Hi fellow members,

The Public Policy forum, located in Ottawa, is organising a 3 day conference in Regina, Saskatchewan in April titled : Comparing Approaches to Recognizing the Skills and Credentials of Foreign-Trained Workers. In this conference they hope to discuss and evaluate the problems faced by skilled workers and professionals arriving to Canada as immigrants. This conference shall be attended by just over a hundred VIPs whose ideas and voice matters in framing public policy regarding immigrants.

I have been offered to speak at this conference - and as the main speaker representing Professional immigrants, soon after a minister's speech and Director of the Forum's speech. I have to speak about the main context of the conference which focuses on:

What is the process we are talking about? and What are the key issues from an internationally-trained worker's perspective?

While I have some ideas as to what I want to speak about, I invite suggestions and key elements that I should include in my speech. While this is a great honour for me personally to be speaking at such a conference and that too as the key speaker, I think that it is a matter of great importance to all immigrants like me and prospective immigrants. Therefore, I look forward to positive and constructive suggestions - whereby the fellow CD should write about the problem and suggest a solution (since it is no use talking about a problem without having a suggestion to overcome that problem). The suggestions could be for post-landing as well as pre-lending (or even pre issuance of visa). One of the workshops during this conference is titled Providing Employment-related information before arrival and another one is Coordinating efforts on Assessment.

The conference is from 18th April - and therefore I would like to get my topics/ideas assimilated latest by 10th April (I somehow can never prepare a speech - though I have done a lot of public speaking in my life - but in this case, I atleast want to be prepared with my points, if not a speech).

I only have one request to all the readers - don't treat this thread as a Canada bashing thread - no one will gain out of it. This is one good chance to present to the government and people who matter our perpective in a mature and educated manner. I would also love if people could put forward their posts in a manner that I could simply copy and paste them into my cheat sheets and memorise their words - after all I am representing you all!

I specially look forward to responses from BL, Jake, GG, JRF, Sankarcharya, Morning rain, Hiren and some others who are serious about their posts and have demonstrated great maturity in such matters.

Chandresh

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Chandresh

Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!

irrelevant post hence deleted

Dear Chandresh,

Congrats and best wishes to get this chance. I am putting in my part, you may use with modifications as you want.

"Organizing such forum itself shows that government is keen on the issue of not letting the talent of immigrants go waste. Government is also running lot many programs to achieve this goal. But the real hurdle is ‘Private Sector’ who holds the major chunk of job market in Canada. This sector likes all government funded programs to enjoy, namely subsidized salary, incentive of hiring etc., but feels insecure to hire a new immigrant without the Canadian Experience and don’t want to take chance. Even if they hire, by luck, they forget all about the subsidies and government aids and expect the top performance from the newly recruited. They want him/ her to act like Mr. Perfect from day one.

This is the area which needs to be dealt to achieve the desired results. My point is Immigration is government backed system and once here, the new immigrants finds that the job key is in fact in the hands of private sector on which government has no or little control as for as hiring is concerned. To achieve the desired results government can take partial charge of recruitment system."

-Ben

Quote:

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Originally posted by benparsad

To achieve the desired results government can take partial charge of recruitment system."

-Ben

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Chandresh

Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!

congrats on the oppurtunity to speak on a forum like this make the best out of it.
1.regulated professions:- give visas only to people the canadian gov can absorb into training and keep them in their profession.
2. For those already here (regulated professions ) start bridging program with paid stipend and assess at the end with exams whether the person is fit to follow the trade ..it gives an insight to the immigrant of the new environment and a fair chance to prove himself.
3.gov is spending a lot of money to get the immigrants in main stream.so it says ..all the money is spent in centres for english ,training to write resumes etc ..they are imp but it misses the target THE IMMIGRANTS as they enter survival jobs and trained qualified people work as labourers .so fund sto be used focussing on getting IMMIGRANTS in their fields very specifically and in a focussed manner

Chandresh,

Congrats on your opportunity.
I will add more to this thread later but I do have one thought at the moment.
It is important to focus on shifting the perceptions of employers on the value and equivelence of foriegn talent.

I work in a centre where Immigrants are given assistance with resumes/job search/training (if they are EI eligible), ESL resources etc etc. There are many centres such as ours that are out there. While they are helpful, It is important to get the message out to mainstream society that Immigrants can easily adapt and How.

University students in Canada/US are bombarded with messages about going abroad to study/work - learn etc because "cross cultural" experience is seen as creating a more well rounded person.

I think the same concept should be used to Professional Immigrants.

Perception/Attitude shifts are needed. Also - there are now programs called "Skills Connects" being offered where new immigrants are being assisted with job searching and some financial assistance towards retraining or updating their credentials or applying for licenses etc.

hmm...

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~ Morning rain

Congrats, Chandresh- way to go!
Even though recognition of credentials is important, it will change little where employment is concerned until the hirers here change their mindset.
What the govt needs to do is to spend money on educating the Canadian companies regarding the work ethics, dedication and professionalism of the new immigrants.
I had written an article on this once which was published in a major newspaper.
Even today I was at the U of T giving a lecture on this.

As an example:
I used to go give investment seminars at a Canadian investment firm upto 2 years ago. At that time the work force was mainly mainstream Canadian- redneck material. Then a US co bought it over, streamlined the processes, brought in Americans and hired immigrants and believe you me, I have resumed giving seminars there, the work is more efficient. The workforce is largely Philipino and Sri Lankan now- though there are several Indians as well. Top management is still redneck though, but at least there are Indians in charge of big teams of 70-80 people- something that wasn't there before. Giving that example though could be construed as Canada bashing.