Alberta wants temporary foreign workers to become permanent

Canada, 29th July: If western Canada wants to avoid a looming shortage of workforce in the coming times, then it must work towards allowing temporary foreign workers to stay permanently here.

This is a revelation by Thomas Lukaszuk, immigration minister of Alberta, as a possible solution to the predicted shortage of workforce in Canada.

Allow permanent settlement to temporary workers in Canada—Canada must ease immigration rules for temporary foreign workers to help them stay here forever even after completion of their four-year time period, urges Lukaszuk.

Under the current Canada immigration rules, temporary foreign workers coming to Canada under the temporary foreign worker program have to leave the nation after the expiry of their four-year time limit.

And they need to wait for another four years before becoming eligible for re-applying for coming to this nation again as temporary foreign workers.

As a result, Canada loses majority of such workers to other nations, thus robbing itself of their valuable work experience and skills, Lukaszuk asserts.

Canada needs a permanent immigration solution—Lukaszuk states that Canada must focus on finding some permanent solution to the problem of finding workers with requisite skills and expertise to work in Canada especially when it knows that there are more jobs than workers in Canada.

The current immigration rule offers only a temporary solution to the requirement of foreign workers since they have to leave after spending four years in Canada which means the nation must spend resources again on finding foreigners with requisite skills. It’s a sheer wastage of resources.

Moreover, short-term stays of workers create an underclass of undocumented immigrants, thus adding to social woes of the nation, warns Alberta immigration minister. He suggests on reviewing immigration policies of Canada to enable temporary foreign workers bring their families along and stay in Canada permanently.

Canada must focus on compatible job skills—Canada should focus on compatible employment skills and not just on allowing immigrants with higher qualifications, suggest Lukaszuk.

And the priority must be to ensure that only those jobs go to immigrants for which there are no Canadians. Only then can Canada find a permanent solution to the problem of shortage of workers.