granted to foreign workers to allow them to work in a variety of different sectors. The sectors for which the most permits were granted last year are as follows:

• Sales and service – 70,520
• Primary industries – 42,595
• Trades, transport, equipment operators – 36,680
• Art, culture, recreation, sport – 16,300
• Natural and applied sciences – 14,125
• Processing, manufacturing and utilities 9,110
• Management – 3,875
• Business , finance and administration - 2,885
• Health - 2,540
• Social Science, Government, Religion – 2,455

TFWP permits usually last for one year

TFWP work permits usually last for one year though semi-skilled workers are currently able to get 24 month visas.


Before Canadian employers can employ temporary foreign workers, they are often required to obtain a 'Labour Market Opinion' (LMO). A positive LMO will satisfy the relevant government department Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, that there is a need to employ the foreign worker. The foreign worker will then send a copy of the LMO when applying for his work permit.


Not all temporary foreign workers require LMOs to get a Temporary Foreign Worker work permit. In 2012, about 72,000 required LMOs and 120,000 did not.


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Crime levels fall in immigration hotspots

A study carried out by researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) shows that immigrants in the UK do not seem to commit more crimes than the native population. Some UK newspapers have stated that immigrants are responsible for a considerable proportion of crime. The LSE survey found that there was usually no statistical basis for these claims.


The LSE team looked at crime rates in areas where large numbers of immigrants from eastern Europe had settled since 2004. They found that, in areas where the population comprised 30% or more immigrants, on the whole, rates of crime had, in fact, fallen since then. There were particularly noteworthy falls in the levels of property crime and of violence.


Brian Bell, an LSE research fellow, told UK Sunday newspaper The Observer 'The view that foreigners commit more crime is not true. The truth is that immigrants are just like natives; if they have a good job and a good income, they don't commit crime'.

Immigrants tend to drink less

The survey found that the number of crimes of violence were also lower in immigrant areas. This, according to criminologist Marian Fitzgerald is because the immigrant populations tend to be poorer and therefore to drink less. Most assaults are committed by people who are drunk. 'Most immigrants are not affluent so it's not surprising that immigration has no impact on that large proportion of total violence which is a function of affluence' said Ms Fitzgerald.


The study found one group of immigrants whose presence was linked to an increase in the crime rate. Researchers found that, in areas where large numbers of asylum seekers settled from the late 1990s onwards, crime was 'significantly higher'.


The reasons for this are not understood. It may be that a significant proportion of the increased crime might be accounted for by assaults on asylum seekers by native Britons. Or it may be that, because unemployment tends to be higher among asylum seekers than among other groups of immigrants, they are more likely to turn to crime.


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US senator says Indian IT firms are abusing H-1B work visa

Dick Durbin, a Democratic Party senator from Illinois, has said that Indian IT firms like TCS, Infosys and Tata Consulting are abusing the US H-1B temporary work visa.


Mr Durbin told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Americans would be surprised to find out which companies were using H-1B visas to bring skilled staff into the US. 'H-1B visas are not going to Microsoft. They're going to these firms, largely in India, who are finding workers, engineers, who will work at low wages in the US for three years and pay a fee to Infosys or these companies,' he said.


Neeraj Gupta, the CEO of Systems in Motion, agreed. He told the committee that 'the majority of these visas end up being used for the wrong purpose'.

Employers should act in 'good faith'

Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, told the committee that the H-1B visa was being abused. He said that the law should be changed to create a requirement that employers should act in 'good faith' when recruiting H-1B workers. They would be required to make a genuine attempt to find a US employee to do the work before employing an H-1B worker.


Brad Smith of Microsoft also gave evidence to the committee. He said that Microsoft broadly welcomed the Gang of Eight's bill. He said that the Indian IT companies needed to 'evolve their business model' and 'focus on hiring more people in the US'. However, he stressed that the H-1B visa was an important way for Microsoft to hire global talent.


No representatives of Indian outsourcing firms gave evidence to the committee.


Mr Durbin is a member of the so-called 'Gang of Eight' senators who have been working on a draft law which would comprehensively reform the US immigration system. The Gang released the draft act; The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act 2013 on 16th April to mixed reviews.

