Temporary foreign pilots in 2013

[Keenflyer]

Giles, yes I know of around a dozen who work in Australia as foreign workers for the summer on Ag or Fire work. That's just the ones I know. I'm not talking about airline flying, charter work or Tim Hortens employees. The agricultural season is short in Canada and goes for around 3 months, there are mostly Canadians doing that work with some other countries pilots helping out. Ag flying is like any type of flying you need training. You don't go and get a job flying a twin Otter without an instrument rating and being endorsed on the aircraft. People seem to think you can get a Cub endorsement and go fly a million dollar turbine Aircraft on Ag work, doesn't happen.

[Diadem]

Giles, yes I know of around a dozen who work in Australia as foreign workers for the summer on Ag or Fire work. That's just the ones I know. I'm not talking about airline flying, charter work or Tim Hortens employees. The agricultural season is short in Canada and goes for around 3 months, there are mostly Canadians doing that work with some other countries pilots helping out. Ag flying is like any type of flying you need training. You don't go and get a job flying a twin Otter without an instrument rating and being endorsed on the aircraft. People seem to think you can get a Cub endorsement and go fly a million dollar turbine Aircraft on Ag work, doesn't happen.

So how do those foreign pilots get qualified on those ag aircraft in the first place? Someone paid for the training, and I don't see why the Canadian operators can't pay to train Canadian pilots if the Australians can do likewise.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Giles, yes I know of around a dozen who work in Australia as foreign workers for the summer on Ag or Fire work. That's just the ones I know. I'm not talking about airline flying, charter work or Tim Hortens employees. The agricultural season is short in Canada and goes for around 3 months, there are mostly Canadians doing that work with some other countries pilots helping out. Ag flying is like any type of flying you need training. You don't go and get a job flying a twin Otter without an instrument rating and being endorsed on the aircraft. People seem to think you can get a Cub endorsement and go fly a million dollar turbine Aircraft on Ag work, doesn't happen.

Keenflyer, if some Canadians Ag or Fire suppression Operators want to do reciprocal programs with Australian Operators, its great and is something to be encouraged and promoted.

But in that case, the TFWP under ESDC is not the way for these pilots to be coming to Canada.

The reciprocal program is administered through Immigration Canada (CIC) and is something totally different. Those who apply for these programs DO NOT need to post bogus ads in Canadian publication in order to pretend they are looking for, and unable to find qualified Canadians. They do not have to claim they tried to hire or train qualified Canadians. They do not need to claim that there is a shortage of qualified labour in Canada.

All they have to do is show that they have a reciprocal agreement with a Foreign employer and that allowing the foreign pilots into Canada allows an equal number of Canadian pilots to go work for these Australian Operators in exchange.

The Reciprocal program is Regulated by the Regulation R205(b) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR).

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regu ... ml#docCont

Details can be found here:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/ ... 01-eng.pdf

