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Why the health-care sector is hiring temporary foreign workers like never before

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Persistent staffing shortages in the health-care sector across Canada in the wake of the pandemic have led some organizations, including some provincial government agencies, to increasingly call upon temporary foreign workers to fill positions in clinics, hospitals and senior care facilities across the country.

While health-care still represents a small fraction of the overall temporary foreign worker program, federal data analyzed by CBC News shows the government greenlighted the hiring of 4,336 health-care workers last year — up from 447 such positions in 2018. Health-care occupations represented roughly two per cent of the total temporary foreign worker positions that were approved in 2023.

A large share of that growth was driven by an uptick in approvals of nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates. There were 2,514 such approvals last year, up from just 16 in 2018.

But employers have also turned to the program to fill other positions, such as nurses (612 positions approved, up from 65 in 2018) and family doctors (216 positions approved, up from 72 in 2018).

“I think this is another example of the overall health-care workforce crisis,” said Ivy Bourgeault, who leads the Canadian Health Workforce Network, a network of researchers who study issues facing health workers. She said staffing shortages driven by burnout and attrition have employers turning to increasingly novel means to bring in new workers.

The uptick in health-care hiring is reflected in the number of positions approved through labour market impact assessments (LMIAs), which employers need to prove there’s no one in Canada available to take a job before they can hire a temporary foreign worker.

There isn’t an exact one-to-one ratio between the LMIA data and the number of temporary foreign workers in the country.

For example, the Vitalité Health Network, a regional health authority in New Brunswick, was cleared to hire 190 health care workers last year, but told CBC News in an email it expects to use fewer than 10 per cent of those permits in part because it’s now leaning instead on another immigration program that more narrowly targets francophones.

But other organizations say the temporary foreign worker program has become a key part of their human resources strategy, at times as a stepping stone to bring a worker to Canada permanently.

Program fills staffing gaps, organizations say

Much of the hiring has been in Quebec, where health-care staffing shortages have been well-documented. Federal data shows just under half of the temporary foreign worker jobs approved last year were in that province, which represents just 22 per cent of the Canadian population.

The Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montreal (CHUM), one of the largest hospitals in Canada, said it’s used the program since 2007 and employs 141 nurses hired through the temporary foreign worker program.

“Due to a substantial health-care staff shortage, and while [we] prioritize hiring within the province of Quebec, this program helps fill positions that would otherwise remain vacant, despite our best recruiting efforts,” said spokesperson Jessie-Kim Malo.

But employers in other provinces are using the program too.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) — cleared to hire 79 nurses and 74 doctors through the program last year — told CBC News in an email the TFW program is one of many it relies on to recruit local and internationally trained nurses.

As for doctors, spokesperson Kerry Williamson said AHS is focused on recruiting international medical graduates right now as a way to deal with doctor shortages, and that “many” apply for work permits under the temporary foreign worker program before seeking permanent residency.

Medicentres Canada, which runs walk-in clinics across Canada, started using the program about a year ago. Samantha Wilk, the company’s senior manager of physician services, said they had hired a doctor from the U.K. who was struggling to get a work permit in a timely way and were advised by an immigration consultant that going through the temporary foreign worker program would be faster.

“We obviously still would love to give preference to permanent residents and Canadian citizens to fill the vacancies that we do have,” said Wilk, who said they’ve filled jobs in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto and London, Ont., this way.

“However, if a physician is fully qualified and able to practise, our main goal is filling our vacancies and getting patients access to physicians.”

Last year, Canadian employers were given the green light to hire 4,336 health-care workers through the temporary foreign worker program, a major increase from just 447 such positions in 2018. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Some employers, like CHUM and Medicentres, primarily recruit staff from countries, such as France or the UK, whose credentials can easily transfer to Canada.

But Spectrum Health Care, a home care company in the Greater Toronto Area, hires nurses from the Philippines who work for the company as personal support workers while they strive to meet the qualifications to work as nurses in Canada.

That company said it’s so far hired 50 nurse aides, orderlies and patient services associates this way.

“While [internationally educated nurses] cannot single-handedly solve the country’s staffing challenges, they play a critical role in building nursing capacity and providing care in communities where they are very much needed,” said Sandra Ketchen, the company’s president and CEO, in an email.

Not the ‘highest return on investment’

Burnout and attrition have driven labour shortages in many parts of Canada, says health-care staffing expert Ivy Bourgeault. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

While the temporary foreign worker program is one way to increase staffing levels and lighten the burden on health-care workers, Bourgeault said it’s not necessarily the most effective.

