Why are Tories so tardy with details?

In April, the federal government announced a program designed to reduce the time it takes for businesses to hire foreign workers for jobs in Canada. Known as the "accelerated labour market opinion," this process should cut by weeks the time it takes for foreign workers to come to Canada. The biggest surprise is employers will also now be allowed to hire certain foreign workers at a wage of up to 15 per cent less than the median wage for similar workers in Canada.

Before this announcement was made, an employer who wanted to hire a foreign worker normally had to offer a salary that was at or above the median wage for the occupation in the area where the foreign worker would be working.

That was part of Canada's long-standing "Canada first" policy that generally required Canadian employers to look to hire from the domestic workforce before hiring people from abroad. Under this policy, employers had to offer wages at or above the median wage paid to Canadian residents to ensure an employer's failure to find Canadian-based workers was not because it offered uncompetitive wages.

If, after attempting to recruit Canadian residents, no one in the Canadian workforce was willing and able to fill the job, the employer could seek permission to hire a worker from another country. While there were exceptions to this policy, many employers who hired foreign workers had to adhere to this policy.

By allowing certain foreign workers to be hired at 15 per cent below the median wage, the question that came to mind was: "Why is the government doing this?"

Shortly after announcing this policy shift, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley said allowing employers to hire foreign workers at 15 per cent below the average wage was needed because "errors with the calculations" in assessing the average wage caused many employers to pay foreign workers more than Canadian workers at their companies.

As a result, this 15 per cent wage range was needed "to recognize the differences employers pay their employees."

The original explanation was far from clear. What were these "errors with the calculations" the government was referring to? What "differences" in employee pay needed to be "recognized"? For weeks, the government's explanation left people to speculate.

As we waited for a clearer answer, a number of questions arose. Would the ability to pay foreign workers 15 per cent below the median wage put downward pressure on wages throughout Canada? Would some businesses have a competitive advantage by being able to hire foreign workers faster and cheaper than their competitors? If foreign nationals would be cheaper and faster to hire, would businesses still have an incentive to invest in the training of Canadian workers?

A little over three weeks after this program was announced, the government finally came out with a somewhat clearer explanation of why this policy is being implemented. According to the government, the old wage structure did not have a consistent method of determining the median wage from region to region and also did not reflect market realities. Clearly, if businesses in one part of the country had to deal with different criteria than businesses in other areas of the country, these problems should be corrected. As well, if the wage structure did not reflect market realities, it would be necessary to change the system to ensure accuracy.

In terms of wage differentials, the government has clearly indicated that employers who pay at or above the median wage to their Canadian workforce will have to pay that same wage to foreign workers. As well, unionized employers will have to pay their foreign workers at the same rate the collective agreement requires them to pay their existing workforce. These clarifications are welcome.

While all of the reasons for the policy change may not be entirely clear, this clearer explanation is welcome. Why it took over three weeks to explain the program in the first place is still a mystery.

R. Reis Pagtakhan is an immigration lawyer with Aikins Law in Winnipeg.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 4, 2012 A10