As Donald Trump hikes the fee for a popular skilled worker visa programme in the US, lawyers and business experts are urging Canada to seize the moment and open its doors.
But some caution that those looking north as an alternative may find that Canada’s immigration system has its own challenges.
The call to attract and retain talented workers left behind by the Trump administration’s changes to H-1B visa is one that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney appears to be paying attention to.
We’re in a nationwide housing shortage. It would be great to attract talent but we won’t be competitive to other countries if all the “affordable” homes near our city centres continue to cost seven figures and come with 1hr plus commutes.
H1-B’s, being tied to a company, are extremely exploitive.
In Canada, you get fired/quit you don’t get a paycheck.
In the US, if you’re a citizen or green card holder, you get fired/quit you don’t get a paycheck AND you lose your Healthcare. This is a major way to abuse your workers.
In the US, if you’re H1B and you get fired/quit you don’t get a paycheck, lose your Healthcare insurance, and are ejected from the country. You can’t even just switch jobs. It’s extremely predatory and allows companies to fuck you so badly because you have so much to lose.
If the workers were truly great talent, it’s in the interest of the country to have them working ANYWHERE in the country. If they were TRULY great rare talents in industries starved for workers, it’s counter productive to not let the free hand of the market guide them to the best employers.
That’s the scam.
H1Bs, being tied to a company, provide a clear incentive for abuse by a company to use them to pay people less than market wages knowing there is no recourse. It deflated the market value of local workers. Average workers who’ll work for below average pay, accept unlimited overtime, and not push back on HR violations or even explicitly illegal actions by their employers is a big win for the company.
They aren’t the best and brightest. They by definition can’t be. With the reality of the arrangement, the “best and brightest” can and will and always have found greener less abusive pastures elsewhere.
If you want to be in that arrangement, you’re not that bright. If you can’t find better, you’re not the best.
H1B is a really bad program. Employers mobility would mitigate most of my issues, but that will NEVER happen because from the industry, that’s the whole point
This is an oversimplification.
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While I acknowledge the overall thrust of your arguments, you’re allowed to stay in the country for 30 days after ending employment with your H1b sponsor and seek new employment during that time.
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You can blame H1b workers for lower local wages but the reality is we are part of global market. Nations cannot silo themselves to artificially boost wages for their citizens sustainably. One has to be able to compete globally, or that employer will simply outsource, and that job opportunity one feels entitled to will simply become unavailable rather than go to an H1b worker. At least the H1b worker contributes to the local economy.
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The H1b program is absolutely exploitative and the primary victims of that exploitation are H1b workers. American corporations should extol American values and pay a fair market wage for labor independent of a workers visa status.
Finally I feel your critique is directed at the tech industry in particular. One in five family doctors in the US are on a H1b visa. A large number of these doctors work in rural practice settings. Ending the H1b program would decimate rural healthcare and there is no short term solution to that.
I’m not suggesting it’s beneficial to remove these people.
I’m suggesting that they be paid the market value for thier talents and that their presence benefit that nation, not a specific company.
H1B should be replaced by visas with no ties to a company. That’s it.
When you argue about global markets, i see that as completely unrelated. There is a mechanism for that already and it’s called offshoreing. You wanna move a factory or tech work to an area with a lower cost of living and can pay them less? Go nuts. You want people on shore? Allow them unfettered access to market their skills at the market price of the labour.
Again, I’m not against people who are here (there, the USA), and I empathize with rural Healthcare. As a rural Canadian all of my doctors have been originally from South Africa for as long as I’ve been alive.
This genuinely isn’t an anti-immigrant stance. My wife is an immigrant.
Bring people to your nation and invite them to join your society. The whole idea of bringing people in as second class citizens to be exploited is perverse. I’m not saying don’t have the people. I’m saying empowering those people is in the best interests of abso-fucking-lutely everyone.
Except the CEOs, i guess, but you’ll forgive me if I can’t muster a tear.
Fair points all round, thank you for the discourse.
I also appreciate yours. I think a fair number of opponents to h1B are just purely rooted in racism/xenophobia.
This is a case where I wanna hear “what do we replace it with?” From someone before I decide if we’re on the same page or not.
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The solution to the nationwide shortage is and has always been to build more houses at affordable prices, and frankly at this point this should be treated as the national security matter it is; it’s simply not sustainable for NIMBYs to continue to put their property values over the Canadian* people’s right to a roof over their heads.
*It’s particularly bad in Canada, but this applies to all developed countries with housing shortages.
The solution is to de-commoditize the housing market. Block all foreign and corporate ownership of single family homes. Throw out all the speculators.
In countries with undeveloped land (such as Canada) it’s not just “build more houses” it’s “provide infrastructure and incentives to invest in towns and cities other than Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal.” Expanding the suburbs (by converting farmland in a country which has, by far, more non-arable land than it has arable) in these communities is unsustainable.
In addition to new construction, “council housing” like England did before thatcher to force competition in the rental market would do wonders on the non-ownership side of housing
Even if you had houses and condos for days you don’t want H1B tech workers. They’re semi-skilled slaves, any job they can do a Canadian could do.
The H1B system is glorified slavery yes, but that doesn’t mean H1B workers aren’t valuable. You just gotta import them in a way that gives them human rights.
They’re semi-skilled slaves, any job they can do a Canadian could do.
Not sure if this is yrue, but either way that’s the thing about declining birthrates: There aren’t enough Canadians to go around. Until a structural solution to that is implemented, foreign labor in all sectors is necessary to keep the Canadian economy (and every other first world economy) from retracting.
I would love to move to Canada, but H1B just hurts locals unless there is an actual shortage of talent.
It’s not that they aren’t valuable it’s more they aren’t particularly skilled so they just further hollow out the middle class AI is already eating. You have a lot of better options that don’t purely profit mega corps
Canada can’t seize their balls back from the US, seizing an opportunity is a tall order.
In what way does the US have Canada’s balls?
Fumbled the opportunity during Brexit uncertainty and Trump’s first presidency. What’s changed now?
