Foreign-trained engineers who arrive in Canada with high hopes, only to have their careers derailed, got a big boost last week when the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers took steps to change the way skilled immigrants are counselled, licensed and recruited.
The council approved a wide-ranging plan to help integrate thousands of highly trained workers who enter the country each year but can't practise in their field because of red tape and cultural obstacles to employment.
Barriers to foreign entry are common among the self-regulated professions in Canada, including medicine and law.
But the problem is most acute for engineers because they account for a majority of skilled immigrants. A 2001 survey by the 160,000-member engineers' council showed 63 per cent of skilled workers entering Canada with hopes of working in a regulated profession identified themselves as engineers.
A key element of the plan will be the creation of "provisional licences" in all provinces and territories. Similar to a driver's permit, the provisional licence, which will be valid for two years, will instantly qualify immigrants to work in an apprenticeship capacity as they pursue supplementary training toward a permanent licence.
Marie Lemay, chief executive officer of the CCPE, said that, until now, many foreign-trained engineers have been caught in a Catch-22 situation, unable to find permanent employment because they had no domestic work experience and unable to get that experience because their degrees had no currency with employers.
"To get that work experience, you have to get a job, but employers didn't know how to validate the credentials," Ms. Lemay said.
"With the provisional licence, the employer knows your educational credentials have been checked."
Provisional licences have already been adopted by several provinces, including Ontario, but they will now be rolled out nationally.
Under the changes, foreigners will also be able to prepare for certain Canadian requirements prior to emigrating, such as writing the professional practice exam.
"It's a lot easier when you do it in your home setting," Ms. Lemay said. "Right now, they can't do it until they get here."
A common complaint of skilled workers and employers alike has been that there is no official source of information to assess foreign qualifications.
In response, the engineers' council will set up an official database of recognized foreign degrees to provide would-be immigrants with foreknowledge of their chances of obtaining work, as well as the additional education that may be demanded.
Also, the council resolved to create a single-source website detailing Canadian requirements in each province, bypassing the sometimes ad hoc and distorted advice given prospective engineers by provincial immigration officials, Ms. Lemay said. "It's a multijurisdictional nightmare."
Not all of the resolutions are targeted at dismantling bureaucratic obstacles. Some are aimed at demystifying cultural idiosyncrasies that have sabotaged many a job interview.
In India, for example, "they find it rude and aggressive to look someone in the eye," said Deborah Wolfe, the CCPE's education, outreach and research director and a former military engineer who worked in India and Pakistan.
"In Canada, if you go to a job interview and someone doesn't look you in the eye, they're going to give an impression that they're shifty."
In view of such differences, the council plans to create a "working in Canada" seminar for new immigrants.
The changes, passed at the CCPE's annual general meeting in Charlottetown last week, are being touted as a potential model for other professions.
"The feedback that we've had is that the other professions have been paying attention," said Darrel Danyluk, an engineering professor at the University of Calgary and chairman of the steering committee that drafted the recommendations.
The recommendations were the product of 17 months of consultation between engineers, government officials, industry and new immigrants.
"It's not an engineers-for-engineers solution," Mr. Danyluk said.
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