HAC urges government to address labour shortages

The Hotel Association of Canada (HAC) and the Alberta Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) met with the Alberta Conservative Caucus and the All Party Federal Tourism Caucus yesterday in two separate sessions to address current labour shortages. In total, more than 60 Ministers, MPs and Senators heard from the lodging industry. HAC president, Tony Pollard congratulated the Members for the Federal Tourism Strategy announced in October 2011. One of the four pillars of the Federal Strategy is to ensure the availability of human resources for the tourism sector. “This is a critical issue for the lodging industry in Alberta and across Canada,”said Pollard. AHLA president Dave Kaiser said, “We continue to support the Temporary Foreign Worker Program,”adding, “the permanent solution, however, is to have more temporary foreign workers graduate to permanent, full time staff under the Provincial Nominee Program.”The lodging industry is recommending the government provide more provincial nominee certificates to accommodate the demand for semi-skilled occupations, alleviating our long-term dependency on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. (http://www.hotelassociation.ca)