The number one hurdle is the inefficient element around the labour market opinion process. Many of the jobs under the NOC categories don't even exist. Many times when you apply, the application simply gets tossed out, and the person who is assessing the application doesn't understand what it takes to be at the level to hire that worker. Once that issue is there to begin with, we can't move forward.
The number two hurdle is the prevailing wage rate. As I explained earlier, if I am paying the worker a base wage in Canada, plus the benefits, the final wage is $18 to $20 an hour. When they're asking us to pay the prevailing wage rates, one has to take into account what it costs to bring the worker here, what it costs to provide the worker with the health and extended benefits program, what it costs to pay the recruiter, and what it costs to retain the worker.
In many cases, when you bring the fully loaded costs to manage the temporary foreign worker program, based on our calculations, it runs 30% to 35% higher than what you will pay to a Canadian worker. How are you going to get an ROI on that?
The third hurdle, as I explained earlier, is the application assessment fee has all of a sudden been doubled. If you file an application, and they don't see eye-to-eye with you, they don't agree with your assessment, and they don't agree with your application, then that application gets rejected. If you have put in 50 applications, $50,000 goes into their coffers and now you have nothing.
The temporary foreign worker program doesn't have to be a cash cow for the federal government. It has to be there for the ease of running a manufacturing policy for Canadian companies, and in our experience, that has not been the case.