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The Canadian Press – VANCOUVER – Ottawa is investigating controversial foreign worker permits that will allow as many as 201 Chinese miners to work a proposed project in northern British Columbia, a government spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.
HD Mining International Ltd. has obtained permits for miners from China to conduct exploration work at its proposed Murray River project near Tumbler Ridge, B.C., located about 200 kilometres west of Grande Prairie, Alta.
The company insists there aren’t any Canadian workers trained in the specialized skills it needs. Details of those permits became public earlier this month, prompting several unions to demand Canadians be hired instead. There have also been allegations that recruiters in China demanded fees for the jobs, which HD Mining has denied.
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada is now investigating whether the permit applications met all the necessary requirements, said Alyson Queen, a spokeswoman for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.
“The government is committed to ensuring that Canadians always have first crack at the jobs available in Canada,” Queen said in an interview Tuesday.
“We are very concerned about this particular case, and we are investigating to ensure that the appropriate rules were followed.”
Queen noted the temporary foreign worker program requires employers to demonstrate they have “exhausted all efforts” to find Canadians to fill jobs. That information is then used to assess the labour market and determine whether foreign workers are justified.
Both the company and the B.C. government have defended the use of temporary foreign workers, arguing they are needed to fill a shortage of skilled workers in the mining industry, particularly when it comes to the long-wall mining techniques proposed at Murray River.
HD Mining and the province have also insisted the work at this stage is temporary. If the mine is approved, they say, new training programs will ensure Canadian workers will be able to fill long-term, permanent jobs.
The Canadian Labour Congress on Tuesday joined the chorus of labour groups and unions criticizing the foreign worker permits, releasing a letter the group’s president wrote to the federal human resources minister.
In the letter, labour congress president Ken Georgetti condemns the entire temporary foreign worker program, warning of “frequent abuses” of migrant workers, and asks the minister to rescind the permits for the Murray River mine.
He also points to B.C.’s unemployment rate and suggested there are thousands of workers in B.C. and elsewhere in the country qualified to work in the mining field.
For the rest of this article, please go to the Vancouver Sun website: http://www.vancouversun.com/Canadian+investigates+foreign+worker+permits+Chinese+miners/7473015/story.html