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Canada Waives Own Rules, Helps Microsoft Avoid US Visa Problems

Posted by timothy on from the alle-menschen-sind-auslaender-fast-ueberall dept.

Freshly Exhumed writes Citizenship and Immigration Canada has granted an unprecedented exemption to Microsoft that will allow the company to bring in an unspecified number of temporary foreign workers as trainees without first looking for Canadians to fill the jobs. No other company in any other field has been granted such an exemption, and it does not fall within any of the other categories where exemptions are normally given, according to a source familiar with process, effectively creating a new category: the Microsoft Exemption. Microsoft Canada did not immediately respond to questions about the deal, but in an interview earlier this year with Bloomberg Businessweek, Karen Jones, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said the deal will allow Microsoft to bypass stricter U.S. rules on visas for foreign workers. The entire issue of temporary foreign workers has been as blisteringly hot a topic across Canada as it has been in the USA.

4 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by iCEBaLM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We do not have a shortage of CS workers in this country, we have a surplus, and with some provinces having over 10% unemployment rates Harper is seemingly doing everything he can to keep Canadians out of Canadian jobs.

    Fucking neocons.

    1. Re:Fucking Hell, Harper needs to go! by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Informative

      And the rich get richer and the poor get poorer -- America where the Walton family (majority shareholders in Walmart) has wealth equal to the wealth of the bottom 42% of Americans combined.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  2. Re:Remember the stripper visa by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've found that foreign western Europeans are welcomed with enthusiasm but foreign Asians with much much resentment.

    Western Europeans are coming from an economy just as good as our own, so they aren't willing to work for peanuts and thus don't drive down wages like people from third-world countries do.

    Asians from developed countries (e.g. Japan) would be welcomed just as warmly, for the same reason.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  3. Re:does that mean American workers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It sounds more like a way to get more overseas workers into the US.

    "The source said that means the company will take advantage of rules governing intra-company transfers, which require employees to work for at least one year at a company subsidiary before being transferred to the U.S."

    Sounds like they'll import cheap labor to Canada. Have them work there for a year and then import them into the US.