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The Global Talent Stream is a two-year pilot program of
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and Immigration,
Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that commenced on
June 12, 2017. It allows skilled workers with
arranged employment in recognized "in-demand"
occupations, or who have been referred to the program by
designated referral organizations, to obtain work
permits within two weeks of having their eligibility for the
program approved.
For U.S. companies that have subsidiary or sibling companies in
Canada and who also face difficulty extending the terms of U.S.
work authorizations, the Global Talent Stream offers a potential
route to employees to continue working within the organization in
North America. It offers a long-term solution or a stopgap measure
while awaiting better prospects for approval of U.S. work
visas.
The initiative seeks to assist in the growth of innovative
Canadian companies by ensuring they can access highly skilled
talent quickly, particularly in occupations where there is an
identified labour shortage in Canada. To qualify for the program,
the Canadian-based employer must commit to a "Labour
Market Benefits Plan" (LMBP) whereby they agree to
carry out specific activities designed to bring about specific
benefits to the Canadian labour market. The contents of the LMBP
are fleshed out in negotiations with ESDC officials, who then seek
to expand the commitments and create measurable benchmarks that are
expected to be met during a specific timeframe. These commitments
are subject to regular auditing by ESDC. Employers
seeking to use the Global Talent Stream must balance the costs of
these commitments with the benefits of the program, and be careful
not to overcommit themselves.
In its LMBP, the Canadian employer must commit to providing one
labour market benefit classified as "mandatory" and two
benefits classified as "complementary." At least one
specific activity must be stated as a method of bringing each of
these benefits. By way of demonstration, one of the eligible
benefits recognized by ESDC is "increasing skills and training
investments for Canadian citizens and permanent residents."
Examples of activities that an employer could commit to in order to
support this benefit include, but are not limited to:
Increasing investments in in-house
skills and training;
Establishing or enhancing educational
partnerships with local or regional post-secondary institutes or
with other organizations that are supporting skills and training
(for example, providing post-secondary institutes with free
licenses or other access to specialized software that will help
build student skills on key industry tools);
Providing paid co-op or internship
opportunities for Canadians and permanent residents at the company;
and
Participation in work-integrated
learning or other federal and provincial skills and training
programs.
Another labour market benefit recognized by ESDC is "job
creation." For this benefit, the employer must track the
number of jobs for Canadian citizens or permanent residents that
are either directly connected to the foreign worker being hired, or
to overall job growth within the company. Activities that an
employer could commit to in order to support this benefit include,
but are not limited to:
Hiring additional Canadians or
permanent residents to support the foreign worker in his/her role;
and
Increasing the number of Canadians
and permanent residents employed full time and part-time by the
company.
Potential pitfalls of which Canadian employers must be aware in
seeking to access the Global Talent Stream program include
"overpromising" in terms of the benefits and/or
activities that wish to commit to without thinking through how they
are going to meet those requirements or perform at the 6-month
audit. This can occur during the negotiations process with ESDC. In
addition, employers must keep in mind that if they commit
to an LMBP for one foreign worker, and shortly thereafter need to
access the Global Talent Stream again to hire more foreign workers,
ESDC will seek to negotiate enhancement of the benefits and/or
activities agreed to under the initial LMBP. This will be
particularly problematic if the company overcommitted in its
initial LMBP, as ESDC officials will then be pressuring the company
to put itself into an even deeper hole at that later stage.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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