'H-1B dependent employers' would pay more

If it became law, the bill would see the number of H-1B visas issued every year rise immediately from 65,000 to 110,000 and allow the number of H-1Bs to rise to a maximum of 180,000 per year at times of high demand. It would also introduce new penalty fees of up to $10,000 per employee for 'H-1B dependent employers'.

• A firm with over 50 employees would pay a $5,000 fee for each extra H-1B visa if its staff comprised between 30 and 50% workers with H-1B visas and L-1 visas.
• Firms with over 50 employees would pay a $10,000 fee for each extra H-1B visa if its staff comprised over 50% H-1B and L-1 visa holders.
• Firms with over 50 employees whose staff comprised 75% or more H-1B and L-1 visa holders would be barred from applying for any more H-1B visas at all. This maximum percentage would fall, over time, to 50%.

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Canada reforms temporary immigration visa regime

Canadian government ministers have announced a U-turn in their policy on temporary foreign workers. The announcement comes after two high profile cases which seemed to show abuse of the system have caused negative headlines for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.


Temporary foreign workers who work in Canada under the Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) must now be paid at the same rate as Canadian workers, there will be greater enforcement of the requirement that temporary foreign workers should not displace Canadians and English and French will be the only languages which can be specified as a requirement for employment. The changes will take place with immediate effect.


Last year, Canada introduced several changes to the TFWP aimed at stimulating the economy. It allowed employers to pay foreign temporary workers 15% less than the median pay in any sector and also speeded up the system for gaining work permits. The Accelerated Labour Market Opinion (ALMO) allowed employers to get work permits for foreign staff in about ten days. Both these measures have been reversed because of cases which seem to show that they are encouraging employers to employ foreign workers instead of Canadians.

Temporary workers must be paid 'the prevailing wage'

On 29th April 2013, Jason Kenney, the Canadian Minister for Immigration and Multiculturalism, and Diane Finley, the Human Resources Minister, gave a joint press conference in Ottawa to announce the changes which are as follows.

• All temporary foreign workers must now be paid 'the prevailing wage' for the job that they are doing.
• The Accelerated Labour Market Opinion (ALMO) process will be suspended.
• The government will have greater powers to suspend and revoke work permits where the system has been abused
• Employers will need to show that they are not replacing Canadian workers with foreign workers.
• Employers which rely heavily on foreign workers will need to show how they intend to employ more Canadians in future
• The government will raise the fees for applications to employ foreign workers.
• Employers will no longer be able to specify that employees must speak language other than English and French (Canada's national languages) in order to take a job.

The ministers were responding to two recent, high profile cases which, unions allege, show that the TFWP is being abused by employers.


In November 2012, unions launched a court case against HD Mining, a mining company which imported 200 Chinese miners into a mine in British Columbia. The unions said that there were plenty of available Canadian miners to do the job and the Chinese miners were being paid CAN$10 an hour less than the market rate. The company said that this was because the mine was using the 'long wall' mining technique which was not used in Canada so there were no suitably qualified miners available locally. HD Mining is 55% owned by a Chinese company.

Unions allege abuse of the system

Unions alleged that the Chinese miners were also being forced to make illegal payments to that company in order to work in Canada. The unions said that it was an abuse of the system to bring in workers and pay them less than the market rate when there were plenty of unemployed Canadian miners living locally. They said that the employer was only employing Chinese speaking miners, further disadvantaging Canadian workers.


The second case was even more damaging to the reputation of the TFWP because it involved the flagship Canadian bank, The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). It also involved allegations that existing staff were being made redundant and replaced by foreign temporary workers.


Unions allege that RBC subcontracted certain functions to Indian outsourcing firm iGate. iGate then applied to the Canadian government for permission to bring in temporary workers. This was granted and once the temporary workers arrived, existing Canadian staff were instructed to train them and were then made redundant. The iGate staff were paid less than their Canadian counterparts.

iGate: 'Authorizations are properly issued under existing law '

When the news of this arrangement broke in early April, iGate spokesman Prabhanjan Deshpande said that the company was doing nothing wrong; 'For any engagement requiring foreign workers, appropriate immigration applications are filed by iGate and all work authorizations are properly issued under existing law and policy'.


However, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Go Public investigative TV programme claims that iGate has yet to respond to allegations that it did not inform the Canadian government that its workers would take the jobs of Canadian staff when applying for Canadian work permits.


At the time, a Canadian government spokesman said 'We recently learned of allegations that RBC could be replacing Canadian workers by contracting with iGate, which is filling some of the roles with temporary foreign workers. If true, this situation is unacceptable'.


Even before these latest cases, unions in Canada were complaining that Canadian employers were replacing indigenous workers with cheaper temporary foreign workers on work permits. They say that foreign workers are not being used as a last resort, as the law requires, but were, instead, being used as an alternative to Canadians and to drive down wages.

Number of temporary foreign workers has more than doubled since 2002

The unions point to the fact that the number of temporary foreign workers with short term work permits (usually lasting either one or two years) has risen from about 185,000 in 2002 to around 447,000 in 2011. Meanwhile, the Canadian unemployment rate has remained higher than 7%.


But Sharaf Sultan, a lawyer at Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie says that the TFWP contains many protections for Canadian workers and 'thoughtfully assesses the potential impact of the entry of a foreigner in the Canadian labour market. Contrary to the accusations of several commentators, the TFWP is already geared, first and foremost, at protecting local labour markets'. He adds 'Canada faces serious labour shortages across various regions and sectors of the economy'.


In order to employ a foreign worker under the TFWP, a Canadian employer (or international employer like iGate) must receive a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), the Canadian government's department for employment.

Accelerated LMO procedure reduced protection

An LMO is a certificate which assesses the likely impact of employing a foreign worker on the Canadian economy. In order to be allowed to employ a foreign worker, employers must show that this will have a neutral or a positive effect on the Canadian jobs market. This is done by showing that the job has been adequately advertised to Canadian workers. However, after the government had introduced the Accelerated Labour Market Opinion (ALMO), it became easier for employers to get approval without showing that they had advertised. The unions say that this resulted in reduced protection for Canadian workers.


The joint announcement by Mr Kenney and Ms Finley will, seemingly, make it harder to get LMOs for foreign workers. Ms Finley told the press conference 'The purpose of the TFW program is to help fill genuine and acute labour needs and we have been reviewing the program to ensure that goal is met and Canadian workers are never displaced.'


Even so, the overall trend towards the employment of more workers on temporary work visas, both in Canada and globally, looks set to continue.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in Canada. Please visit our Canadian page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/canada.html

Australian immigration minister admits 457 visa 'rorting' claim was a 'forecast'

Brendan O'Connor, the Australian immigration minister has been forced to admit that he had no evidence to support his claim, made on Australian TV last week, that about 10% of subclass 457 temporary work visas had been 'rorted', or obtained fraudulently.


On Sunday 28th April 2013, Mr O'Connor claimed that 10,000 foreign workers were in Australia with fraudulently obtained 457 visas. He appeared on Sky News and said ''Insofar as numbers, I believe that the areas where there's been an illegitimate use of 457s numbers are not negligible. I would say it would exceed 10,000.'


Australian government figures show that there are about 107,000 temporary workers in Australia with 457 visas. These visas allow foreign workers to work in Australia for up to four years.

O'Connor admits 'forecasting' number of fraudulent 457 visas last year

On Friday 3rd May, Mr O'Connor was forced to admit that his claim that about 10,000 457 visas had been obtained by 'rorting' was a 'forecast'. He said 'I'm making a forecast like others have made forecasts. The difference is I seem to be being challenged – fine. My point is this: There are transgressions… they're more than negligible. I've sought to estimate what I think is the appropriate number'.


As soon as Mr O'Connor made his initial claim on Sunday, employers' representatives expressed scepticism at the claim. Peter Anderson of the Australian Chamber of Commerce said that, if it was true, then this reflected very poorly on the government which was, itself, the largest single employer of people on 457 visas.


Innes Willox of the Australian Industry Group said that 'the extreme rarity of prosecutions or even sanctions against employers would suggest that there is no systemic abuse of the 457 program'.

