This is the first step in making up excuses to hire foreign pilots using the LMO method. A bogus advertisement in the papers and on Company Website, asking for type-rated B737NG pilots. When none will apply, they will use that as an excuse to request an LMO from HRSDC which will permit them to ask CIC for Canadian Work Permits for Foreigners.
If you feel you have the experience to fly as a B-737NG F/O at Canjet but do not have a current B-737NG type rating, I suggest you let the people at HRSDC know about it before they hand out LMOs allowing Canjet to hire a foreigner instead of yourself.
There is no shortage of qualified and experienced pilots in Canada!
I am categorically against the use of R203(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations to hire Foreign Nationals as temporary workers to work in Canada as pilots if the airlines, when advertising for pilots, require a Type-Rating as a pre-requisite. There is no shortage of qualified pilots in Canada and the ruses which some airlines use to obtain an LMO from HRSDC in order to secure work permits for foreign pilots is nothing short of dishonest.
Here are the relevant Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations clauses for this category of temporary foreign worker:
What Sunwing and Canjet have been doing, is advertising for seasonal pilot positions from December to May, but instead of accepting applications from any experienced Canadian Airline pilot such as myself (I have 15,000 hours of flight with A-330, A-310 and B-757 type ratings), they advertise that they only accept applications from people who are already Type-rated on the Boeing 737NG. Since the people who are already Type-Rated on the B-737NG in Canada are already employed by other Airlines, no-one applies for the advertised positions. They use this as an excuse to request an LMO from HRSDC. There are qualified and experienced pilots in Canada who could easily be trained to fly the B-737NG, such as pilots who used to fly for Canada 3000 or Skyservice, who are now either un-employed, under-employed, or who had to go find work overseas and would like to come back to Canada. Instead of offering the positions to these people, we hand them out to Foreign Nationals who pay zero taxes in Canada and who send their paychecks to their families in Europe. There are also many pilots in Canada who have seasonal summer jobs, such as water-bomber pilots, who only fly in the summer. These pilots are experienced and easily could be Type-rated on the Boeing 737NG that they could fly for these airlines in the winter, and go back to their water-bombers in the summer, instead of being on UI in the winter, which is the case of many of them. Would it not make sense to give the job a Canadian pilot and get him off of UI, rather than give it to a foreign national?203. (1) On application under Division 2 for a work permit made by a foreign national other than a foreign national referred to in subparagraphs 200(1)(c)(i) to (ii.1), an officer shall determine, on the basis of an opinion provided by the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, if
(b) the employment of the foreign national is likely to have a neutral or positive effect on the labour market in Canada;
(3) An opinion provided by the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development with respect to the matters referred to in paragraph (1)(b) shall be based on the following factors:
• (a) whether the employment of the foreign national is likely to result in direct job creation or job retention for Canadian citizens or permanent residents;
• (b) whether the employment of the foreign national is likely to result in the creation or transfer of skills and knowledge for the benefit of Canadian citizens or permanent residents;
• (c) whether the employment of the foreign national is likely to fill a labour shortage;
• (d) whether the wages offered to the foreign national are consistent with the prevailing wage rate for the occupation and whether the working conditions meet generally accepted Canadian standards;
• (e) whether the employer has made, or has agreed to make, reasonable efforts to hire or train Canadian citizens or permanent residents; and
• (f) whether the employment of the foreign national is likely to adversely affect the settlement of any labour dispute in progress or the employment of any person involved in the dispute.
There are several reasons that these airlines resort to foreign pilots rather than hire Canadians. One, they save money. A type-rating cost $20,000 to an airline. If you need to train 40 pilots at once because of rapid expansion, it costs $800,000, a hefty investment I agree, but one that all other airlines in Canada make. Those airlines that refuse to train Canadian pilots seek to gain an unfair commercial advantage over their competition, at the expense of Canadian workers. Training pilots is part of the cost of doing business in the airline industry and most airlines in Canada do business with Montreal-based CAE for simulator training, the largest aircraft simulator company in the world. The Foreign pilots train overseas with foreign companies. Air Canada, Westjet, Air Transat, Porter, Jazz, First Air, Air Inuit and all other major airlines in Canada mostly train their pilots in Canada at company expense. Sunwing and Canjet may save money by not hiring Canadians, but does Canada save money by allowing such a practice?
Does it make sense for the Canadian State to pay UI to furloughed pilots in the winter while another branch of the Canadian Government provides LMOs to certain airlines authorising them to import Foreign Labour in order to save them money? When Government of Canada agencies condone the hiring of foreign pilots instead of hiring Canadian pilots, indirectly, they use UI funds to help these airlines gain an unfair commercial advantage over other airlines that do not make use of Foreign Labour as pilots. It makes no sense at all.
There are 5 Aviation Colleges that receive Provincial funds to train Canadian pilots. In Québec, the Government of Québec trains about 40 pilots every year at the CQFA at a cost of about $120,000 per pilot, funded by the Quebec taxpayers. But then we give out hundred of pilots jobs to foreigners instead of giving them to Canadians. There are similar cases in other provinces that fund similar colleges. Although the fresh graduates from these colleges clearly do not have the experience to fly a B-737 for an airline, the jobs that more experienced pilots will vacate to go fly for Sunwing and Canjet will become available to them in a trickledown effect. So it is their jobs that HRSDC is giving away to foreigners.
Several airlines in Canada are in dire financial straits right now and may even have to lay off pilots. How is it going to look to Canadian taxpayers, when dozens or even hundreds of highly experienced and qualified Canadian pilots end up on UI next winter while CIC and HRSDC team-up to provide work permits to over 300 European pilots for Sunwing and Canjet? Air Transat operates Airbus 310s and 330s, no Boeing 737s. Air Canada operates a number of aircraft but no Boeing 737s. Jazz does not have any either. So none of Air Transat's, Air Canada's or Jazz's 5,000+ pilots are Type-Rated to fly the Boeing 737NG. Are Sunwing and Canjet going to tell those pilots on UI that they are not qualified and hire foreigners instead?
CIC’s and HRSDC’s regulations and guidelines state that the hiring of foreign nationals must have a positive or neutral labour impact, and that the employer must have made reasonable efforts to hire or train Canadians or permanent residents. It’s quite obvious to any reasonable person that this practice does not have a neutral labour impact in Canada since highly qualified Canadians are denied an employment opportunity in favor of foreign nationals, and it is also quite obvious to any reasonable person that the employers did NOT make reasonable and honest efforts to hire OR TRAIN Canadians or Canadian Residents for these positions before hiring foreign nationals instead. The Type-Rating that these airlines require as precondition for these positions are nothing but excuses made up by these companies to justify the hiring of foreign nationals for the reasons of saving the training expense and in the case of Sunwing, for favoring the hiring of foreign national pilots from its mother-company, TUI.
In the name of the 2,500 Canadian Airline pilots who signed our petition, I respectfully ask that HRSDC cease to provide LMO's to those airlines who use the lack of a Type-Rating as an excuse to hire foreigners instead of Canadians.
If anyone here agrees with the above and would like to protest, here are the contacts:
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
Temporary Foreign Worker Program
126 Cromarty Dr,
Dartmouth crossing
P.O. Box 1350
Dartmouth, NS
B2Y 4B9
Phone
(902)-426-2344
(902)-426-3193 (Service bilingue)
Fax (902)-426-4096
I suggest you also contact your MP about it
