We found that there were 40 files with a recommended finding of non-compliance against the employer. At the time we did the audit, there were 40 files where the department's own work indicated that the employer had not complied with the program.
To get to the final decision that yes, an employer was not compliant, was taking too long. Some of these files had been approved, for example, in regional offices in January 2016, and by August 2016, they still hadn't made their way through the system.
Again, I think the first thing is just having an indicator in place. If there is a recommendation of non-compliance, they should be tracking that to determine how long it takes to get to a final decision. I think just having that type of an indicator would probably help to speed up the process, because they would see for themselves that it was taking too long.
Our recommendation, in paragraph 5.87, was that they “should explore options to streamline and speed up its process”. The department agreed. The response says that more timely decisions on inspections for temporary foreign worker program employers would be done by June 2017. Presumably, they should already have something in place to help them understand whether they are being more timely on this item.