IF the planned recipient of these candidates is Sunwing then I would be interested to know how either Sunwing or the agency, depending on who is actually going to employ them plan to get foreign pilots the necessary permits to work in Canada? Sunpac, the Canadian union is running a very effective campaign to veto the use of foreign pilots.
Assuming that bit works out, I would also be intrigued to know how these guys will fit into a UK operation? Given that SWG is part of TUI and the only UK part of TUI is TOM, here are a few potentials for you:
SWG pilots are heavily in dispute with their management right now over a whole raft of issues. I suspect this is management trying to bypass the union. TOM has a reciprocal agreement with SWG whereby a number of TOM pilots operate in Canada over their busy winter and a number of SWG pilots operate in the UK over the UK busy summer. The number is matched.
TOM management would dearly love to have contract pilots do this work in summer. That is not going to happen again. If SWG think they are going to recruit contract pilots and then offload them to the UK in numbers in excess of what TOM send to Canada in the winter they are VERY badly mistaken. If TOM management think they will be able to do that they are equally VERY badly mistaken. To be absolutely honest, I don't think TOM have any hand in this at all and if they even know about it, I'd be somewhat interested because the position has been made very clear regarding external pilots doing TOM flying, as have the implications of trying to do it.
If these guys are not contract but permanent employees then the matched numbers argument still stands. SWG could well find themselves over borne in the quiet summer because TOM will not be accepting any more SWG lines of flying than the reciprocal agreement. There may be some flex in that on the back of the 787 debacle but that is a) another story and b) exceptional circumstances.
Finally, I'm really quite confused as to why a chap who professes to be in the TOM hold pool would be involved in a process that, given recently past management form, has the potential to directly affect adversely how long he spends in that pool?