June 12th, 2017 was one of the happiest days of my life.
That was the day that the Canadian Global Talent Stream visa officially started allowing companies to fast-track the relocation process of software developers from around the world to Canada.
It was a huge step forward for Canadian tech and in the last 5 years it has brought in tens of thousands of skilled workers who now call Canada home (and pay Canadian taxes). And even when looking at both VanHack and industry data, we’ve observed that of the 800+ software engineers we’ve helped bring to Canada have brought 500M+ to the Canadian economy.
Each new hire in turn creates 1.5 jobs according to Enrico Moretti, an economist from the University of California at Berkeley. However, after working with over 400 companies processing close to 1,000 Global Talent Stream visas, we at VanHack have direct knowledge of what is working and what isn’t working.
The overwhelmingly #1 issue for early-stage local startups is the Labour Market Benefits Plan portion of the Global Talent Stream visa. The “LMBP” (as the cool kids call it), requires a company to commit to 3 things (“Benefits”) that it will do in the next 2 years that benefit the local tech community. Examples of benefits are hosting lunch and learn, hiring Canadian citizens and Permanent Residents or growing revenue by a specific amount.
The more international hires you make, the more “benefits” the government expects you to provide.
In theory, this sounds great as it quantifies the positive impact global hires create in our communities. But if you’re a cash and time-strapped startup founder looking to grow their business, the LMBP puts unnecessary bureaucratic roadblocks to your hiring goals.
For smaller companies especially, it can be difficult to commit to additional job creation promises when there is a chance the new hire may jump to a larger company after they relocate to Canada – in which case they still need to follow through with the commitments.
Often companies decide not to hire from abroad altogether which results in them having to compete with deep-pocketed big tech companies who can throw $150K+ plus offers out like hot cakes.
“LMBPs have been difficult to implement, sustain and track and from our experience it’s difficult if not impossible to see where value is created anywhere from this exercise,” shares Arlin Dueck, Partner, Executive Director of Talent at Harvest Builders.
And when they do go through the process it takes up valuable time and resources they often can not afford to invest.
Finally, Canada is the only country with a Labour Market Benefits Plan type process. Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, the UK, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Finland and many more countries have similar fast-track visa processes, but no LMBP requirements.
With this in mind, VanHack is launching a Petition to Remove the Labour Market Benefits Plan. Please take a look at it and sign here.
Let’s simplify the process and bring even more great tech talent to Canada.
Thanks so much for your support, go Canadian tech 🇨🇦 !
-Ilya at VanHack