5.33. Canadian interests: Reciprocal employment, General guidelines R205(b), C20
R205(b) allows foreign workers to take up employment in Canada when Canadians have similar reciprocal opportunities abroad. Entry under reciprocal provisions should result in a neutral labour market impact.
There are formally-recognized reciprocal programs such as International Experience Canada program (See section 5.34). However this provision also allows for admission of workers in other cases where reciprocity is demonstrated by the Canadian employer (or specific program administrator). Academic institutions may initiate exchanges under C20 as long as they are reciprocal, and licensing and medical requirements (if applicable) are met.
The onus is on the institutions and/or applicants to demonstrate that reciprocity exists. This could be indicated in the exchange agreement between the Canadian and foreign parties, a letter from the receiving Canadian institution, the work contract (if it provides evidence of reciprocity) and, if necessary, the officer can request documents and/or data to enable verification of reciprocal employment volumes. Bona fide evidence of reciprocity will allow the officer to issue a work permit.
TIP: A useful starting point can be a company’s HR Plan or its “Global Mobility Policy “ within their HR directives, which may provide evidence that an exchange program is in place and, depending on the balance of bilateral flow, may indicate that it is reciprocal in practice.
It is not necessary that there be exact reciprocity (i.e. one for one exchange), but the general order of magnitude of exchanges should be reasonably similar on an annual basis. In assessing reciprocity, one would consider the relative number and percentage. For example, for exchanges involving larger numbers of foreign nationals (e.g. greater than 25), officers could require a higher minimum proportion of Canadians employed abroad to foreign nationals employed in Canada (e.g. at least 75%) than for smaller exchanges.
When the entities involved have no history of conducting reciprocal exchanges with Canada, it is reasonable to initially limit work permits to a small number of individuals and that subsequent work permits be issued only when reciprocity has been demonstrated. When organizations have a demonstrated history of reciprocal exchanges, they may be permitted some flexibility in the flow of exchange on an annual basis, as long as they are able to demonstrate that the exchanges are similar over a reasonable period of time (e.g. five years), there is a general neutral impact on the labour market.
In assessing reciprocity, officers can consider not only the number of individuals working in Canada and abroad, but also employment duration and job level.
If evidence of reciprocity is not presented to the satisfaction of the officer, the work permit may be refused, or the applicant may be notified that an LMO must be obtained for further consideration of a work permit.

The 70+ Aircraft Operators who appeared on my list were all LMO applications, not the Reciprocal kind.

[timel]

Giles, yes I know of around a dozen who work in Australia as foreign workers for the summer on Ag or Fire work. That's just the ones I know. I'm not talking about airline flying, charter work or Tim Hortens employees. The agricultural season is short in Canada and goes for around 3 months, there are mostly Canadians doing that work with some other countries pilots helping out. Ag flying is like any type of flying you need training. You don't go and get a job flying a twin Otter without an instrument rating and being endorsed on the aircraft. People seem to think you can get a Cub endorsement and go fly a million dollar turbine Aircraft on Ag work, doesn't happen.

So how do those foreign pilots get qualified on those ag aircraft in the first place? Someone paid for the training, and I don't see why the Canadian operators can't pay to train Canadian pilots if the Australians can do likewise.

Give that airtractor training to a 1000 hr ag piston pilot with talent and a fine attitude and he will do the job, and a fine job. Not all TFW request on ag jobs are for airtractor jobs. Keenflyer only answers what he wants to. I have flown + 150 hrs of turbine taildragger and did not crash i was 1500 hrs at that time. Those canadians companies just want to optimize their profits not investing in trainings. And it's been working this way for a while. I mean kennyflyer probably believes it takes 5000 hours of piper cub to be up to the job...

Recrocity is fine. One can job for one aussie job sure... It will take some pilots to take the job on at some point. Don't make it TFW because industry didn't want to invest in tranings at some point.

[Indanao]

Perhaps all TFW applications should be accompanied by an advertisement for the job opening on a government-run website, and all responses from potential Canadian employees should go through said website. It would be pretty hard to argue that no one had applied when the government could pull up the records of all the responses, and it would be easy to check the resumes to see if anyone met the posted qualifications. Sunwing et al would have a hell of a time trying to justify bringing in 737 type rated pilots from overseas if every 737-rated pilot in Canada applied for those positions, even if they never intended to take the job.

Yes Sir. That is right on - a little accountability is what is needed. Not another make work program for Civil Servants, but a simple process. As it is now, unless it comes up through the news media, nobody knows the extent of TFWs. Canadians have no recourse nor a complaint forum.

I walked into a McDonald's for breakfast not too long ago and found the staff fighting over who should serve the customers. One was a foreign worker, ( yes, they wanted the TFW to do the work ), and I didn't know who's side to take. Mostly because I didn't know what a TFW was. Yup, the TFW did all the customers ( about four ). Lets not blame them.....

