Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Our presentation will be in French and English.
My name is Marc Audet, and I am the President and CEO of AURAY Sourcing & AURAY Capital, both subsidiaries of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, a major accounting firm in Quebec and a member of Grant Thornton International, one of the world's leading audit firms. Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Canada serves over 100,000 business clients throughout Canada.
I am here with my colleague Phil Mooney, Vice-President at AURAY Sourcing, to talk about the labour shortage and actions we recommend to simplify the recruitment of temporary foreign workers.
To support our presentation, we have given you a more detailed brief, as well as some slides to illustrate some of our points.
During the last year, in a context of labour shortages, most companies with which we do business have had great difficulty finding workers, either to expand their businesses or even to survive. Our firm, AURAY Sourcing, was created to provide employers with reliable support combined with expertise in immigration and international recruitment, and to help them hire temporary foreign workers.
As you know, Canada has reached its lowest unemployment rate in 43 years, and for the first time, a large number of employers have difficulty in hiring both skilled and unskilled workers, and this is occurring in every Canadian province. For Quebec employers, this is something new, while for companies in Ontario and western Canada, it is a case of "here we go again!" Unlike previously, Quebec is no longer considered a source of available workers; it is also looking for workers.
The labour shortage is therefore the number one concern for most Canadian businesses. A recent survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business confirmed that the labour shortage had caused a loss of sales for 40% of respondents, and that 42% had had to cancel their investment plans. Yet recruiting temporary foreign workers continues to be a process burdened by international competition, long delays and inconsistent decisions.
Even with the best expertise, the entire hiring process can take eight months or more, which is too long for most employers and makes proper planning almost impossible. Some companies are even forced to move their production outside of Canada and others may go bankrupt because of this situation and the long processing times.
The Labour Market Impact Assessment process, or LMIA, was set up to protect Canadian jobs, but now this procedure is costing Canadian jobs because of delays. The situation is the same for the work permit process.
We would thus like to propose four measures, three of which would significantly reduce the time required to bring in temporary foreign workers; one is about access to permanent residency.
I will now invite my colleague, Phil, to introduce to you our specific recommendations.
Thank you.