Human Resources Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Bill McKeown]

I think that's a very big piece of it, because in my mind we have to do a better job, with the support of the government, in selling the concept of hiring people with vision loss, because there are very many people out there who are working at all different levels. But it's overcoming that initial fear. We usually find that once an employer has hired somebody with vision loss, they tend to hire more people with vision loss. But it's getting that first person through the door, getting them convinced that a person with the proper supports, with adaptive equipment and a few other changes, can quite easily do a job that's very competitive, beside their peers.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

All right, thanks.

Mr. Chowdhury, I want to ask you a question. I spoke with Ms. Lemay here about some of the challenges for people who are coming into the country. Before they come here, maybe we need to do a better job of communicating with people as to where their skill set or their education puts them in terms of what to expect when they get here and what they might need to upgrade in certain areas or just to augment their skills to meet whatever standards in whatever profession they're talking about.

I want you to speak to that. What can we do with people, before they make the decision to come to Canada, to help them make the right decision for their family before they move halfway around the world?

[Monjur Chowdhury]

Thank you very much for the question.

I think there is still nothing. I came nine years ago, and Dr. Malek came five or six years ago, and I would say that those kinds of business people are there who are saying all kinds of good things about Canada, and sometimes when you go to the embassy and you go through the long immigration process, you don't get any real information about what is happening here. So eventually we are the victims.

As I mentioned, we went through this process and we are facing this. We had only a dream, the Canadian dream, that when we came here we would have a better life. This is continuing, and this is one of the things I say. There's adversity in finding equal opportunity, and we feel it is the end of the problem. We need to do something right now.

In fact, to answer your question, absolutely nothing.

I think, Dr. Malek, you can answer.

[Abdul Malek, Director, Research, Canadian Centre for Global Professionals]

Can I say something? With your permission, I'm saying that I faced the interview in the Canadian consulate office in Detroit, Michigan, in 2001. During the interview, the lady who did the interview, who inspired me very much, asked me to enter Canada right now, because my background is agriculture. I did my Ph.D. in England and went back to my country because I had a job. I was a senior scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research under the Ministry of Science and Technology. I worked there for 22 years.

I applied for immigration through the proper channels. They asked me to do an interview. I did the interview, but they did not give me the right information. They said to me, you have a lot of opportunities in Canada. Right now you can enter. But I refused. I went back to my country. I took my time and then I came.

When I came, I found the scenario was totally different. I worked here at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as a volunteer for three years and seven months. On my own discipline, I have done 10,000 samples for them, but I left that one on January 31 of this year because there is no hope to get a job.

How can I survive? I have two kids and my wife. My wife also did one year of voluntary work at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Both of us did higher studies in the U.K. Now we are fighting for our lives, doing very non-professional jobs in restaurants, to survive here.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So this creation of a foreign credential referral office, though, for that role of information sharing and pathfinding--I think that is the wording they use--will help to solve some of the problems that--

[Abdul Malek]

My position is this: through the immigration ministry, especially through the website, make it very clear that this is the situation in Canada. Upon getting this situation, you consider whether to come or not, because everything should be transparent. There should be no hide-and-seek there. I did not get any information off the website, because on the website, before I applied, I found that in my profession there were a lot of jobs. Even in the interview I got lot of hope, but when I came here, the scenario was totally different. I did volunteer work for three years and seven months in the agriculture department and I'm now doing restaurant work for my survival.

I published 40 different research papers, which I developed into patents, in my own discipline. I'm an entomologist. I was working at the 960 Carling agriculture research station with Peter Mason. Now I am sending mail. They are not giving me a reply. I sent e-mails to the agriculture minister. I did this one. I did not get any reply to my e-mails.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We can have just one final comment. We're over time here.

Go ahead, sir.

[Monjur Chowdhury]

What I want to mention is that provincial recognition is also not the real solution. Let me give you my personal case.

