A collection of local business and political leaders gathered in St. Paul for a special roundtable discussion on the temporary foreign worker program last week, as the effects of the federally issued moratorium continue to be felt.
MP for Westlock-St. Paul Brian Storseth was on hand at the meeting to direct discussion on the program and offer some encouragement to local business owners – stating the moratorium, which has been in place since early April, would be lifted in early June.
“We're trying to give you guys a little bit of certainty when it comes to what's being done with the program,” Storseth said. “When the moratorium is lifted, I will go to each of our communities and go through all of changes that are being made.”
In attendance at the meeting was the Bonnyville and District Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Tanya Oliver, who, after weeks of voicing her displeasure about the federal government's moratorium, said it was a “real positive” that local business owners would soon be able to make use of the program.
“I think overall the meeting went well – it was good for local businesses to have another opportunity to express their concerns and their ideas regarding how best to enhance the (temporary foreign workers) program and make is so that the regions that do need it will have access to it,” Oliver said. “It's fantastic news that the moratorium will be lifted at the beginning of June.”
Storseth said that while the federal government had announced the program would be reinstated, no information had yet been released to the public regarding what changes would be made. Oliver though said she remained “optimistic” that any changes, especially financially, would be “moderate”.
“I'm a little more optimistic now moving forward. We all know this isn't a perfect program and changes are of course needed. At the end of the day, the places and businesses that need this program should have access to it while those that don't obviously shouldn't,” Oliver said.
“We also discussed not losing sight of the fact that the reason we use this program in this region is because we have a chronic labour shortage. We need to come up with a longer term, permanent solution. These aren't temporary jobs, they're permanent positions that need to be filled.”
Storseth described the moratorium as being a chance for the federal government to look at better ways of enforcing laws, auditing and reviewing the way the program operates, with special attention paid to jobs in the service sector.
A focus of the discussion and one of the influencing factors leading to the moratorium was the Labour Market Opinion (LMO) portion of the program. Storseth noted that the application process for LMOs coming under scrutiny was the reason the minister thought it was “necessary” to put a moratorium in place.
“I wanted to push for certainty,” Storseth said. “I said to the minister that these are businessmen and businesswomen, they can't not know how long this moratorium is going to be in place for, how many of their employees it's going to affect.”
Sal Naim, owner of several businesses in the Lakeland including Mr. Mike's Steakhouse Casual and Players Lounge, also sat in on the discussion and while he too was encouraged by the announcement that the moratorium would be lifted, he still had several concerns about the potential changes set to be made.
“I think it was nice that Brian put this meeting together to bring everyone up to speed regarding where things are at, and it's obviously encouraging that the moratorium will be lifted, but the thing that is still concerning me is the fact we don't know exactly what changes are coming (to the program),” Naim said. “We know changes are imminent, we just have no clue what they involve, so there's no way to plan for them.”
He noted that some of the “extreme” ideas he's heard thrown around regarding potential changes would create a lot of difficulty for employers in this region, while also holding reservations over whether or not the public truly understands how important the temporary foreign worker program is to their normal, every day lives.
One of the positives both Naim and Oliver took from the discussion was the indication the federal government would be willing to look at the program from a regional perspective.
“I think that's one of the most encouraging things,” Naim said of the idea. “If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, this program cannot be judged (on a national level). Our needs here in Alberta are much different from the needs in Quebec or Ontario. If you have full employment in your region, like (we do here) then you can justify the use of the program. I like this new approach and it's absolutely encouraging to see the federal government (coming on board).”
With files from Sam MacDonald (St. Paul Journal)
