Thank you, Casey.
I speak from 15 years of HR experience and seven frustrating years of working with the temporary foreign worker program. The LMIA process is costly, inefficient and does not meet the needs of the beef industry. The program is complicated, and we need to hire immigration consultants to help us manage it.
Also, changes to the program occur without notice. For example, we submitted LMIAs, and while they were being processed, the approved wage rate was changed. Our application was denied and we had to start all over—at the employer's expense.
The housing must be secured, inspected and paid for prior to an LMIA being submitted and the workers' arrival. The process takes at least four months, so we have to pay for housing that sits empty. We've paid $5,000 in rent for one house and as much as $21,000 for houses that sat empty while we waited for approvals.
Service Canada officers lack knowledge about agriculture. Our job descriptions are not understood, and neither are rural locations and addresses. The resulting delays and denied applications are, again, at the employer's expense.
Before submitting an LMIA, we need to post job advertisements for 14 days and provide a detailed report on our attempt to hire Canadians. We once submitted all this required information and the LMIA was denied. We found that the officer did not review all the information provided.
Processing times are far too long. Job advertisements take two weeks. Service Canada takes four to eight weeks to review the application and another two to four weeks to secure a work permit. The process takes four to six months before a worker arrives, and this assumes a smooth process, which rarely occurs. COVID-19 has made the process even longer and more expensive with travel logistics and the need to pay wages for workers in quarantine.
It is important to understand that overcoming these frustrations and getting foreign agriculture workers into Canada is just the first step. Once workers arrive, we focus on transitioning them to permanent residency, and that can take years.
We were pleased when the government announced plans to allow permanent residency for some 90,000 foreign workers now in Canada, but this too has issues. No third party is allowed to support the workers in submitting applications. Medical tests, translations, employment letters, forms and passports have to be submitted as one package. The cost to apply is over $1,000 per worker, and there is no reimbursement if the application is denied—