A dedicated immigration pathway for critical tourism-related jobs garnered the support of most of the candidates running in the South Okanagan-West Kootenay riding, but concerns were raised over supports like housing.
With a view to solving the shortage of workers in the tourism sector, the candidates were asked during a Penticton & Wine Country Chamber of Commerce virtual forum whether their party would consider a dedicated immigration path-way regardless of skill level.
Green Party candidate Tara Howse noted that while it’s important to streamline the process for bringing in labour, “we also have to look at the surrounding systems such as our housing shortage.”
Without dealing with the supports – whether it be housing, digital literacy or language skills – it’s just going to make existing problems, like homeless-ness worse, she said. “It’s more than just bringing in bodies; we have to ensure that the services are there.”
Picking up the thread, New Democratic Party incumbent Richard Cannings agreed that housing is a key issue related to workers and cited the example of some businesses like wineries that are buying houses to ensure their workers have a place to live.
“We really have to solve that issue once and for all and get the federal government back in the game of building affordable housing for all workers,” he said, adding that the NDP has “always been in favour of multiple pathways for immigration to citizenship.”
He added that temporary foreign workers programs are inefficient because people are brought here for a few years, sent home and then new workers are brought in and re-trained.
“If people want to stay here and are doing jobs that Canadians don’t want to do or that we obviously need to run our economy, that’s when we know we should have a dedicated stream for those people,” Cannings added.
Acknowledging the housing problem, Sean Taylor, candidate for the People’s Party of Canada, said government regulation and taxes were stifling the private sector and they should be removed to let “free enterprise sort this out.”
A sticking point for Taylor is immigration which he sees as exacerbating the housing problem. “Immigration at the way it is, at 250,000 a year and looking for more, how do we expect to solve housing issues? And I don’t like that they’re not going to where the jobs are,” he said, adding that many of these immigrants end up in Vancouver and Toronto where the housing crisis is most acute.
For Liberal candidate Ken Robertson, immigration is a key underpinning of Canada’s economic growth which requires a labour market comprised of both temporary workers and workers with varied skill sets.
Also in agreement on a dedicated immigration stream, Conservative candidate Helena Konanz highlighted the severe shortage of employees in virtually every business over the last year and a half.
“We need to look at what we need in terms of that stream of immigration, but we also need to look at why are Canadians staying at home and not working,” she said.
“We need to get Canadians working and we also need to bring immigrants in to help but we can’t have our businesses closed a half-day in the height of our summer season,” she added in reference to businesses being forced to curtail opening hours this past summer because of staff shortages.
