British Columbia Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre

Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre: Both the federal and provincial governments have praised the Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre as a project that will boost the B.C. economy and create 400 jobs, mainly in software and services engineering. Read the Microsoft Centre of Excellence documents , according to CBC. The documents date from 2013 and 2014, and include letters and briefing notes from Citizenship and Immigration Canada CIC and British Columbia Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training. They show: 150 positions would be open to both Canadians and foreigners as "rotational employees" who would be brought in under the program with "no guaranteed number of Canadians." 200 "core employees" would be brought in at the "executive level , management or those with specialized knowledge," but the company only committed that 10 per cent of those 200 core employees would be Canadian. The document states the number of Canadians "is likely to grow over time." 50 positions would go to "foundry employees" paid student interns from Canadian universities. But the document stipulates that some of those students could be international students, and do not have to be Canadians. A majority of workers at a new Microsoft Canada training centre in Vancouver would be drawn from the ranks of foreigners, according to draft plans obtained under British Columbia freedom of information laws. The freedom of information documents, given to News by a third party who works in the industry, reveal Microsoft Canada initially promised that only 20 of those 400 new jobs or five per cent would go to Canadians. The documents also suggest that, through a variety of programs including the controversial Temporary Foreign Worker program the majority of the new workers would come from abroad. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.