My presentation will be made in French.
Mr. Chair, members of the standing committee, I want to thank you for inviting us here to share our views with you.
For some time now, the provinces and territories, along with many partners, have been taking a hard look at the issue of foreign credential recognition. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's Foreign Credential Recognition Program has contributed a great deal to moving this important file forward and we wish to commend the department for its excellent spirit of cooperation over the past several years.
CICIC has also benefited from this program. We invite you to take a look at the report on Pan-Canadian Quality Standards in International Credential Evaluation which we handed out to you at the beginning of our presentation. The report highlights the urgent need for all organizations responsible for assessing academic credentials to agree on pan-Canadian quality standards in international credential evaluation.
In the mid-1990s, Canada ratified and signed two conventions on credential recognition, one of which is commonly referred to as the Lisbon Convention. Further to ratification, CICIC and its partners created the Alliance of Credential Evaluation Services of Canada composed of credential assessment services with provincial and territorial mandates. The Alliance developed General Guiding Principles for Good Practice in the assessment of foreign credentials along with a quality assurance framework. We invite you to read about the framework's objectives in the document handed out at the start of the presentation.
In addition, other services recognized by CICIC for the quality of their comparative assessments have undertaken to comply with the General Guiding Principles for Good Practice and with the Recommendation on Criteria and Procedures for the Assessment of Foreign Qualifications adopted as part of the Lisbon Convention.
Foreign credential recognition is a process involving an in-depth review of documents provided by foreign-trained workers.
We know that there are some 800 degree mills worldwide. We also know that is it relatively easy to obtain almost-perfect foreign diplomas and transcripts from recognized institutions without ever setting foot in these institutions.
Therefore, in our view, it is important that foreign qualifications be systematically assessed to validate their authenticity and to compare them with pan-Canadian quality standards. Such assessments can be performed by educational institutions, regulated associations, trades authorities and services mandated by provinces and territories, by members of the Alliance of Credential Evaluation Services of Canada and by other services recognized by CICIC.