India will raise its concerns over Canada’s restrictions on temporary work visas for skilled professionals, as these curbs put in place two years ago have been hurting the domestic Information Technology (IT) sector.
The matter would be taken up by India in a meeting with Canadian authorities early June, official sources said. The issue may also figure in bilateral talks during the likely visit of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in November.
Meanwhile, Indian IT industry body Nasscom will provide details, on the adverse impact of these curbs, to a “coalition of Canadian stakeholders,” comprising of IT firms, small & medium enterprises, think-tanks and migration policy institutes.
‘Coalition’The ‘coalition’ will in turn forward them to a Canadian Parliamentary panel that will comprehensively review the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).
As per Nasscom estimates, Canada is among the top five markets for Indian IT companies, the others being the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Switzerland. Annual revenue of Indian IT firms from the Canadian market is around $2-3 billion. India has already taken up with the U.S. and U.K. the issue of curbs imposed by them on temporary work visas for skilled professionals. India has even dragged the US to the World Trade Organisation on the issue.
Until 2013, Canada had, according to sources in the Indian IT industry, a liberal policy for foreign skilled workers (including for intra-corporate transfers).
However, reports in 2013 of several Canadian employees at the nation’s largest bank — Royal Bank of Canada — being allegedly replaced by temporary foreign workers, including Indian employees, due to an outsourcing arrangement, had led to a huge controversy.
DisplacementThere were also reports of alleged displacement of Canadian workers by temporary foreign workers at McDonald’s restaurants. These incidents put pressure on the Canadian government, which then announced an overhaul of its TFWP in June 2014. The new rules, besides being more complicated due to elaborate questionnaires, have also increased the costs (in terms of fees etc) of employers bringing in temporary foreign workers. The Indian IT industry, according to Nasscom, expects the presence of Indian-origin ministers in the Canadian government and Indian-Canadians in the Canadian Parliament to help push their case to relax the TFWP.
Gagan Sabharwal, Director (Global Trade Development), Nasscom, said the new TFWP creates impediments for Indian companies to serve legitimate business interests in Canada.
“Skills shortages problem is more profound for the small and mid-sized Canadian firms. Owing to skill shortages in the local marketplace these firms and businesses rely on leveraging Indian talent to grow their IT businesses. So we want the Canadian government to include skilled-workers movement as part of the TFWP review process.”
