Bringing down the barriers

The Talent Pool Development Society of Calgary, an offspring of the Chamber of Commerce, polled Chamber members to discover what barriers employers face when hiring immigrants.

 In the spirit of Miss Manners, here is a look at their top issues.

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 Dear Miss Talent Pool: The labour shortage is our No. 1 issue. Can you help? – 10 Workers Short

 
Dear 10: The bad news is 2005 was the last year there were more employees entering the Canadian workforce than retiring. We predict the labour shortage in Calgary will continue indefinitely. Every country is looking globally for talent. Anyone who wants to make money is already here. The challenge is to find the best and brightest and make it easy for them to settle here. 

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 Dear Miss Talent Pool: We are thinking of hiring immigrants but our people are so busy they do not know if they can take the extra time to bring someone with no Canadian work experience up-to-speed. – Hesitant

 

Dear Hesitant: Our survey discovered 97.5% of workplaces want to hire foreign- trained professionals and skilled workers. Of these, 57.5% have initiatives to help and 32.5% are, like you, unsure. This city has resources to help integrate immigrants — cross-cultural training, workplace English, computer upgrading, and corporate policies and practices. 

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 Dear Miss Talent Pool: How important is English at the office and work site? – Safety Chief

 

Dear Safety Chief: Our findings show 95% of Calgary businesses only hire employees proficient enough to quickly understand instructions and complete safety or regulatory training. Of those, 92% agreed their people must speak English well enough to be easily understood on the telephone, know industry jargon and technical terms, and be able to write comprehensive e-mails to their colleagues and clients.

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 Dear Miss Talent Pool: How do I know if an immigrant candidate’s education and degree is comparable to one from a Canadian university or college? – University Alumnus

 

Dear U-alum: Interestingly, 72.5% said every candidate’s education had to be comparable with our institutions. Although 45% report they have a process to confirm international credentials, 52.5% did not. The good news is Alberta Employment and Immigration has an International Qualifications Assessment Service to verify international education qualifications. Some 85% of respondents will consider hiring an applicant who is applying for Canadian or Alberta credentials.

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 Dear Miss Talent Pool: My company requires that all applicants apply online with a resume and cover letter that matches the position. I am frustrated because my operations people seem to bypass qualified immigrants for less qualified people. – Frustrated Recruiter

 

Dear Frustrated: Interviewers need to be briefed on cross-cultural communication so they are sensitive to how business is practised around the world. Many immigrants come from cultures that demand modesty about personal and team accomplishments. Interestingly, the survey found some departments are more open and ready than others. The challenge for the human resources team is how to prepare line managers and supervisors to recognize the best-qualified candidate among those interviewed and integrate qualified foreign-trained workers into their groups.

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 As the shortage of skilled workers increases, a competitive advantage goes to companies developing new ways to find and recognize the skills immigrants bring.

We salute those who have immigrated to this city in search of a better future.

Low Carbon Tech is Key

Many Canadians are gripped with an ominous sense of pessimism. Economists worry about a recession while environmentalists are having panic attacks about greenhouse gases. Consumers are hurting from the high, ever-increasing price of petroleum and are desperate for alternatives. Those who can afford them are buying hybrid cars and those who cannot are riding transit more often.

The foundation of Alberta’s economy is finding and selling crude oil, natural gas and coal. Our buyers — both nationally and in the U.S. — are turning against carbon-based energy. They are afraid of the dire unintended consequences of burning of fossil fuels.

In short, this province’s economy has been based on the production of cheap hydrocarbons. That reality is now threatened.

Today, Canadians believe renewable and efficient energy technology must replace fossil fuels and they want it to happen far faster than most Albertans currently anticipate. The enormity of the national energy and environmental crisis seems difficult to comprehend.

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce, never known to wallow in the Slough of Despond, believes this province has the potential to capitalize on what could be one of the world’s most astonishing business opportunities — low-carbon technologies.
 

Alberta needs a great, big vision — call it the Carbon Mitigation Project — to solve the greenhouse gas problem. This project would be for the bold and courageous.

The Chamber recommends:

• Create a new $5-billion energy research endowment fund and hire the best and brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to invent low carbon technologies .
• Send the proper pricing signals to fossil fuel producers by adjusting the $15 per tonne carbon emissions charge in a realistic timeframe that reflects the true cost of reducing carbon emissions while protecting the economy (call it an atmosphere improvement levy).
• Invent new technologies that will cut greenhouse gases and have the desired impact on atmospheric carbon.

