magnumpi

Ontario businesses hiring new immigrants will be offered $10,000 tax credit, as per the plans by Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Plan aims to provide work experience in Canada--The main aim of this new proposal, asserts McGuinty, is to help new immigrants coming to Canada to get the much desired work experience in this nation.


http://www.canadaupdates.com/content...ers-16811.html

This must be the best time to come to CANADA and look for work. Ehhh....

Auld Yin

All the Ontario politicians are promising the sun, the moon and the sky at the moment. McGuilty and the truth have been strangers for many years.

ultrarunner

Until they promise Mars, am not listening

I do have one question though, what is the time limit for the hiring and does the job have to include perks? You know some dirtbag will see this as a money-making scheme

iaink

If there is no existing economic imperative to employ an immigrant in the first place, what on earth is the point of encouraging more people to come to Canada? If the jobs are not there in the first place without a $10k sweetener, then this is just an artificial way to create jobs, and likely to be abused and end in tears anyway.


Taking $10k out of the existing tax payers pockets to encourage someone else to come to Canada and compete for the few available jobs (no doubt driving down the average salary and benefits on offer in the process) makes absolutely no bloody sense to me, and I am an immigrant...

Ben W Bell

As an immigrant I'm against this idea as well. Immigrants should be competing on a level playing field with other job searchers, not be skewed to their side due to the promise of money from the government. Make qualifications more recognisable and transferable that's what should be happening, bribing companies to hire immigrants isn't the right move.

britsnake

I agree that immigrants should be competing on a level playing field, but unfortunately we are not.

The old chestnut about canadian experience often comes up when you are applying for jobs.

I know many highly skilled immigrants who just cannot find work despite years of high level experience in their own country.

This is not about encouraging new immigrants to come, but hopefully about getting more of the ones who are already here into work.

It is also possible that it will encorage more immigrants to move to Ontario.

Almost Canadian

It seems to me that it is about persuading "stuck in their ways" Canadian employers to take a punt on a foreigner. Now, we all know that most are too stupid to realise that answering the telephone in a different country is not so vastly different to answering one in Canada that a little training won't resolve any differences.

IMVHO, there are very few jobs where experience of the Canadian way of doing things is so important that minimal training cannot overcome it but, as we all know, the Canadian way of doing things is to employ your friends and friends of friends. That is the only reason why such protectionist practices are allowed to continue and Canadians are simply blind to it.

iaink

If the jobs are there then canadian experience doesnt matter? People will be hired out of necessity. Saying we have all these underemployed immigrants that we need to get businesses to hire just recognises that Canada brings too many people in for the number of decent jobs that are available if you ask me.


If the jobs are not there and the demand is not there, then $10k doesnt make any difference and Canada should stop encouraging people to come here for a better life if the economy is not generating the jobs to sustain that! Either a job is there for someone to do, or its not. If you hire an immigrant, then you dont hire a non immigrant, the overall number of unemployed people stays the same. The burden on society if you like stays the same.

Except in this case you have also taken $10k out of the tax money pool (or more likely collecting an extra $10k elsewhere) in order to make hiring an immigrant more attractive. How is that going to help the economy any? Not just immigrants will suffer, everyone will. Well everyone but accountants and immigration lawyers.

Aviator

With the HST going in 2013 in BC, this is yet another reason to move business to Ontario.

Gremmie

This has been rumoured to have been going on for years in the Trucking sector, which would explain why some companies have been recruiting hard in Europe for years. It also opens up another can of worms, hire 6 drivers from Europe get $60,000 tax deduction, fire 6 euro drivers as they are no good, cant adapt etc. and hire 6 new Euro drivers and get another $60,000

JamesM

Just been over to my boss and asked him if I can save him $10k will ge give me $5k. He said yes. I shall be keeping my eye on this development.

Londonuck

No

magnumpi

Well lets say you have two final applicants for a job.

One is a Canadian born n bred, 30 years old, and has 5 years in X line of work.

The second is a Brit Expat, 30 years old, who has 5 years in X line of work, but in the UK.

The second guy comes with a $10,000 cash intensive. It's a no brainer, and a very slanted playing field.

ALSO:

That’s not all. Ontario Liberals are also giving a promise of offering a break of 30 percent on college and tuition fees in a bid to promote recruitment of immigrant workers in Canada.

My lad will be looking for college cash in two years.

JonboyE

I can see the sense in it, even if I don't agree with it.

If, as we are lead to believe, there are a lot of underemployed immigrants, then it makes sense to try and get these people into the workforce contributing to the economy to the best of their ability. If the reason these people are doing menial work is because they can't get employed in their field without Canadian experience then giving employers an incentive to give these people that experience can be justified.

However, IMO the stories of neurosurgeons driving taxis is something of an urban myth. It is not easy, especially in the regulated professions, for immigrants to pick up in Canada where they left off in their old countries. We all know the nightmare of equivalency of qualifications and recognizing overseas experience. We know we are at a disadvantage in not having the numerous social and professional contacts that others around us have.

That said, I have yet to meet an immigrant who cannot, in time, get back to an equivalent position they held in their old country. Even immigrants who start with the disadvantage of not speaking English at all well can do it. It just requires willingness, effort and hard work.

I have met immigrants who are not prepared to retrain, not prepared to work in more junior positions, or do any of the things many of us have to do to get established in our new country. I am not sure we should be subsidizing them with a tax break.

iaink

Is it a no brainer? With a canadian you know they wont piss off your other workers no end with endless complaining about Cheese and crap TV, and are unlikely to bugger off back to blighty six months in when they start to miss eastenders or moms home cooking, or the novelty of shovelling snow has worn off...

Im not saying thats true of every immigrant worker of course, but for some it is, and in terms of the effect on moralle and productivity, not to mention the costs of hiring again if they leave, the $10k may well end up a drop in the bucket of the overall cost of hiring the wrong person.


God, I sound more and more like a Canadian every day...