In the spring of 2021 several Sections of the Canadian Bar Association offered comprehensive suggestions to ensure a bilateral trade agreement with the United Kingdom and that country’s request to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. At the request of Global Affairs Canada the Immigration Law Section of the CBA offers additional comments from an immigration law perspective that address services Section members offer and the challenges UK residents face entering Canada.
Section members’ clients include corporations of varying sizes, as well as individuals coming to Canada for work, school, tourism or immigration.
The biggest barrier to mobility, the Section says, is a lack of flexibility in existing programs. This includes processing times running up to several months and the absence of dedicated programs to assist UK nationals who want to come work in Canada.
“Moving people quickly and easily into the Canadian labour market, at a time of increased demand for labour (and increased global competition for skilled labour) is essential,” the letter reads. A free trade agreement with the UK “must remove the current barriers for UK service providers, business personnel, workers and their families to enter Canada.”
To improve flexibility, the Section recommends that a new agreement “include mobility provisions modeled after the flexible approaches in the CPTPP, where Canadian companies can benefit from faster work permit processing enabling them to react quickly to labour shortages.”
And not just for UK citizens either. The proposed measures should also apply to long-term UK residents and UK Overseas Territories
As well, the Section recommends not imposing caps or limits to work permit extensions, calling those “prohibitive to long-term business planning.”
Testing requirements also need to be adjusted, according to the Section, as they can be disadvantageous to UK nationals wanting to enter the Canadian labour market. “For example,” the letter reads, “a comparable Australian citizen may be able to obtain a work permit upon entry to Canada utilizing the Professionals category of the CPTPP, where the UK national would be required to obtain a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) before being eligible to apply for a work permit.” UK nationals are similarly disadvantaged relative to American citizens who benefit from accelerate pathways to employment thanks to the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA.
It's not just businesses and employment either. The CBA Section would like more flexibility for people who work on cultural projects involving Canada and the UK. Young workers and recent graduates should also benefit from improved mobility provisions. “We encourage the facilitation of labour market mobility for young people in a free trade agreement.”