A resolution from the Whistler Chamber of Commerce concerning "minor modifications" to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) was well received at the BC Chamber's annual general meeting in Burnaby last week, and will now head to the national level.
"The (TFWP) needs to be modernized, and this piece is only one piece of many in an effort to support and increase the labour pool that we have," said Whistler Chamber CEO Melissa Pace.
"The modifications will serve to meet the employers' needs while ensuring that Canadians remain first in line for available jobs and that foreign workers are protected."
The policy calls for reduced minimum advertising periods of two weeks for roles and regions where there is a demonstrated lack of domestic labour supply and regional unemployment rates are lower than five per cent; an expansion of applications eligible for 10-day expedited processing to include applications with employment durations for six months or less, and; a review of screening processes to ensure that decisions with respect to the completeness of applications are made by the staff responsible for application review.
"The intent here in the future is to modernize it (and) streamline it," Pace said.
Staffing remains one of the biggest challenges Whistler businesses are facing, Pace said, along with higher labour costs and a higher cost of doing business in general.
"The housing is continuing to be a challenge. If there's no housing the labour tends to not come ... it's not getting better yet," Pace said. "We do have some housing coming up through the (Whistler Housing Authority). It's not going to be enough to put a big dent into the labour market, but it's the start of something."
The BC Chamber AGM hosted 230 delegates in Burnaby from May 23 to 25, and a total of 66 policies were approved for 2019.
"I think there was definitely a very balanced focus, or let's say dual-pronged focus, on the environment and climate change as much as there was the economy," said BC Chamber president and CEO Val Litwin.
"Policies like the phase-out of single-use plastics was a big conversation, enhancing our investments provincially in emergency preparedness ... (there's) definitely an acknowledgement that climate change is now a part of our future.
"This is not a sort of passing consideration of how we need to brace ourselves for the future, this is now being baked into business consideration wherever you are in the province."
The shift towards a greater focus on environmental policies has been happening for awhile, Litwin said (the BC Chamber was the first in Canada to support a carbon tax, he pointed out).
"There's always been an awareness and I think the B.C. business community has always led the pack, but now year over year we're seeing more policy come forward in that vein," he said.
"And I also think the network self identifies as one that thinks they can help government find that balance moving forward, where we're applying good science to some of the conversations around species-at-risk, and we're also being thoughtful in how some of these management measures with particular species are rolled out, or in what combination and where, such that local communities aren't left in the dust, local economies."
The BC Chamber's policy manual will now be "edited and polished," to be published by the end of June.
"The first stakeholder to get that beyond of course our membership at the grassroots level will be government," Litwin said.
"So this will now become essential reading for every civil servant and every cabinet minister here in B.C."