[Expat]

Perhaps all TFW applications should be accompanied by an advertisement for the job opening on a government-run website, and all responses from potential Canadian employees should go through said website. It would be pretty hard to argue that no one had applied when the government could pull up the records of all the responses, and it would be easy to check the resumes to see if anyone met the posted qualifications. Sunwing et al would have a hell of a time trying to justify bringing in 737 type rated pilots from overseas if every 737-rated pilot in Canada applied for those positions, even if they never intended to take the job.

Yes Sir. That is right on - a little accountability is what is needed. Not another make work program for Civil Servants, but a simple process. As it is now, unless it comes up through the news media, nobody knows the extent of TFWs. Canadians have no recourse nor a complaint forum.

I walked into a McDonald's for breakfast not too long ago and found the staff fighting over who should serve the customers. One was a foreign worker, ( yes, they wanted the TFW to do the work ), and I didn't know who's side to take. Mostly because I didn't know what a TFW was. Yup, the TFW did all the customers ( about four ). Lets not blame them.....

Sounds like many Timmies and PetroCans in the Toronto area. It is strange to me, that the franchisee, the manager, and the employees, all look like family members from the same countries.
Let me bet that there are illegal organizations using our system to bring foreigners, while collecting a chunk of money from the workers.
I remember picking tobacco in the 70's in the Simcoe area. While I was a boat driver, the pickers came from the Caribbean, and a few told me that they only collected half of their official salary. The recruiting company skimmed the other half. ...and probably split the profit with the Canadian farmer.
That was the old Temporary Farm Worker program.

[DonutHole]

I worked in ag with tfw's

they don't get payed any less than Canadians. It is actually difficult to find an available pilot with the experience requirements to work a job for three months of the year... three profitable months, but three months.

I've also watched guys go through training and work themselves into turbine ag... Ive also watched friends pile it into the earth because of inexperience.

Ag is a different world, it's extremely dangerous, and piston bangers are nearly impossible to run at a profit, just keeping the older piston fleet airworthy is an expensive proposition. The canadian guys who are qualified all have seats, I know two personally who fly here in the summer and aus in the winter, if you're good in the ag business you can do this.

You could go down to the states and take a hackjob of a course in a citabria, but the course in canada is done in AG planes, fully loaded, the drills are done in the ag plane, how are you going to experience dropping a load in a citabria? How are you going to learn about the spray systems, their modes of failure etc in a plane that is not set up?

When the next gen of ag pilots has the requisite experience and seat time, they will be moving up to the turbines, until then those seats need to be filled.

[timel]

I worked in ag with tfw's

they don't get payed any less than Canadians. It is actually difficult to find an available pilot with the experience requirements to work a job for three months of the year... three profitable months, but three months.

I've also watched guys go through training and work themselves into turbine ag... Ive also watched friends pile it into the earth because of inexperience.

Ag is a different world, it's extremely dangerous, and piston bangers are nearly impossible to run at a profit, just keeping the older piston fleet airworthy is an expensive proposition. The canadian guys who are qualified all have seats, I know two personally who fly here in the summer and aus in the winter, if you're good in the ag business you can do this.

You could go down to the states and take a hackjob of a course in a citabria, but the course in canada is done in AG planes, fully loaded, the drills are done in the ag plane, how are you going to experience dropping a load in a citabria? How are you going to learn about the spray systems, their modes of failure etc in a plane that is not set up?

When the next gen of ag pilots has the requisite experience and seat time, they will be moving up to the turbines, until then those seats need to be filled.

Did 30 hours of dual citabria in Canada, forest treatment, equiped with ag-nav systems, practicing all kind of possible patern and situations with an experienced 6000 hrs piston and AT pilot.

There was 10 hours of solo perfection and getting friendly with the PA-25 and 188. Depends on your ops. For me it worked great.

There is definitly more to do from ag world if they want some recruits to make it up to the turbine. Agjobs, I'm very curious where you find those.

[DonutHole]

Get the caaa rag and call the members. Best way to find ag jobs