EDITORIAL
NotCanada.com
March 21, 2007
Attn: Honorable Diane Finley
Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration Canada
Dear Mrs. Finley,
RE: PROPOSAL OF MODEL FOR IMMIGRANTS’
PROFESSIONAL INTEGRATION IN
CANADA
I am sending you this message
because I want not only to tell you what I feel about the Canadian immigration
system as immigrant but also I want to talk about ways of improving it.
This is my feeling about the
system: There is a huge discrepancy between what is said /done inside and
outside Canada. Wonderful advertisement is made abroad about opportunities in
Canada. “You are welcome, there is a place for you and we need your professional
skills and we help in your integration”. Once an immigrant passes through the
Canadian customs, then the attitude changes. “Sir/Madam, welcome to Canada and
here is your permanent residence card, social insurance number and medical
insurance. It is understood that your skills really don’t count for much and you
are on own here. Please find your way through”.
Here are my 8 proposals for
effective professional integration of immigrants in Canada.
Proposal 1
For all immigrants in exception
of the refugees, the assessment of their academic and professional
credentials should be processed and finished abroad at the same time as their
immigration procedures. There should be no sort of re-assessment once in the
country by the professional associations because the latter, beside their role
of regulating these professions, they also tend to keep out any competition.
Canada’s decision to let them in skilled migrants should prevail over the one of
these organizations. Once Canada accepts skilled immigrants graduated from a
country, then the skills of refugees graduated from that country should
automatically be accepted by the provincial authority. Diploma or degree even
the one acquired from a foreign country should be given more importance than
credential certificate (carte de competence as called in Quebec). Of course,
some adjustment could be made to fulfill the profession requirements in terms of
health and safety, ethics and other professional standards but the carte de
competence shouldn’t never again be used as a tool for discrimination against
the immigrants in workplace.
Proposal 2
Any first generation landed
and qualified immigrant name, phone and e-mail contacts should be automatically
sent to the professional association of his discipline in the province where he
elected home so that he can be given all the required materials necessary for
the practice of his profession in Canada. The contact should be made in both
ways and mandatory. The professional association should have the responsibility
to arrange practical immersion of new immigrants into the Canadian professional
environment and administer an entry test to the association. This process could
be crossed-checked by the ministries of citizenship and immigration and the one
of Canada human resources and social development for fairness. This readjustment
process would have to be completed within one year and half or two at most.
Proposal 3
Multi-ethnic committees
having the power to supervise the hiring of new employees should be created. Any
enterprise or institution receiving funds or preferential tax cuts from either
federal or provincial government should submit on mandatory basis the list of
its employees and their positions. Any new position in those entities should be
open to internal and external competition. These committees should be, in
all cases, be present during candidates’ selection process by the human
resources counselors and should have access to CVs submitted for any position.
They should have at the hand a clear cut system of evaluation system similar to
point system for skilled immigration. Points for criteria like diploma, years of
experience, language skills, etc…should be enacted. Years spent on school bench
will have to be given their full value. The equivalence between a university
degree versus years of experience will also have to be clearly stated. Never
again an immigrant shall have to hide his credentials in order to have a job in
Canada.
Proposal 4
Some of the powers given to
professional associations should be curtailed because of a concern clearly
expressed above (elimination of competitors whether new immigrants or not).
Access to some positions like the ones of architects, accountants, for example,
shouldn’t be conditioned anymore by membership to the appropriate professional
association. However, a candidate should commit himself to become a member of an
association regulating his profession within a certain time and acts according
to its rules or face the possibility of loosing his job.
Proposal 5
Barriers in universities and
other educational institutions like the requirements for some courses should be
removed because they are discriminatory in some way. For some studies, you
are required to be already working for a professional in that discipline or in
some way already involved in the area like real estate, project management and
evaluation, MBA in order to be admitted in the faculty. Those Canadians born
here and having well established social connections get most of the chances to
have this kind of experience. Landed immigrants can’t be expected to have such
social networks in Canada and are mostly filtered out by this system. What about
a graduate in engineering abroad looking to acquiring management capabilities?
This door should be wide open.
Proposal 6
These reforms in the Canadian
immigration are very urgent because this country takes in hundred of thousands
of new immigrants every year but they falling victim of the present system. The
toll is unbearably high. My suggestion is that the government starts, within
three to six months, collecting names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail and
qualifications of landed immigrants, refugees so that they can be referred to
professional associations of their fields of qualification within a year or so.
No one should be excluded.
Since the federal government is
allocating 18 millions CAD for the next 2 years (your declaration of February 18th
,2007, I wouldn’t like to see this money to ending up in the hands of
bureaucrats without achieving much in terms of professional integration of
immigrants. My proposal is that much of these funds be used in acquisition of
reference materials for these professional candidates, their registration fees
in professional associations, training programs of immigrants not only in their
fields of competency but also in that of human resources so that they can help
to keep the discrimination against diploma and experience acquired abroad in
check during the hiring process as members of multi-ethnic hiring committee
members around Canada.
Proposal 7
Announcing and allocating 18
millions to establish an office that will help in professional integration of
immigrants is a great idea. One problem I see in that is that you are talking
about consulting your colleague in the ministry of human resources and social
development, provincial governments and professional associations but there is
no word about consulting those who are facing the problem on the daily basis.
So I think that we should be part of that consultation process since we are the
target group.
Proposal 8
My last but not the least
suggestion is to replace the old school heading the professional
organizations because they are the one who are responsible for locking up the
system and locking out newcomers. They are likely to resist reforms in the
system. I would like to see the new faces in these entities in way reflecting
the ethnic and racial rainbow of Canada.
This model shall be seen only as
a frame on which many other elements could be added.
Dear Mrs. Finley, although I am
convinced that you are a very busy person, I am looking forward to receiving
your comments about these suggestions or hear about a differing plan from your
side.
Thank you for your time and best
regards,
Jean-Baptiste Rubeya
Montreal, Quebec
rubeya_jb @ hotmail.com
PREVIOUS EDITORIAL
JANUARY 2007
When thinking to lose weight, one tends to think of all sorts of alibi. But losing weight is very important for ones life, in every way possible. This is what cambridge diet claims, and promises. Unlike other diet pills in the market, with cambridge plan, you eat health food, do moderate exercise and see the results in no time at all.
