Work permit changes worrisome as child care staff shortages: colleges, Ontario

New federal rules will prevent international students who complete early childhood education programs from applying for work permits in Canada – a change that the Ontario government, universities and advocates warn will stunt the growth of Ottawa’s signature $10-a-day child care program.

Under immigration changes announced last month, work permits for postgraduates that have been widely available in the past will now be limited to areas where there is a labor market shortage in Canada.

Ontario is grappling with a shortage of early childhood education, or ECE, teachers that some child care operators say is preventing them from operating at full capacity now and could prevent them from opening new facilities in the future.

Despite this, the only mention of early childhood education in the government’s list of categories in which students will continue to be eligible for a postgraduate work permit is “education/teaching of persons on special early years education programmes”.

“This change in federal policy will make it even more difficult for Ontarians to find affordable child care, and there is no doubt the impact will be felt immediately,” said Marketa Evans, president and CEO of Colleges Ontario.

Internal government documents previously obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom of information request show the province is expected to have a shortfall of 8,500 ECEs by 2026.

Evans said there are currently 5,300 international ECE students at public universities, representing about 50 percent of total enrollment.

Alana Powell, executive director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Ontario, is demanding clarity on the impact of the federal changes and said it would be a blow to the sector if foreign ECE graduates are excluded from access to work permits.

“We are dealing with a staffing crisis,” she said.

“The continued retention and recruitment of early childhood educators in Ontario continues to raise concerns, as well as concerns about current operational levels, let alone planned expansion under the $10-a-day system. So seeing any barrier to hiring more early childhood educators is a big concern in times like these.”

When asked about the apparent omission, Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s office was adamant that ECE programs would be included on the list of programs eligible for postgraduate work permits.

“Absolutely, ECE will definitely be included,” communications director Aissa Diop first said three weeks ago, suggesting it was a matter of unclear wording on the government website.

However, the changes will apply to students who apply for permits after next Friday, and as of Tuesday morning, early childhood education programs were still not on the government’s list of eligible fields of study.

Ontario’s minister of colleges and universities wrote to Miller warning that early childhood education is not currently eligible, nor are other areas where there are shortages in the province, including hospitality, health care administration and automotive technologists.

“Ontario is currently lacking in several key areas,” wrote Nolan Quinn.

The list appears to have been quietly updated this week to include registered nursing – a change the province hopes signals the federal government is willing to consider adding more people.

Quinn asked Miller to be more open with any future updates.

All of this is causing a lot of confusion among colleges and universities as they try to determine the impact of the new rules on their programs before the new regulations go into effect on Friday, Evans said.

“We are asking you to suspend the meeting because of all this confusion,” she said in an interview. “We don’t know if these are errors or intentional omissions, but again I don’t think we’ve had much time to digest.”

When Miller announced the changes, he said the increase in international students and the related postgraduate work permits and spouse permits are areas where “we owe it to Canadians, and in the context of an economy where the job market is tightening in some areas, we need adjust accordingly.”

Miller also announced at the time that he was cutting the number of international student visas by another 10 percent. This was on top of a temporary restriction the government announced in January to reduce the number of new student visas this year by more than a third, partly aimed at easing pressure on an already tight housing market.

Colleges Ontario has given a boost to other sectors he says the federal government is unfairly overlooking, including engineering and technology programs, which Evans says are key to the electric vehicle industry, and dental hygiene, key to rolling out federal dental care.

By Allison Jones

INsauga editorial standards and policies