The Chamber also challenges the many industries operating in Alberta to participate in the carbon mitigation project: Double fuel economy in vehicles, build efficient mass transit to take a millions of cars off the roads, develop zero-emission appliances, boost the efficiency of buildings by 25%, ramp up wind power to reduce or eliminate base load electricity generated by coal-fired plants, install solar panels in consumers’ homes to manage peak electricity loads, build and certify new homes to Build Green standards, and all new commercial building are certified as LEED Gold.

The Calgary business community has already identified ways to minimize its carbon footprint. They have reviewed their gas and electricity bills, vehicle usage, and employee travel.  Many have spent large sums to reduce direct and indirect emissions.

It is easy for industry to self-righteously point its finger at consumers of energy and lay the blame on them. They buy SUVs and burn fuel wastefully.

Conversely, the rest of Canada smugly blames the energy companies for greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s easier to ask the federal government to pass punitive legislation targeting Alberta than to ride public transit.

The Chamber thinks the blame game is wrong and wastes time. Society must pay for the cost of cleaner fuels. Smart and capable Albertans can invent low carbon technologies to produce renewable, efficient energy.

Perhaps we should charge a premium for our expertise, once we have solved the greenhouse gas problem.

Riding the rails means parking the cars

The World Madness Institute’s Transportation Division recently released a report claiming that most North American commuters are huge supporters of public transit — for others, not themselves. The surveyors interviewed 10,000 people and discovered that 77 per cent of Americans and 89 per cent of Canadians wanted their municipal governments to either introduce or expand their local light rail transit system. They were almost unanimous in wanting to get everyone else’s cars off the road to cut their own travel times.

The study proves a global trend — more people drive and fewer take public transit — yet they universally think everyone else should “do their bit to save the environment and conserve energy.”
 
The glaring exception is London, England. Since 2000, 45 per cent more people ride transit daily and 10 per cent have stopped driving altogether. According to the London Transit Authority, they accomplished this while slashing subsidies, privatizing most of the city bus lines, and deregulating the underground through a series of public- private partnerships. They cut crime by installing on-board video cameras and boosting the surveillance monitoring of platforms and transfer stations. In short, their system flourishes in a free-market environment.
 
After all, “public transit is not inherently inferior to the private automobile; it can out-compete the car when and where market forces reign,” says Lawrence Solomon, Toronto Sprawls (2007).
 
The Calgary Chamber of Commerce suspects most Calgarians want city hall to expand our light rail transit (LRT). And, like the general population, our members complain a barrel of crude oil sells for about $130 and no level of government wants to lower the high taxes paid at the pumps.
 
Like the rest of the country, Calgarians want world-class transit. Most applaud the notion of getting people out of their cars and relieving the traffic congestion. Yet when city hall recently introduced its best option for the west leg of the LRT, many were opposed and NIMBYism (not-in-my-backyard) raised its head.

Every LRT expansion has seen citizens unhappy with proposed routes, the lack of transparent consultation, the noise, and the alleged decline in property values. In actuality, once the lines were built property values increased. Neighbourhoods appreciate their transit stops and view them as assets to their communities.

The Chamber believes that new LRT lines are often derailed by local opposition despite the fact these major infrastructure projects are valuable to the entire city. These land-use decisions are inherently political and frequently determine the popularity of the local alderman.

According to the chamber’s research, particularly contentious zoning applications often take twice as long to be approved as non-politicized applications. Therefore, the city recommends the applicant always undertake extensive community and aldermanic consultation before submitting the application.

Ideally, council’s involvement in the approval process is to set broad policy direction, similar to the structures of the federal and provincial governments. Practically however, the aldermen are often directly involved in approving the land use and zoning applications for their constituents.

Perhaps city hall places too much emphasis on local community consultation (which is important) and ignores the input of citizens from every other community who might park their cars and take transit into the area to work, shop, learn, or play.

After much consideration, the chamber recommends council:

• Develop a set of citywide consultation protocols for all major land use applications to ensure bigger picture impacts are considered along with local ones.
• Weigh the valuable contribution from local community groups within the framework of a metropolis consultation and context.
• Create an electoral reform commission to review the current ward system and investigate moving to a mixed representation model in which council is composed of both ward aldermen and citywide aldermen.

The Chamber applauds city hall’s verdict to move forward with the west leg of the LRT. The impacted communities need this infrastructure. It’s also the right decision for Calgary.

With worsening traffic snarls, more smog and escalating gas prices, now is the time to build affordable, efficient public transportation.

Maybe Calgary, like London, can convince more people to park their cars and ride the rails. If the World Madness Institute polled our citizens in a decade would they discover that 89 per cent of Calgarians supported the use of mass transit for themselves?