ALBERTANS COME FIRST

Giving Albertans first crack at jobs ahead of temporary foreign workers is the idea behind a two-year pilot project announced Wednesday by the provincial and federal governments.

This program is a no-brainer.

Who could object to a program encouraging employers to hire skilled Alberta workers in 29 trades hit hard by job losses during a seemingly unrelenting downturn? The employer liaison service — the first of its kind in Canada — will use data on workers in those jobs to determine if there are Albertans already available for work. The list includes civil and mechanical engineers, machinists, electricians, plumbers and carpenters.

The premise sounds sensible and laudable: If a business applies for temporary foreign workers who specialize in carpentry, for example, the application may be denied if there are Albertan carpenters looking for work. The business will then be matched with a liaison officer who will connect the firm with local jobless.

Under standard procedures, a company requesting temporary foreign workers would file an application and complete a labour market assessment to back up their claim. Now, if the application falls under one of the 29 jobs, the process would be halted and the business directed to the unemployed workers.

The Alberta Federation of Labour was predictably quick to applaud the project. It has long condemned the temporary foreign worker program as a way for business to drive down wages and working conditions.

Other observers, such as Edmonton Riverbend Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux, suggested it’s the first real effort from the two levels of government to help unemployed Albertans.

The very need for such a program, however, raises a troubling question: Given the province’s 8.4 per cent unemployment rate, are there really employers using the temporary foreign worker program to bypass jobless Albertans in these 29 occupations? Or is the program a cynical public relations exercise to fix a problem that doesn’t really exist?

The numbers suggest that’s exactly what some companies are doing. In 2016, there were 19,288 Albertans collecting employment insurance after losing their jobs in those 29 categories.

Despite that ample supply of ready and able labour, there were 667 temporary foreign workers employed in those 29 job classifications as of Dec. 31. Of that total, 130 TFWs were approved in 2016 to work in those 29 high-paying, high-skill occupations when thousands of Albertans were looking for work in those fields.

That it wasn’t a no-brainer for some employers to hire Albertans first is shameful.