“I wouldn’t say that it is the highest return on investment,” said Bourgeault, who is also a professor in the University of Ottawa school of sociology and anthropology.

Instead, Bourgeault thinks time and money would be better spent trying to retain workers who are already employed in the health-care system, encouraging those who’ve left to come back.

She also wondered about the fairness of hiring health-care workers away from other countries, when she said it isn’t clear that any countries have excess workers to spare.Why the health-care sector is hiring temporary foreign workers like never before

It’s ‘very difficult’ to find health care workers in Canada, says Samantha Wilk, a senior manager of physician services for Medicentres Canada.

Still, University of Waterloo economics Prof. Mikal Skuterud, often a vocal critic of the temporary foreign worker program, said he has some sympathy for employers struggling to hire nurses, for example.

“The wages are largely paid by public funds and they’re set by collective agreements through union-management negotiations,” he said. “And so it’s harder for employers to kind of increase wages [than it is in the private sector].”

CBC requested an interview with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for this story, but the request was declined.

Via email, spokesperson Julie Lafortune told CBC that “immigration continues to play an important role in addressing labour shortages across the country, supporting social services and infrastructure by recruiting health-care and skilled trade workers.”

Under pressure to shrink the number of temporary residents in Canada, the federal government has recently moved to tighten up some streams of the temporary foreign worker program. This spring, employers in sectors that had been given special permission to hire up to 30 per cent of their staff through the low-wage temporary foreign worker program were told they need to cut back.

But two sectors have been given exemptions — health-care and construction — which a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada said was because those two sectors continue to deal with some of the country’s most acute labour shortages.

For Wilk, with Medicentres Canada, the plan is to continue using the temporary foreign worker program as part of their broader hiring strategy. And while the program may have “temporary” in the title, the program is anything but — she said all the staff they’ve hired have applied for permanent residency.

“Patients love them, they’re very qualified, trained doctors.”

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Telus prioritizing ‘most important customers,’ avoiding ‘unprofitable’ offers: CFO

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Telus Corp. says it is avoiding offering “unprofitable” discounts as fierce competition in the Canadian telecommunications sector shows no sign of slowing down.

The company said Friday it had fewer net new customers during its third quarter compared with the same time last year, as it copes with increasingly “aggressive marketing and promotional pricing” that is prompting more customers to switch providers.

Telus said it added 347,000 net new customers, down around 14.5 per cent compared with last year. The figure includes 130,000 mobile phone subscribers and 34,000 internet customers, down 30,000 and 3,000, respectively, year-over-year.

The company reported its mobile phone churn rate — a metric measuring subscribers who cancelled their services — was 1.09 per cent in the third quarter, up from 1.03 per cent in the third quarter of 2023. That included a postpaid mobile phone churn rate of 0.90 per cent in its latest quarter.

Telus said its focus is on customer retention through its “industry-leading service and network quality, along with successful promotions and bundled offerings.”

“The customers we have are the most important customers we can get,” said chief financial officer Doug French in an interview.

“We’ve, again, just continued to focus on what matters most to our customers, from a product and customer service perspective, while not loading unprofitable customers.”

Meanwhile, Telus reported its net income attributable to common shares more than doubled during its third quarter.

The telecommunications company said it earned $280 million, up 105.9 per cent from the same three-month period in 2023. Earnings per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was 19 cents compared with nine cents a year earlier.

It reported adjusted net income was $413 million, up 10.7 per cent year-over-year from $373 million in the same quarter last year. Operating revenue and other income for the quarter was $5.1 billion, up 1.8 per cent from the previous year.

Mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.85 in the third quarter, a decrease of $2.09 or 3.4 per cent from a year ago. Telus said the drop was attributable to customers signing up for base rate plans with lower prices, along with a decline in overage and roaming revenues.

It said customers are increasingly adopting unlimited data and Canada-U.S. plans which provide higher and more stable ARPU on a monthly basis.

“In a tough operating environment and relative to peers, we view Q3 results that were in line to slightly better than forecast as the best of the bunch,” said RBC analyst Drew McReynolds in a note.

Scotiabank analyst Maher Yaghi added that “the telecom industry in Canada remains very challenging for all players, however, Telus has been able to face these pressures” and still deliver growth.

The Big 3 telecom providers — which also include Rogers Communications Inc. and BCE Inc. — have frequently stressed that the market has grown more competitive in recent years, especially after the closing of Quebecor Inc.’s purchase of Freedom Mobile in April 2023.

