Thank you, and good morning, honourable Chair and members.
My name is Elizabeth McIsaac. I am the executive director of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council—for short, TRIEC, which is much simpler.
TRIEC is a multi-stakeholder council bringing together employers, community organizations, colleges and universities, occupational regulatory bodies, credential assessment service providers, and all three orders of government: federal, provincial, and municipal/regional. We do so in order to seek practical solutions to connect skilled immigrants with appropriate employment—a very singular mission.
At TRIEC, our understanding of foreign credential recognition is cast broadly. In an effort to maximize our reach and impact, we have focused on those highly skilled immigrants who are seeking employment in non-regulated occupations. These represent the majority of immigrants who are coming to Canada. They are sales managers, financial analysts, software developers, project managers, marketing managers, HR professionals, and so on.
Whether and how their credentials, experience, and qualifications are recognized is ultimately up to the employer. Our work with regard to foreign credential recognition has been focused largely on reaching out to employers to build their capacity to effectively recognize immigrant skills, experience, and qualifications.
For many employers, concerns around hiring skilled immigrants include not understanding their experience, not being familiar with their credentials, and questioning their communication skills. Often, the requirement for “Canadian work experience”, of which you hear all the time, is in fact a proxy for not knowing how to interpret the immigrant's qualifications. This lack of familiarity and the perception of risk that goes along with it lead to widespread non-recognition of immigrant qualifications by employers.
This has been our focus since TRIEC was established in 2003. We think it is important to recognize that some programs, initiatives, and practices have met with success and that future directions should build on this success. The remainder of my comments this morning will therefore focus on opportunities that I think the federal government should consider in order to facilitate immigrant attachment to the labour market and to mitigate the impact of the current economic climate on skilled immigrants and ensure that immigrants and employers alike are ready for the recovery.
First, internships or work experience programs more generally have been very successful employment interventions, because they involve employers directly. Internships can provide immigrants with their first job in Canada as well as with professional references, both of which reassure risk-averse employers. On average, more than 80% of participants find full-time work in their field upon completion of a work experience program. This is a highly successful outcome, both for the individual and for the economy. However, the demand for internships from immigrants far exceeds the number of participating employers and positions.
There are also employers in communities across the country who would welcome an internship program but who lack the capacity to establish one. There is need for a national internship program. It could leverage the participation of employers across the country through a variety of instruments, including paid internships, wage subsidies, and tax credits.
These incentives may be particularly important to encourage the participation of small and medium-sized businesses, which we know create 80% of the new jobs in Canada. It would also send an important message to Canadian employers if the federal government were the lead employer in this initiative. It would be very important to see the federal government as the leader in providing internships to immigrants. There has been a pilot in the last year with CIC and HRSDC in this regard. I think the success of that pilot should be expanded.
Second, mentoring programs have been successful because they connect skilled immigrants with a mentor who is an established colleague in their occupation. The mentor shares professional networks and helps them to navigate the job search. The “mentee”, or skilled immigrant job-seeker, gains a greater understanding of the occupational context and of expectations in Canada.
In 2004, TRIEC launched something called The Mentoring Partnership. Almost 80% of surveyed participants in this program have found employment, and of those, 80% were in their field. To date, more than 4,000 immigrants have been matched through this program. While many smaller-scale mentoring programs are currently offered across the country, they have difficulty finding high-quality mentors and they lack marketing resources.
As well, while mentoring programs are extremely cost-efficient, these initiatives are not well-funded. Creating a national mentoring program would allow for enhanced program quality and coordination, would increase employer participation, and would provide reliable and sustained funding. Again, it would be important to see the federal government as a lead employer in such an initiative.
Third, bridging programs are successful. They bring together key stakeholders, employers, occupational regulatory bodies, and educational institutions to work together to assess immigrants' skills and competencies, to deliver training, and to provide mentoring or workplace experience. The objective of these programs is to fill any gaps that may exist in the knowledge or skills, while avoiding duplication in an immigrant's education and training.
To date, there have been very successful examples of bridge training in various sectors: in health care, engineering, information technology, financial services, education, and so on. Most bridging programs have been funded by provincial ministries, and while the outcomes of bridging programs have been very promising, they are only accessible to a limited number of participants and are not self-sustaining.
There may be an opportunity for the federal government to create a sustainable investment stream for a coordinated bridge training program across the provinces, as well as a loans program to enable participation in these programs. In Ontario, the Maytree Foundation launched a loans fund program for immigrants who are doing training. It has been incredibly successful. The repayment rate is over 90%. I think it's time that we look at replicating and taking it to scale.
Finally, I believe we need a national strategy for employers in Canada, so that we are better able to recruit, retain, and promote skilled immigrants. Employers are key stakeholders in this issue, as it is they who ultimately recognize or reject the credentials and skills of immigrants. A national strategy could do three things: one, develop awareness among employers; two, create and disseminate tools that support employers in working with immigrants; and three, connect employers to the programs and supports that will build our capacity.
First, there is still a need to increase employer awareness of the value of immigrant skills and of how including this talent pool can make Canada more productive and competitive in the global marketplace. As the Canadian economy looks forward to recovery, the time is right to work with employers to understand this opportunity and to support their ability to take advantage of it. With support from CIC and the FCR, TRIEC has been successful in running awareness campaigns in the Toronto region to engage employers. We also have run an employer awards program to shine the light on those employers who have demonstrated innovation in leadership and to build momentum around the employer community.
Second, employers need tools and resources to support their change. There exists a wide array of assessment tools for language, academic credentials, and occupational competencies, and there are HR practices that employers need to know about and trust. I think there is an opportunity for the federal government, through the FCRO, to convene sector councils, other sector-specific employer associations, and regulatory bodies to participate in the development, recognition, and promotion of sector-specific language and occupational competency assessment tools.
And third, while labour market programs for immigrants have been developed and been invested in, there has not yet been a parallel investment in programs targeted directly at employers. There is a strong and growing demand from employers for support in recruiting, assessing, and retaining skilled immigrants. A first step in this direction would be to create a single point of entry for employers.
Many employers are hesitant to consider government programs because of the red tape and the complexity. This is even more the case among the small and medium-sized community. As a result, most SMEs—small and medium-sized enterprises—are not aware of programs that could help them. The programs need to be more accessible. It would be helpful to create and invest in an integrated suite of programs and supports for employers to build their capacity to recruit, assess, and retain skilled immigrants.
Together, the above three elements could form a national strategy for employers that would enhance labour market development, contribute to the productivity and competitiveness of Canadian business, and build success for immigrants.
Thank you.