Effective February 21, 2015, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) mandated that employers hiring foreign research personnel who are Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) exempt will be required to pay an Employer Compliance Fee of $230 and submit an Offer of Employment to a Foreign National Exempt from Labour Market Impact Assessment (Offer of Employment) using the CIC Employer Portal.
This directive impacts foreign academic and research personnel including, but not limited to, Post-Doctoral Fellows, Visiting Professors and Instructors, Visiting Scholars, Visiting Research Students, and Guest Lecturers. Although this directive references “employers” and “employees”, it also applies to any foreign research personnel who are unpaid and/or have no employment status at the University and to reappointment of current foreign research personnel.
As a supervisor hiring a Research Assistant, Research Associate, or Postdoctoral Fellow or hosting a Visiting Scholar who is a foreign national, you are responsible for the cost of the $230 Employer Compliance Fee and for supplying and attesting to the accuracy of the information required to submit an Offer of Employment.
Before an Offer of Employment can be submitted through the CIC Employer Portal, you must provide the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation with the following:
- A grant account number to which the $230 Employer Compliance Fee can be charged
- A completed Offer of Employment Request Form
Employer Compliance Fee
In order for the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation to submit an Offer of Employment for your appointee, you must provide a grant account number to which the $230 Employer Compliance Fee required by CIC can be charged.
On April 8, 2015, the Tri-Council issued a communique with respect to the eligibility status of the $230 Employer Compliance Fee indicating the following:
"If the foreign national is recruited to work exclusively on research for which Tri-Agency grant funds are provided, the full cost of the employer fee of $230 will be eligible for reimbursement from the grant holder's grant funds as an eligible recruitment cost per the Tri-Agency Financial Administration Guide.
If the foreign national is recruited for a variety of purposes, one of which includes working on research for which Tri-Agency grant funds are provided, the administering institution may apportion the cost of the employer fee to the grant holder's grant funds based on the anticipated percentage of time the foreign national will spend working on the funded research of the grant holder.
If the foreign national is recruited for purposes unrelated to Tri_Agency funded research, the employer fee is not eligible for reimbursement from the grant holder's grant funds."
If your appointee will not be working on research connected to a Tri-Agency grant, you may be able to charge the $230 Employer Compliance Fee to an internal or other grant account. If you are unsure if the $230 Employer Compliance Fee is an eligible expense under the non-Tri-Agency grant that you wish to charge it to, contact Eric Gee at extension 2129; Paul Scobie at extension 2121; or Dami Adeleke at extention 2123 in Research Finance who will be able to provide direction.
Offer of Employment Number
Once we have received your completed Offer of Employment Request Form and the grant account number that will be charged for the $230 Employer Compliance fee, we will complete and submit an Offer of Employment through the CIC Employer Portal.
After the an Offer of Employment has been submitted through the CIC Employer Portal, CIC sends the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation an email notification containing a unique Offer of Employment Number. This email is typically received within one business day of submission and will be forwarded to you to provide to your appointee to include on their work permit application.
Please note that foreign nationals are not permitted to work at the University of Windsor until they have obtained and provided a valid work permit and Social Insurance Number to the University of Windsor Department of Human Resources.
For more information on work permits, visit Getting a Work Permit.
For more information on Social Insurance Numbers, visit Getting a SIN.