DIAC report says rorting is rare

Embarrassingly for Mr O'Connor, a report prepared by his own department, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC), in December 2012 says that abuse of the 457 visa system was rare. The report was released shortly after Mr O'Connor's Sky TV interview on Sunday 28th after a Freedom of Information Act request was made to DIAC demanding to see data about the abuse of 457 visas.


The Australian Freedom of Information Act allows Australian citizens to request information held by government and state government departments. The governmental body concerned should, under most circumstances, disclose any information requested unless there is a valid reason to withhold it, such as national security.


The Australian opposition coalition has complained that Mr O'Connor's claims were part of the Labor Party government's attempt to divert attention from the growing number of refugees arriving in Australia by sea.

Opposition says O'Connor using 457 abuse as a diversion

Scott Morrison, the coalition's immigration spokesman said 'Labor's smearing of skilled migration is a desperate attempt to distract attention from their chronic border failures that this year will see more than 20,000 people arrive illegally by boat'.


The coalition claims that the governing Labor Party is seeking to use allegations of 'rorting' to cast themselves as the supporters of Australian workers in the run-up to the Australian general election which will be held in September.


Scott Barklamb of the Australian Mines and Metals Association told Australian paper The Age that the government was 'irresponsibly attempting to stir up a dog-whistling, quasi-xenophobic campaign'.


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UK's immigration inspector announces plan for 2013-14

The UK's independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, John Vine, has released his plan for inspections for 2013-14. He says he will carry out 20 inspections of various parts of the UK immigration system including six unannounced visits.


Mr Vine says he hopes the plan will accelerate the pace of improvement in the immigration system.


Mr Vine has been the inspector of immigration since 2008. He is thought by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, which scrutinises the work of UK immigration services, to be a powerful force for reform in UK immigration. Indeed, Keith Vaz, the chairman of the committee suggested that Mr Vine should apply to become the permanent secretary to the Home Office, the senior civil servant in charge of policing, immigration and other Home Office functions, when the post was vacant in 2012.

UK immigration was 'not fit for purpose' in 2006

The UK's immigration system has been in turmoil for years. In 2006, the then Home Secretary John Reid, declared that the immigration system was 'not fit for purpose' after a backlog of 450,000 unresolved asylum cases was found, abandoned in an underground storage facility.


Mr Reid (Now Lord Reid) abolished the Immigration and Nationality Directorate which was then responsible for immigration. In 2008, a new, independent body, the UK Border Agency, was established to deal with the immigration system. It was hoped by the Labour government that was in power at the time that the independence of the UKBA would allow it more operational autonomy and allow it to develop effective management systems free from day-to-day political interference.

Inspector has exposed multiple failings

However, Mr Vine has since helped to expose considerable failings in the UKBA. For example, in 2012

• It emerged that, on several occasions in early 2011, the UKBA had abandoned efforts to check biometric passports at Heathrow Airport at peak travel times and had failed to check names against security databases. This led to the resignation of the then head of border policing operations, Brodie Clark. After this, immigration operations in sea, air and rail ports were handed over to a new agency, The UK Border Force.
• In 2012, Mr Vine and his inspectors uncovered a hidden backlog of 180,000 cases in the 'migration refusals pool'. These were cases in which applications for the leave to remain in the UK had been refused but the UKBA had made no efforts to find and expel the applicants.
• In March 2013, the Home Affairs Committee issued a report saying that Mr Vine and his inspectors had uncovered backlogs of over 310,000 cases which would, at the current rate, take 24 years to clear.

UKBA was 'not good enough' in 2013

On 26th March 2013, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, said that she would abolish the UKBA because it had developed a secretive and defensive culture and was simply 'not good enough'. She said the functions of the UKBA would be taken back into the Home Office and placed inside two directorates one of which would deal with visa and citizenship applications and the other of which would deal with immigration enforcement and the removal of those without leave to remain in the UK.


Mr Vine said 'the decision of the Home Secretary to split up the UKBA echoes my findings that while there has been progress in some areas, there is much more that can be done'.


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Canadian-immigration-to re-evaluate intra company transfer program

Jason Kenney, the Canadian immigration minister has said that his department, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), will investigate allegations of abuse of the Canadian Intra Company Transfer Program (ICTP) which have been made by insiders in the Canadian IT industry.


