During the recent Council of the Federation meeting in Victoria, B.C., First Ministers from across our country specifically called on the federal government to “remove barriers to international students for federal employment support programs, including collaboration with provinces and territories in optimizing the Post-Graduate Work Permit for international students to meet local workforce needs and more efficiently transition to permanent residency.”Why are the premiers focused on immigration and why does it matter to Canadians? It matters because without an acceleration of our immigration efforts, real shortages within the Canadian workforce will hold back our country's economic recovery and exacerbate inflation.The reality is that we now have higher demand for labour across our country than we have Canadian workers to fill these positions. This is confirmed by the fact that Canada's unemployment rate stands at a record low, yet employers are having great difficulty finding skilled workers. Shortages exist across the county in all sectors, from technical roles in computer science and information technology to construction trades, retail management, general labour and office workers. The resulting cost to business is in the billions of dollars, as projects are forced to be cancelled or delayed.In healthcare, one of our country's most sacred frontiers, ongoing labour shortages are resulting in longer wait times in emergency rooms and critical staffing shortages in long-term care facilities. And as our population continues to age, this dilemma will only get worse.The good news is that our existing post-secondary education ecosystem is already well-positioned to offer a solution to this workforce conundrum—and that solution is two-fold.First, we must understand that the Canadian workforce is evolving and that our training modalities must evolve with it. We must embrace a more flexible, industry-driven approach that acknowledges the importance of retraining and upskilling: to support Canadian workers in their desire to explore new roles, take on new challenges and play a bigger role in our economic prosperity.At the same time, we need to address this real shortage of workers across our sectors and across our country. We need to rapidly and responsibly backfill these positions with capable international workers. Combined, an upskilled Canadian workforce and a supplemental international labour resource can play a significant role in jumpstarting our economy and lifting us out of our COVID-induced recession.Canada has a virtually unlimited global human resource from which it can attract new workers, but that human resource continues to migrate to other countries instead—ones that have been more proactive in recruiting and retaining international talent.This is a missed opportunity for the Canadian economy, particularly because Canada's system of post-graduate work permits (PGWPs) for international students, administered by the federal government, continues to be a show-stopper. The PGWP assures prospects that they are welcome in Canada, that they will be able to complete their training through an accredited institution and that, upon graduation, they have the time required to find gainful employment in one of our many underpopulated sector workforces. PGWP is Canada's unique sales proposition in the war for global talent—but only when we use it to its full potential.As a leader within Canada's regulated career colleges network, my industry has a critical role to play in building a more sustainable workforce. Our institutions across the country regularly upskill and retrain thousands of Canadian workers seeking new and better opportunities for themselves and their families. Those opportunities are available because regulated career colleges across Canada design their programs to coincide directly with sectors facing high-volume job vacancies, such as Personal Care Attendants, Office Administrators, Software Developers, Child and Youth Care Workers, and many more.With better access to the Post-Graduate Work Permit, as the First Ministers have requested, all education institutions like regulated career colleges can better attract, train and retain international talent to fill the labour shortages we face now, while supporting comprehensive, sustainable workforce development for the long-term. This kind of all-hands-on-deck approach—between federal and provincial governments, industry, and workforce developers—is imperative to securing Canada's competitive advantage as a destination for global talent and solving our labour shortage crisis.It may not be easy, but unprecedented challenges require unprecedent solutions.Our economic prosperity depends on it.Michael Sangster is the CEO of the National Association of Career Colleges.