By: Surjit Singh Flora
The issue of “Labour Market Impact Assessment” (LMIA) fraud continues to be a sticking point in Canada’s immigrant communities, including Peel.
An LMIA is a certificate issued by the Government of Canada for foreign workers to obtain a work permit. The certificate issued states that there is no Canadian-born worker able to fill the same job, that there is a need to fill in a foreign worker, and that hiring a foreign worker will not impact Canadian workers or labour market.
The employer applies for the assessment after completing a few steps, including the advertisement of the same job in various sites specified by the Government of Canada and a wait time around 90 days.
On having no applicants, the employer will be eligible to apply for an LMIA on behalf of whomever they want. There are some other conditions that employers have to adhere to before they can finalize the application.
These LMIA work permits are a hot commodity in the Canadian market nowadays. Two years ago, each assessment was sold for $5,000. Now, they can easily reach upwards of $50-60,000 each due to manipulation and money – making schemes.
It was recently revealed that an LMIA was sold in Canada’s Chinese community for a staggering $1.5 million.
The number of LMIA cases are increasing day by day, with its cost to the economy rising. It is only now that the Trudeau government is taking active steps to streamline the process and curb fraud.
Canada’s Immigration Department is now seeking to shore up the loopholes that give rise to fraud, spearheading pilot programs and seeking to enhance applications with greater transparency.
It seems as though there is fraud in every immigration category, not just in LMIA-related cases. The abuse of marriage for permanent residency has always been high. It’s big business.
According to a report this week, 29-year-old Manjot Singh allegedly committed suicide by jumping into the Fraser River in Vancouver, on Jan. 23.
His father, Maninder Singh and mother Surinder Kaur, Friday, alleged that their son took the extreme step due to harassment by his wife. This is not the first suicide and will not be the last.
Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Research, and Economic Development Navdeep Singh Bains, has said that immigrants of all kinds, including students and workers coming from abroad are respected in the country.
He said that students arrive in Canada at a great expense and work hard and contribute to the country when they arrive.
A massive hiring of many students and workers in Canada is made through the LMIA system. Bains said the alliance between immigration consultants and business owners is akin to the LMIA. Selling corruption cannot be accepted.
For the past few years, there has been a growing tendency for young men and women to immigrate to Canada as international students and workers who intend to remain permanently in Canada.
When they are offered a job from a Canadian government-recognized job in a local business, the work permit begins to pave the way for their permanent status.
This trend encouraged bullying in Canada, which led to the question of how to address the issue. Bains said the problem would be resolved with the support of Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino and Labour Minister Filomena Tassi.
The flaw in the system is the value that business owners have the potential to make. Bains said business owners need to be reassured by rethinking this possibility.
Bains also noted that in Canada, keeping the faith and trust of the people of the world is very important, so that no one can be allowed to play with the government system.
To make their dreams of reaching Canada a reality, the people of Punjab have been working hard to get to the top of the class, which has only caused more strain on the local educational system.
As parents and their young children look to Canada for a better future, they are prepared to face any cost.
The sad news came out recently that a student who came from Punjab, Prabhleen Kaur Matharu, was found dead alongside her husband by police in Surrey in late November. The case dominated news headlines for several days, with allegations that the case was a murder-suicide between the two individuals.
Regardless, more work needs to be done to combat fraud in cases of immigration.
In Canada, the fake colleges are open, which have no classrooms. International students receive a letter, after which they get a Visa. “Nanny fraud’ continues to be an issue, with unqualified residents getting a Visa and employment. Because of frauds like “foreign driving experience’ programs, our roads continue to be more and more unsafe.
Are all these frauds less than LMIA? Now a huge housing problem has also arisen.
All of these frauds can be laid at the feed of the federal government’s current immigration policy.
