Evidence of meeting #76 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was business.
A video is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Atlantic Canada, Restaurants Canada
The challenge on the language testing seems to be is in their country of origin where they have to get this test. They might not be able to get it for two months, so the application stops. Nothing else happens until that happens. Then it's stop-start, stop-start.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
As an employer, I assess that in the interview. When I do a Skype interview and talk to the person and do my correspondence online, like I do with anyone else, I assess their ability to be able to integrate into our environment and their English skills at that time. There's been some bureaucratic red tape that's been added to this process that doesn't need to be there. It wasn't part of the previous program.
Liberal
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you both for coming.
To continue along this same vein, I'm just trying to flesh out how we can make this program work for employers and for potential new Canadians. You talked about the previous program, but of course, the temporary foreign worker program that you were using still exists.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
It still exists in the highly skilled category that we have for people with culinary degrees or extensive experience in a culinary environment, as in a kitchen area.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
What about the PNP program? Does that not also exist for you, as an opportunity for workers in your class? I'm trying to figure out where the touchpoints are here.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
Typically what would happen under the temporary foreign worker program with the highly skilled LMIA, they would be streamed into the provincial nomination program. That worked quite well. During that time, we would be able to assess as an employer whether they were fitting in with the environment, with the rest of our team, and seemed happy. You have that time to make that assessment. Is this working for everyone involved? If so, we would assist them in applying for the provincial nomination certificate and facilitate that.
When the work permit is only one year, it's very difficult to get all of the timelines done. Since I handle it myself, I think that it's something that we're able to achieve, but in many cases, the province isn't able to get that PNP certificate within the one-year work permit. There used to be two years. It gave us that much more time to have someone settled and be integrated. When they changed it to a year, it became that much more challenging.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
In P.E.I. you can do it in six months, but in New Brunswick it's one year.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Okay.
By and large then, if you could have things like the language testing done online, or have it done here, or maybe stage this process, it might make it easier.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Could you talk about the digital application piece? It seems like all the rest of the applications that you're doing are digital.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
They were until that portal got shut down. That has gone back to paper, but it used to be. We lost all of our historical data on caps and all the information we had. It was down for service and then it never came back up. We had to revert back to paper on the LMIA process. It was not a big deal, but it just took a while to.... You just assumed the website was going to go back up.
It was a portal. You could upload all the information. It was very efficient. You could track how it was being processed, the timelines, and the whole bit. But with this piece, there are 15 steps before you can make the application. You have to get the nomination from the province to begin with, and then you have to submit all this and get the endorsement from the province. I've had it in to the province for a month and sometimes it's still not even approved.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
In addition to your own designation as an employer, at the end of the day, even under the new pilot program, you still have to go back and get a new designation from the province with respect to the employee. I thought that once you were designated as an employer and the steps were followed, you didn't have to go back to the province to get them to approve the employee.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
You have to go back to the province with the employee and all of the backup information, including the language, the settlement, and the skills assessment. As well, we need all of the proof of advertising to show that we've done our due diligence to suggest that we don't have the Canadian talent at the same time that's available and looking for work. Then they review it all. At that point, they go through a processing before we can even give the foreign worker the endorsement from the province.
They give us one part of the process, but we have to actually have them named, and then they can go apply for a visa to come to Canada at the embassy or consulate of the country where they reside.
Vice-President, Atlantic Canada, Restaurants Canada
Then you need the federal approval, which can then take months as well. There are so many different steps.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
You guys say you like the program. What aspects of it do you like?
Vice-President, Atlantic Canada, Restaurants Canada
I like not having an LMIA and having to spend $1,000. We like having a province involved in a lot of ways, because you can find someone to talk to. Within the bureaucracy, there's a person, you know their name, and you have their phone number. That really helps.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
Provincial nomination offices work well. It's just this Atlantic pilot program that was put together with somebody in public policy with good intent, and they designed something that made sense, but it doesn't work. I don't think it's just the pilot piece. It's becoming extremely cumbersome compared with what was already working and successful. The whole wheel got reinvented. This is a new way of doing it.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
For the employees you already have here, I guess you must still have some who are here under the temporary foreign worker program finishing off, or are they all through the—
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
Yes, there would be half a dozen who would be waiting for the provincial nomination certificate.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Do you have any experience moving them forward to permanent residency through the Atlantic pilot program? My understanding is that you can also do that on this side of the border.
Chairman of the Board, Restaurants Canada
No, there's no need to use that Atlantic pilot program once someone's been identified. They're here on a work permit. They get the provincial nomination certificate. I don't need the Atlantic program at that time, because that would just add another layer of complexity to the existing process.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Okay.
Heather, I just want to touch base quickly. If you could say three things about your community that identify it as the sales point for the type of people we're looking for to come to rural Canada, and who will enjoy rural Canada and stay, what would those characteristics be?
Owner, Farmer's Daughter Country Market
I'd ask for them to be community oriented. That's what's been successful for the people who have come. They've gotten really involved in their community. They're not shy. I would also say families, younger families, and a love of the outdoors. A love of the outdoors is huge.
