Thank you, Madam Chair. If my colleagues are okay with it, I will go first.
Thank you very much to everybody for having us today.
My name is Terry Shaw. I'm the executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association, which represents over 300 companies in the Manitoba trucking industry, and the MTA is a proud member of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents over 4,500 companies in the Canadian trucking industry.
On behalf of the board and membership of the MTA and the CTA, I appreciate being afforded the time today to address the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration so we can provide some insight into labour market impact assessments and the temporary foreign worker program.
In opening today, I would also like to acknowledge the partnership that the MTA and all CTA members have with Trucking Human Resources Canada, or THRC, the national sector council for the trucking and logistics workforce in Canada.
Much of the labour market information I hope to be speaking to today came to us from THRC, and of special note to today's discussion I refer all committee members to THRC's temporary foreign worker program review of August 2018. While the report was published a couple of years ago, the themes and recommendations contained within the report remain relevant today. A copy of the report was sent to our committee contacts in advance of today's discussion.
High-level feedback captured on the program during those discussions came under the following headings: processing times, consistency of service, processing fees, work permit renewable times and application requirements. From those high-level feedback categories, the following recommendations were suggested.
The first key recommendation was for a trusted employer or fast-tracking process. A consistent point across the country was the need for a trusted employer vetting process to expedite and streamline the LMIA process.
The second key recommendation was for the applications to reflect the realities of the trucking industry. The application form and content are not reflective of the realities of the Canadian trucking industry. Notable issues with the application included the compensation structure and reporting requirements, the job advertisement and recruiting requirements, and the complexity of the application process, which leads many employers to seek legal aid and third party advisement.
The third key recommendation was process improvements. Some of those have been made since the report was published, so we want to acknowledge that and thank those involved for making those process improvements. Some outstanding suggested improvements are ensuring that program officers are familiar with the trucking industry, setting realistic and standardized processing times for program applications, linking processing fees to service standards and considering a set fee per application rather than per number of positions.
The last recommendation, which again was consistent across the country's round table sessions, was related to inconsistencies at the provincial level regarding provincial nominee programs that support a path to permanent residency. It is being proposed that the federal government, with our provincial government partners, take a lead in supporting a streamlined and consistent approach to permanent residency for foreign workers at the national level.
So that I don't utilize all our time, I will end this by leaving the committee with this thought. Making the above changes will not just benefit the Canadian trucking industry. It will benefit those whom our industry seeks to employ. It will benefit our government partners tasked with oversight of this program. Most importantly, process improvements that happen to benefit trucking benefit the entire Canadian supply chain, which is the foundation of our country's economic success.
I leave you with that to conclude my opening remarks, and I thank you, folks.