the CanadaVisa Team - 23 July, 2015
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon will be meeting this week to discuss increased labour mobility between their countries. Building on a current successful program that brings in thousands of Mexican agricultural workers every year, the Canadian government would like to bring in even more Mexican workers to deal with Canada’s chronic labour shortages.
Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program currently takes in 12,000 Mexican workers. The Canadian government plans to channel the additional temporary Mexican workers into the low and semi-skilled occupations where the labour shortages are most severe. The energy sector in Alberta, for example, would benefit from the increase.
Mexican migration to Canada has been soaring since the mid 1990's due to the easing of entrance requirements brought about by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the mounting problems in the United States regarding Mexican immigration. Between 1991 and 2001, Canada's number of permanent and temporary residents from Mexico nearly doubled to almost 43,000.
Though the focus of a possible new labour mobility agreement would be on temporary workers, the number of Mexicans arriving in Canada under the Skilled Worker category of immigration is on the rise as well. Additionally, the number of Mexicans studying in Canada has been steadily increasing.
