The original long comment seems to reflect the idea that any business is a bottomless pit of money, and can affordf to pay any amount for wages, and of course never has to raise their prices.

We have seen examples of governments trying to stimulate the economy. Take th issue of green jobs, where we will all have good jobs with renewable power, yadda yadda. Spain is a good example. An internal study, by a Spanish economist shows that every “green job” created destroyed two regular jobs. Spain now has 27% unemployment . Will more green jobs fix that problem.

Ontario is rushing down that same road. And the Feds will not answer a question about he energy efficiency of ethanol production, at least not showing enough details to know if they actually did a study.

We need to consider Canada as part of the global market, and remember that increasing wages too fast isn’t helping anyone in the long term.

The 15% (high skill) and 5% (low skill) wage variance was put into place to placate employers who complained that the LMI wage Service Canada used as the base wage for a TFW was too high and in some cases exceeded what they paid Canadians. To get approval to use the wage variance in the normal LMO process, the employer had to “prove” (and believe me that proof was negligible) to Service Canada that they employed ONE Canadian in the same job, making the same wage for which they were seeking a TFW. Then along came the ALMO process. Totally attestation based. Employers and their representatives were then automatically doffing 15% of the top because no proof was required. There is also a little known piece of the program whereby employers can apply to cut TFW wages even further.
I will concede that that there are some labour shortages in certain high skilled trades and professions and for that the TFWP has a place. However, the so called “labour shortage” is by and large a colossal scam. Someone has yet to explain to me what benefits there are to the economy and what new skills are being introduced to the Canadian labour market by hiring thousands upon thousands of TFWs to pour coffee and serve doughnuts. Or for construction labourers that “must speak Punjabi”
Simply put, the mantra has become “If I build it, the government will supply the workers”.
This is not how you grow an economy. No consideration is given to the actual sustainability of a business or to paying a fair market wages to workers. The TFWP is a program which gives the employer unfettered access to foreign labour. The program sets the wage (based on limited data) and in the case of the wage variance allows the employers to cut those wages. There is no enforcement mechanism or monitoring of basic program guidelines. Service Canada takes everyone’s word that they’re behaving themselves and treating their workers properly (how quaint). All one has to do to qualify for the program is advertise the job for 2 weeks say no one applied, have high turnover or say you can’t find a Canadian that is willing work at the government wage. That’s not a labour issue it’s a retention issue and if you want to retain workers you have to pay them more. That’s the cost of doing business in a market where workers are in high demand. The market will eventually sort out wages. The laws of supply and demand apply to the workforce too. Or is that for those “other” capitalists?
I won’t even comment on the conduct of recruitment agencies, most of which are run by foreign nationals. The TFWP is a license to print money.
I for one welcome the new guidelines there a good “first step”.

There is a government funded school in Edmonton that is kind of suspect……….