The Ontario Skilled Trades Alliance (OSTA) has urged the federal government to amend its current immigration policies to strengthen the province’s current construction workforce.

Through a virtual conference entitled, “Summit on Workforce Development,” OSTA passed several resolutions calling for the federal government to address the growing skilled labour shortage in the construction sector, including:

• Increasing the cap on temporary foreign workers from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the workforce at companies building public infrastructure projects and housing, with a particular focus on small- and medium-sized enterprises;
• Doubling the cap under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP);
• Allocating 20 per cent of the 9,000 seats within OINP for National Occupation Classification (NOC) level C and D immigrants who meet critical labour markets needs in regions across Ontario.

The virtual conference took place on January 6 and brought together skilled trade organizations throughout the province.

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