Hailed as a fourth national carrier, Quebecor has invested in enhancements to Freedom’s network while offering more affordable plans as part of a set of commitments it was mandated by Ottawa to agree to.

The cost of telephone services in September was down eight per cent compared with a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent inflation report last month.

“I think competition has been and continues to be, I’d say, quite intense in Canada, and we’ve obviously had to just manage our business the way we see fit,” said French.

Asked how long that environment could last, he said that’s out of Telus’ hands.

“What I can control, though, is how we go to market and how we lead with our products,” he said.

“I think the conditions within the market will have to adjust accordingly over time. We’ve continued to focus on digitization, continued to bring our cost structure down to compete, irrespective of the price and the current market conditions.”

Still, Canada’s telecom regulator continues to warn providers about customers facing more charges on their cellphone and internet bills.

On Tuesday, CRTC vice-president of consumer, analytics and strategy Scott Hutton called on providers to ensure they clearly inform their customers of charges such as early cancellation fees.

That followed statements from the regulator in recent weeks cautioning against rising international roaming fees and “surprise” price increases being found on their bills.

Hutton said the CRTC plans to launch public consultations in the coming weeks that will focus “on ensuring that information is clear and consistent, making it easier to compare offers and switch services or providers.”

“The CRTC is concerned with recent trends, which suggest that Canadians may not be benefiting from the full protections of our codes,” he said.

“We will continue to monitor developments and will take further action if our codes are not being followed.”

French said any initiative to boost transparency is a step in the right direction.

“I can’t say we are perfect across the board, but what I can say is we are absolutely taking it under consideration and trying to be the best at communicating with our customers,” he said.

“I think everyone looking in the mirror would say there’s room for improvement.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Canada Post to launch chequing and savings account with Koho

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Two years after the failed launch of a lending program, Canada Post is making another foray into banking services.

The postal service confirmed Friday that it will be offering a chequing and savings account in partnership with Koho Financial Inc.

The accounts will be launched nationally next year, though Canada Post employees will be offered early access as the product is tested.

Canada Post spokeswoman Lisa Liu said in a statement that there are gaps in the banking and savings products available that the Crown corporation looks to fill.

“Canada Post is uniquely positioned to fill some of these demands. Many of our existing financial products help meet the needs of new Canadians and those living in rural, remote and Indigenous communities, but we believe more is required.”

The MyMoney offering will be a spending and savings account where customers will be able to choose between features like high interest rates, cashback rewards and credit-building tools.

A document briefly posted to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers website said it would use a prepaid, reloadable Mastercard that will use money from the account like a debit card but offer the features of a Mastercard.

It said there will be a range of account tiers, including no-fee accounts and paid accounts with more features.

The plans comes after Canada Post launched a lending program with TD Bank Group in late 2022, only to shut it down weeks later because of what it said were processing issues.

Liu said the postal service has since been exploring other possible financial service offerings.

“Utilizing what we’ve learned, we are making a strategic shift from loans toward products more aligned with our core financial service products.”

The new account will be delivered with financial technology company Koho. A few months ago the company paired with Canada Post to allow its customers to deposit cash into their account through post offices.

Koho is also working to secure a Canadian banking license to expand its services.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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N.S. Progressive Conservative election platform includes cap on electricity rates

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s incumbent Progressive Conservatives released their election platform today, which includes a promise to cap electricity rate increases so that they don’t exceed the national average.

The Tory platform also promises to reduce the small business tax rate to 1.5 per cent from 2.5 per cent, and to increase the tax threshold to $700,000 from $500,000.

The majority of the other promises in the platform have already been announced, either during the campaign or before Tory Leader Tim Houston called the election to seek a second term in office.

Those promises include cutting the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax by one percentage point and increasing the basic personal exemption on the provincial income tax to $11,744 from $8, 744.

Houston has also promised to boost the minimum wage to $16.50 in 2025 if re-elected Nov. 26.

The Tories are the second of the three major parties to release a platform this week after the Liberals presented a plan containing $2.3 billion in election promises over four years.

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill made an announcement today in Halifax where he highlighted several measures contained in the party platform that are aimed at improving women’s health.

Churchill said that while women make up 50 per cent of the population, only about eight per cent of medical research is focused on their bodies. To make up that gap the Liberals would require that 50 per cent of all provincial research grant funding be used to study women’s health.

Churchill said the Liberals would also create a minister of women’s health to ensure that a “gender lens” is applied to the delivery of health care.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender was in Cape Breton, where she promised to boost provincial equalization payments to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

Chender says the New Democrats would double the municipal finance grant to $30 million in their first year of government.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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