Ontario Human Rights Commission Work on “Canadian Experience” Issue Amateurish
The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s (OHRC) decision to ban “Canadian Experience” as a requirement for a job was made as a result of careless and very ill-informed research. Its results will almost certainly be another assault on Canadian workers. The OHRC’s most important New Year’s resolution should be to repeal that decision.
As of July 15, 2013, the OHRC decreed that employers who require “Canadian Experience” for jobs could be violating the Ontario Human Rights Code.
In other words, an employer under the Human Rights Code must consider all work experience – Canadian and international – when assessing if someone is suitable for a job. Employers who require such experience have to make a strong case to be exempted.
Here are some reasons why the OHRC decision should be repealed :
(1) The introduction that the Ontario Human Rights Commission provides to their “Policy on Removing the Canadian Experience Barrier” indicates that, in approaching the “Canadian Experience” requirement, the OHRC operated at a careless, ill-informed and almost amateurish level. For example, it says at the beginning of the preamble to its policy that Canada is seen as a country of opportunity, peace and democratic governance and had attracted many highly-skilled immigrants who had greatly enriched Canada’s culture and economy. However, in the OHRC’s view, Canada had “an aging population, shrinking birthrate, and shortage of skilled labour”. The latter statement regarding aging and birth rate implies that the OHRC believes that immigration would solve these problems. However, the federal government’s own research in 1989 had shown that immigration would not.
In fact, the government’s research recommended that Canada find a Made in Canada solution instead of looking to immigration as a solution. http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/background/research/immigration/charting-canadas-future-highlights/ In 2006, that research was updated and corroborated by the CD Howe Institute. http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/2006/09/28/recent-c-d-howe-report-says-immigration-cannot-keep-canada-young/ So why is the OHRC saying the opposite? It seems it is content to parrot what the immigration lobby told it. It did not do its own homework.
(2) The OHRC’s claim that Canada has a shortage of skilled labour has been repeatedly questioned. The government’s claim that such a shortage exists in a number of occupations has been shown to be, if not outright fraud, then very close to it.
http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/2006/11/18/immigration-ministers-contentions-about-need-for-foreign-workers-are-questionable/
http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/2008/12/04/stop-the-fast-tracking-of-38-occupations-and-other-senseless-actions/
Currently, Canada has close to 1.6 million jobless. Even if Canada had a shortage of skilled labour, it does not have a shortage of labourers. In other words, one obvious way to get skilled workers is to make our own labourers skilled, not to import such workers. The OHRC does not even mention this option.
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(3) The OHRC is incorrect in saying, at the beginning, that immigrants had enriched Canada’s economy. No doubt, some had made significant contributions. However, the OHRC concludes, “Canada relies on the contributions of immigrants for its economic well-being”. Again, if the OHRC had done its homework, it would have realized that The Economic Council of Canada had studied what effects immigration had had on Canada’s economy in every decade since Confederation. The conclusion they reached was that immigration had not produced any significant positive benefit to Canada’s economy. http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/background/research/immigration/new-faces-in-the-crowd-economic-and-social-impacts-of-immigration-highlights/
So why is the OHRC saying that immigrants have greatly enriched Canada’s economy and that Canada relies on immigration for its economic well-being? Again, the OHRC has parroted the immigration lobby instead of doing its homework.
(4) Then, unbelievable as it sounds, the OHRC says “In the modern global economy, immigrants with foreign experience can increase Canada’s international competitiveness by enhancing the country’s “diversity advantage.” Since almost no other country has elevated “Diversity” to the level of a national goal, probably because the very idea sounds foolish, if not idiotic, where in this world is the evidence that other countries can increase their international competitiveness by enhancing the country’s “diversity advantage”? Once again, the OHRC repeated the claims made by Canada’s immigration lobby. It should have tried using some common sense.
(5) The OHRC then gets into a serious problem with its reasoning. It states, “… it is a major concern when recent immigrants to Canada face high rates of both underemployment and unemployment. Statistics Canada reported that between 1991 and 2006, ‘the proportion of immigrants with a university degree in jobs with low educational requirements (such as clerks, truck drivers, salespersons, cashiers, and taxi drivers) increased.’ Even after being in Canada for fifteen years, ‘immigrants with a university degree are still more likely than the native-born to be in low-skilled jobs.’ ”
From this, the OHRC concludes that Ontario employers’ requirement for “Canadian experience” has to be removed. Here’s a fundamental that the OHRC does not understand : Canada’s immigration intake should exist to serve Canada. Contrary to what the immigration lobby says, Canada’s intake should not exist to serve immigrants. In other words, Canadians come first. Yes, Canada is discriminating. But Canada is doing so because if Canada does not stand up for its own people and give them preference in hiring, what country will? The OHRC should have realized that the reason many immigrants were not doing well, was probably because many should never have been brought here in the first place. Failing to get to the root of the immigrants’ problem (Ottawa’s institutionalized and senseless high immigration intake) and instead making Canadian workers suffer even more demonstrates that the OHRC has not learned to think for itself.
(6) The OHRC’s failure to confront Ottawa on Canada’s immigration intake (the real cause of many immigrants job-finding difficulties) amounts to outright negligence. The OHRC hypocritically holds itself up as a champion of justice by bowing to the immigration lobby and to immigrants. The point is that, if the OHRC were really interested in justice, its pursuit of justice should have started with mainstream Canadians. In failing to do this, the OHRC is acknowledging that it is doing the work of the immigration lobby.
(7) Furthermore, when the OHRC cuts the throats of Canadians so that foreign nationals can get jobs here, it is committing a complete perversion of justice. Ironically, Human Rights organizations, in championing globalization views, are imitating the actions of the world’s multinationals. Human Rights organizations, like multinationals, are increasingly supporting a borderless world where so-called “international justice” takes precedence over national justice. In fact, marginalization of the employment needs of Canadian nationals (its mainstream population) seems to be perfectly acceptable to the OHRC.
Ontario has about 40% (13 million) of Canada’s population (34 million). What it does on many fronts is often imitated in other provinces. Those actions are sometimes imitated by other countries. The example that the Ontario HRC has set on the “Canadian Experience” issue is shameful. Canada’s other 9 provinces, its territories and other countries should not imitate the OHRC’s amateurish, ill-informed work.
The OHRC ends their statement with a list of “Best Practices”, that is, advice to others.
Here’s some advice (best practice) for the OHRC : Get your act together or vacate the offices you occupy.
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To see the OHRC “Policy on Removing the Canadian Experience Barrier”, go to http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-removing-%E2%80%9Ccanadian-experience%E2%80%9D-barrier
