TFWP changes will hit Sask. hard

It is a report confirming exactly what the provincial government said last year when the federal government changed the temporary foreign worker program — the new rules won’t work for Saskatchewan. Authored by Farahnaz Bandali of the Canada West Foundation, Work interrupted: How federal foreign worker rule changes hurt the West paints a gloomy picture, warning that “the impact of the changes could be severe.”

“Without enough workers, businesses could be forced to have shorter hours, service will suffer, workers will be stressed and businesses could shrink. Some may be forced out of business altogether,” Bandali wrote.

In a bitter twist of irony, it’s Saskatchewan’s exceptionally low unemployment rate — lowest in the country at 4.1 per cent in 2013 — which puts the Land of the Living Skies right in the firing line.

During some “boom periods,” Bandali told the Leader-Post Monday, temporary foreign workers “became a lifeline for some employers.”

Without them, “there’s not a lot of alternative labour supply, not a lot of other options for employers,” so a reduction in those workers will hurt the province.

While the Government of Saskatchewan is one of the foundation’s patrons, Bandali emphasized the report was conducted independently; the topic was chosen, she said, because “it’s a hot topic right now, an important topic.”

Come July, changes to the program mean low-paid temporary foreign workers can only make up 20 per cent of any employer’s workforce, dropping to 10 per cent next year.

In Ontario, with its 7.6-per-cent unemployment rate and low reliance on such workers, that likely would work out just fine.

But Bandali said a “one-size-fitsall program” won’t work across Canada, “because there isn’t necessarily the flexibility to accommodate the different regions.”

That’s particularly true here in the West, with Alberta and Saskatchewan most likely to be hit hardest by the changes.

There are no recommendations included in the report — that’s the next stage of research — but Bandali said it’s important Saskatchewan’s labour supply doesn’t “dip substantially before the reforms are made.”

“To adapt to that new reality, you want (provinces) to be able to meet their labour needs.”

For the provincial government, the report was a welcome affirmation of what it’s been saying all along.

Jeremy Harrison, minister of immigration, jobs, skills and training, said the program “played — and continues to play — an important role ensuring access to labour,” and government has heard from employers who have found it difficult to hire as a result of the changes.

And although government’s “preference is always to hire a Canadian first,” he said, it will “continue to make the case to the (federal) government that the changes had impacts perhaps they didn’t intend.”