“Good for Business - Beyond The Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness"
Dec
12
Written by:
12/12/2011 1:11 PM
Background
Earlier this year Prime Minister Harper and U.S. President Obama issued a joint Canada U.S. declaration to improve security while accelerating the legitimate flow of people, goods and services between our two countries.
On December 7, the two governments released the Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness.
The report has received much press over the past few days; some of it good and some of it not so good, depending on the constituent body. I’ll leave it to others to get into the merits or lack thereof of some of the recommendations, and confine my comments to those aspects of the agreement that impact upon mobility of skilled workers.
As part of the work-up to developing the Action Plan, the various government agencies on the project consulted with business groups and stakeholders in both countries over the summer months. CERC and U.S. based WorldwideERC developed a series of recommendations to submit to those agencies. Our work was supported by a survey of private sector employers with cross border mobility of employees; 75 companies participated and the responses provided valuable insights into the challenges and, more importantly, solutions for improvement. Several of the recommendations we put forward have been adopted into the Action Plan.
Below is a brief summary of our recommendations and responses contained in the Action Plan.
· We called for a working group that includes business to identify discrepancies and inconsistencies in the cross border entry adjudication process. The Action plan includes the establishment of “a joint consultation process with stakeholders by March 2012.”
· In our submission we said that decisions at the border are often inconsistent and recommended better training and educational resources to inspectors and adjudicators regarding complex issues related to high-skilled migration. The Action Plan includes “measures to improve training and provide enhanced administrative guidance by June 30, 2012, to achieve optimal operational consistency at all ports of entry on business traveller issues.”
· We identified a need to have better processes to deal with denied applications. The Plan sets out steps to “review the effectiveness of existing redress and recourse mechanisms for business travellers whose applications are denied with recommendations to implement by June 2012.”
· In order to improve operations we recommended that companies be allowed to pre-file applications so that potential issues can be addressed prior to the actual date of travel. Again the Action Plan provided a favourable response and committed to “increase the use of advanced filing to identify and resolve potential issues prior to the actual date of travel.”
· Our recommendations also called for expansion and modernization of the existing TN qualifying occupations under NAFTA. The Action Plan was not specific on this issue; however there are plans to “facilitate the movement of specialized personnel to perform maintenance and repairs of industrial machinery and critical operations systems.” We will continue to pursue and advocate for the expansion of these occupations during the ongoing consultation process.
· A further recommendation was to address problems in the Business Visitor classification for certain short-term skilled workers, and specifically employees providing “After-Leasing Services” This recommendation must have resonated with both Ottawa and Canada as they “will expeditiously pursue changes to existing rules authorizing temporary entry of business visitors who provide after-sale service, so they apply equally to those who provide after-lease service as per designated contractual agreements.”
We are very pleased to see that several of the recommendations put forward by CERC and WorldwideERC have been accepted and plans have been announced to work towards implementation of those recommendations in the coming year. While The Action Plan does not have specific budget allotments, it does establish The Beyond The Border Working Group, which has a clear mandate and a direct line of responsibility to the Prime Minister and the President.
The Action Plan also calls for “A report on the progress on these items and new initiatives will be completed by December 31, 2012. It will be distributed to stakeholders. It will propose options for regular stakeholder engagement and for ongoing improvements for business travellers.” This is a welcome step and will ensure there is ongoing dialogue with the business community to continuously improve the flow of skilled workers between our two countries.
Overall this is agreement is a win-win for both countries. If the recommendations are implemented we should see significant improvement and more consistency in decision-making, delivering economic benefits and increased productivity.