Government to relax university foreign worker rules

Universities have persuaded the federal government to relax new rules on how they hire temporary foreign workers that they say made it more difficult to recruit global academic talent, writes Simona Chiose for The Globe and Mail.

An agreement struck this week between postsecondary institutions and the federal government will give universities flexibility in how they meet new rules imposed in June on employers looking to hire high-wage workers. The institutions will no longer have to submit a plan on how they will transition jobs filled by highly paid foreign workers to Canadian citizens. Instead, universities and colleges will report to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, their national organisation.

Universities are the only sector that will be allowed to be self-governing in meeting some of the requirements of the temporary foreign worker, or TFW, programme. In most cases, universities receiving TFW permits to hire foreign academics are actually planning to employ them in permanent jobs – the TFW programme is simply a faster way to bring professors or researchers to Canada than the federal skilled workers programme.
Full report on The Globe and Mail site