The ICTP allows international employers to transfer staff from their offices elsewhere to work in their Canadian operation. Unlike most employers who want to bring in temporary workers from other countries, these international employers are not required to obtain a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) to prove that employing the foreign national would have a neutral or positive effect on the Canadian jobs market. Workers will need to apply for a Canadian work permit and a Canadian entry visa.


In order to qualify, the employee must provide details of their qualifications along with their work permit application to show that they have the appropriate level of knowledge. If successful, they must then apply for a Canadian entry visa before travelling to Canada.

Outsourcers accused of displacing Canadian staff

Industry insiders have alleged that international outsourcing firms, many of which are from India, have been using Canadian intra company transfer visas to make huge profits but are providing poor service to their clients. The savings that they make come from laying off better paid Canadian staff and then bringing in poorly paid Indian substitutes.


The ICTP allows international companies to move employees to Canada providing they fall within one of three categories:

• Executive: for senior managers
• Managerial: for middle managers and
• Specialized Knowledge: for workers who have, through their work, 'gained a specialized or advanced level of knowledge in the organization. This knowledge, while not necessarily proprietary, should be very uncommon in the general labour market.'

Once workers are inside Canada, they can renew their work permits up to a maximum of five years.

Specialized knowledge visa 'being abused'

While there are no statistics available as to how many workers are now working in Canada under any of these headings, it is alleged that it is the specialized knowledge category that has been abused.


Industry insiders allege that international outsourcing companies such as Cognizant, Tata Consulting, iGate and Mahindra Satyam are abusing this visa to bring in employees who have no 'specialized knowledge'. They say that the CVs of employees have been doctored to overstate the level of their qualifications so that they could qualify for work permits.


A spokesman for Tata Consulting said that the claims of abuse of the system, in particular that employees misled Canadian immigration as to the level of their qualifications, were 'false and without any merit in fact'.

National scandal caused by job losses at Royal Bank of Canada

Nonetheless, there have been complaints about abuse of the system for some time, according to whistle blowers who have spoken to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, but these have been ignored by CIC. Now, a scandal caused by the operations of the Indian outsourcer iGate at the Canadian national bank, The Royal Bank of Canada, seems to have persuaded Mr Kenney to act.


In early April, it emerged that 45 IT staff at RBC had been made redundant and replaced by staff brought from India by iGate, an Indian company. The RBC staff said that the Indian staff had no special skills or training and, in fact, had to be trained by the Canadian staff they replaced.


The initial focus of the Canadian media storm over this news was the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which allows foreign workers to work in Canada. On Monday 29th April 2013, Mr Kenney and the Human Resources Minister Diane Finley announced reforms of the TFWP that would require temporary foreign workers to be paid the same as Canadian workers.


However, the chief executive of RBC told CBC that only one in 14 of the foreign workers brought in by iGate were working in Canada with TFWP work permits. It seems likely, therefore, that the rest came in under the ICTP.

ICTP system is under investigation

Mr Kenney told the CBC investigative program Go Public that the system was under investigation. He said 'we want to make sure that people are not using that [the ICTP] as a kind of back door to undercut the Canadian labour market or displace Canadian workers'.


Mr Kenney made it clear that he was not seeking to end the ICTP. He said 'It would be hugely damaging to our economy if we suddenly erected huge barriers to the movement of skilled labour within certain companies'.


Industry insiders have told Go Public that outsourcing firms

• Won Canadian contracts with unrealistic promises of massive savings and occasionally with bribes
• Persuaded employees to exaggerate their qualifications on their CVs (résumés) so that they would appear to have 'specialized knowledge'
• May have broken immigration rules by placing ICTP workers in Canadian firms
• Employed workers with bogus qualifications which are bought from bogus Indian colleges

CIC has doubts about Indian qualifications

CBC programme Go Public revealed Canadian government documents which show that the Canadian government has been aware of this last problem for some time. An internal CIC report said that in 2012-13 'verification of Indian education, employment, and financial documentation is labour intensive and often without conclusive outcomes'.


The Canadian opposition immigration spokeswoman Jinny Sims said 'This whole file needs to be fixed immediately'.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in Canada. Please visit out Canadian page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/canada.html