Treasury Board President Tony Clement has until noon Tuesday to
decide whether to accept the union's offer to enter into a binding arbitration.
Foreign students withdrawing from programs. Tourists cancelling
their trips. Foreigners not being able to visit their loved ones here — even in
times of family emergencies.
As a strike by foreign service workers drags on, its impact is being felt from coast
to coast by the tourism and education sectors, as well as by people
worldwide who need visas to come to Canada.
Despite an offer issued last week by the Professional Association
of Foreign Service Officers for a binding arbitration, Treasury Board President
Tony Clement has not budged to the union’s demands.
On Monday, Clement’s press secretary Matthew Conway said the
minister was still reviewing the union’s offer as the deadline looms by noon
Tuesday. If the government rejects the offer, the disruption can be dragged on
indefinitely.
“Our government will always put the interests of taxpayers first.
We will continue to bargain in good faith,” Conway said in an email to the
Star.
Although official statistics are not available by Citizenship and
Immigration Canada, the union representing the 1,350 foreign affair officials
in trades, diplomatic relations and immigration services said its job action
has already made an impact.
According to the union, the outputs of travel visas at targeted
visa posts in China, India, Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines are down by 65
per cent since June, when the union shifted its focus to operations with high
volumes of visa applications from tourists, students and foreign workers.
Globally, said union president Tim Edwards, the number of all
visas issued, including those for permanent residents, has dropped by 25 per
cent, with the overall backlog growing by 5 per cent a week.
Both the tourism and education industries urge the government and
union to resolve the dispute as soon as possible.
The Tourism Industry Association of Canada estimates the job
action will put one-third of all the bookings from key emerging markets such as
China, India, Brazil and Mexico at risk, costing the industry at least $280
million in damages.
The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada also warns
that students have already withdrawn from language programs and other prep
courses. The strike could put a dent on the $7.7 billion industry and hurt the
education of 105,000 foreign students.
Some post-secondary institutions have extended registration
deadlines for foreign students while others have planned to allow deferrals of
admissions to January.
The University of Toronto, for example, has developed a visa
tracking system to follow up with their foreign students to see if they can get
their visas on time for orientation. At York University, the deadline of
arrival for foreign students has been extended for a week to Sept. 15.
“Right now, foreign students are at a point they have to decide
where they are going this fall. The concern is if they can’t get the visa to
Canada, they are going to choose another country,” said Gail Bowkett, AUCC’s
director of international relations. “If we lose them now, we will lose them
for four years.”
The labour dispute centres on
Ottawa’s refusal to close the wage gap — ranging
from $3,000 to $14,000 – between foreign affairs staff and their counterparts
in similar line of work such as government lawyers, economists and policy
analysts. Closing the gap would cost Ottawa $4.2 million.
Toronto immigration lawyer Max Berger said the revenue loss to
Canada as a result of the strike will exceed the cost to meet the union’s
demands.
“This is not like the garbage worker or TTC strike where the
public sees garbage piled up and traffic delayed,” said Berger. “All these
(visa) applicants are overseas and the public won’t see anything. But
eventually, the financial damages to Canada will be striking.”
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