I am a specialist for renewable energy, and I'm also an electrical engineer. When I came nine years ago and I did not have a chance to get a job, I changed my career. I became a teacher. I had to go to the Ontario College of Teachers.

So I got my education from Queen's University, and I went through the process of writing the test to become a teacher. Everything was fine, but once I had to get the licence, I had to go through the same problem again, and they would not recognize.... They had to ask me to go back. I was trained from Russia.

Finally I got the recognition, after a while, by fighting. I had to call CBC Radio, and I had to make a very big noise in this country, and I got the licence. However, then it was a question of overqualification. It was a question of Canadian experience.

So I am saying that it's like football. You go from the province to the federal ministry. We have this concrete recommendation: almost like a national board, all provinces and federal governments and, of course, the licensing body should be at the table, and we should make a federal secretariat to talk about that. This is the issue we are talking about. It is a huge loss, dear friends and the leader of the country.

I believe that we are going to change, and we need your help. Ask us. We can help you. I'm sure that we can change the situation. This is what I said--that eight million people changed their life in Bangladesh by using Dr. Yunus' concepts. We are talented people and the biggest country in the world. We are the most brilliant people in the world, and we are working for pizza delivery.

I don't understand. If you understand, I don't. I don't understand. I want to talk to you more. Please give us a chance.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. That was very well said.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today.

As you said, this is something we've been working on for more than a year now. It is very important in terms of being able to recognize many of these different issues, and we believe we can make some recommendations to the government to move forward on some of these things.

To the members, we want to deal with the motion from Mr. Lessard as well as the fifth report. I think we can deal with the fifth report of the subcommittee. That should be at the back of your agenda.

The witnesses are dismissed. Again, I want to thank all of you for being here today.

Perhaps we could get the fifth report out. This was adopted by the committee. It's what the work plan is going to look like over the next couple of months. Do we have any discussion on that? This is the fifth report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure of the Standing Committee on Human Resources. We need to adopt the report.

Bill C-284 would be Regan's motion. It's on access grants.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Oh, good. Geoff Regan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Yes, Geoff.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Not Ronald.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Do we have any comments regarding the report?

I'll give you the time to have a look at that for one second. Once again, it's the last couple of sheets on the agenda. It's really just dealing with the work plan that was passed by the subcommittee.

Okay. Has everyone had a chance to look at the fifth report? Madame Bonsant.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Give me just one minute, so I can look for...

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lessard, Ms. Dhalla, Mr. Martin, and I were there. There was unanimous consent in terms of the suggestions for the work plan.

If you take it down to where we are today, we're on March 27 and we're meeting from 9 until 12. We will cancel the meeting tomorrow. The meeting tomorrow has been cancelled.

This has the workup for the rest of the year, looking at the employability study, being able to draft Bill C-303 and Bill C-284, and then looking at starting a study of the prosperity gap in September. This gets us to the end of the year.

If there are no concerns, my suggestion would be that we approve the fifth report.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

We're going to consider Bill C-303, not the employability act first? Why don't we wind up the employability act while everything is there? Wouldn't it make sense to have it in the order we're studying it?

I can understand with the Auditor General's report; that happens. But--

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Once we give drafting instructions on Thursday to the researchers, there is some time needed to get that report out.

Go ahead.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Do we need a motion? If so, I will move the adoption of our fifth report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. Is there any more discussion on it?

(Motion agreed to)

Let's move on to the motion from Mr. Lessard, and we have an amendment from Mr. Savage.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Chair, I thought we were going to wait until the last 15 minutes of the meeting, now that we have witnesses here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's the decision of the committee.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

We decided the meeting would be an hour and a half. That's what I was told by the chair, that the meeting would be divided into two, with a break. I have another standing committee at 11 o'clock, so I'd prefer that the vote could be done now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're just trying to work around people's schedules.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

We're in the same boat right now. We have people who are in committee right now until 11 o'clock. Obviously we're dealing with similar--

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Is it a very controversial vote that you want to avoid?