Nasscom,Ind leaders to meet Canadian delegation on visa issue

IT-BPO industry body Nasscom will today meet officials from Canada to discuss the recently introduced regulations on skilled worker immigration visas, a move that could hurt the USD 118 billion Indian IT sector.
Earlier this month, Canada announced certain guidelines governing its skilled worker immigration visas.
"The industry has serious concerns about them. These regulations are around LMO and intra-corporate transfers (ICT). These are impractical and not conducive to the Indian IT players. We want them to understand that Indian IT companies are not there to take away jobs," Nasscom President R Chandrashekhar told PTI.
He, along with industry members, will meet Canadian Minister of citizenship and immigration, Chris Alexander.

He added that on the contrary, Indian firms are helping Canadian firms and creating local talent pool as well and such moves, in the end, impact Canadian economy as well.
In May, Chandrashekhar had visited Canada meet key ministers there with a view to creating greater awareness about the Indian IT-BPO industry and to gain insights on the region and the business and investment opportunities it offers for Indian players.

"Such regulations bring uncertainty and add to the cost of operations as well. We are meeting the Canadian delegation to discuss these issues," he said.
Canada represents about USD two billion worth of exports for the Indian IT sector.

Nasscom has already written to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and industry and commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman requesting their intervention.
Similar to L1 visas in the US, ICTs or Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa are used to work for short periods in Canada. These are used by companies to transfer specialist employees from India to their subsidiary in Canada.
On June 9, the Canadian government introduced changes stating people with "uncommon knowledge" can use the visa, which may cause difficulty in understanding eligibility for the visa.
Under the LMO (labour market opinion) visa, companies would have to certify that they would not displace any local workers in the two years following the award of an IT contract.

Following local pressure around high employment rates in their own country, nations including the US, Australia and Canada have been tightening their visa norms.