The integration of newcomers who were trained outside of Canada presents a problem that is almost structural in nature. To a certain extent, Canada is quite successful at integrating newcomers, which is the first step. Reception service agencies in every community are advising newcomers on how to find their first job, housing, or how to ensure their socio-cultural integration.
The problem is the lack of municipal infrastructures across Canada, where the jobs are and where employers in the knowledge-based economy can meet qualified immigrants.
Imagine if you were a hospital administrator and you were looking for a doctor. On whose door would you knock? You would no doubt turn to a college of physicians and a faculty of medicine. Would you turn to the local immigrant integration agency that is more active in the social sector? Likely not.
So it is important to duplicate this and to create an agency or a network of one-stop service windows where qualified immigrants, after completing the first stage of integration into Canada, could receive training, not on socio-cultural integration, but rather on socio-economic integration. That is the first step.
Another important issue is recognition of credentials and professional experience acquired outside of Canada. This constitutes a labour force mobility problem across Canada.
Often, I hear professional associations—above all the college of physicians—say that a doctor who has not been trained in Canada represents a danger to Canadian society. A vast number of OECD countries belong to the European Union, and the latter has managed to create a program allowing medical professionals to work throughout Europe. This could serve as an inspiration to us.
The Lisbon Convention, which was signed over a decade ago, could serve as a good example of the first step that Canada needs to take.
We need to understand that we are a destination for immigrants from all countries. Studies often show that immigrants were trained in a limited number of countries. So we could begin by recognizing the training provided in those countries, because we are making a serious mistake when we take a doctor from Africa and make him drive a taxi in Canada. Not only are we wasting a skill that is badly needed in our country, but we are also taking away that skill from another country where there is a severe shortage in that area.
Our immigrants are extremely entrepreneurial, because coming to Canada is not easy. Creating a single-service window or place where they can benefit from recertification programs would help them.
Do you know that, at Carleton University, for example, the students in some engineering programs are all newcomers? Consider the example of a mechanical engineer who comes to Canada and retrains as a mechanical engineer. Given that post-secondary education is subsidized, do you realize how much money is being wasted? The same person is being trained twice. It would be a good idea to have a pan-Canadian network of universities able to provide accelerated programs to certify such individuals properly.
I want to conclude with the last phase. It's all well and good to create programs, but the problem for immigrants is that they have to work upon their arrival in order to feed their families. We need programs that bring together the private sector, the educational sector and the public sector so that immigrants can work part-time at minimum wage in order to feed their families, take training and then rapidly enter the labour market.