Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 30. Today is Tuesday, October 27.

The orders of the day are pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the study of foreign credential recognition.

We have a number of guests this morning.

The first witness is Corinne Prince St-Amand, executive director of the Foreign Credentials Referral Office. She is with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

We have Jean-François LaRue, who is the director general of labour market integration, and Silvano Tocchi, director of the foreign credential recognition division. They are with the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development.

And finally, we have Kathryn McDade, who is the director general of the health care policy directorate with the Department of Health.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming to help us with our study.

There are three presenters. Each of you has up to 10 minutes. You don't have to take the full 10 minutes, but if you wish to, that's fine.

We will start with Corinne Prince-St-Amand.

[Corinne Prince St-Amand, Executive Director, Foreign Credentials Referral Office, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am Executive Director of the Foreign Credentials Referral Office at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to provide an update on CIC's role in foreign credential recognition.

I think we can all recognize that immigration has been and continues to be vital to Canada's growth and economic strength. In 2008 alone, Canada accepted a total of 103,736 federal skilled workers, and of these principal applicants, 32% identified in the top 20 regulated professions.

However, recognizing the foreign credentials of internationally trained individuals continues to be a challenge across the country. In Canada, provinces and territories are responsible for assessing and recognizing credentials. Currently there are more than 440 regulatory bodies across the country governing more than 50 professions. There are also more than 200 accredited post-secondary institutions that assess educational credentials for academic placement, as well as five provincially mandated assessment agencies that evaluate educational credentials for the purposes of both academic placement and workforce entry.

Data indicates that approximately 48,000 internationally trained individuals have their credentials assessed by the five provincially mandated assessment agencies each year. This number, however, does not include the myriad of other players involved in credential recognition who assess credentials not only for the purposes of entry into a regulated occupation but also for the purposes of entry into a trade, for the purposes of further post-secondary study, and/or for the purposes of employment in a non-regulated occupation.

In fact, 53 provincial and territorial ministries are involved in this issue, as it spans immigration, labour market, health, and education ministries. There are literally thousands of players on this file, when you include employers, all of whom are important assessors of credentials and work experience in regulated and non-regulated occupations.

The Government of Canada has established a relationship of leadership and trust with provinces and territories and regulatory bodies on priorities such as labour mobility and foreign credential recognition.

Although foreign credential recognition falls within provincial/territorial jurisdiction, the Government of Canada has an ongoing responsibility for immigration and its impact on the Canadian labour market and economy. As such, the Government of Canada continues to play a central leadership role in facilitating advancements on foreign credential recognition among multiple players.

To that end, the Government of Canada established the Foreign Credentials Referral Office, which is commonly referred to as the FCRO, in May 2007 to provide internationally trained persons with the information, path-finding, and referral services they need to have their credentials assessed as quickly as possible so they can find work faster in the fields for which they have been trained. The FCRO services are offered both in Canada and overseas.

Additionally, the FCRO provides a coordinated focus at the federal level, working with HRSDC and Health Canada, to work with provinces, territories, regulatory bodies, and employers to coordinate federal-provincial-territorial efforts, share best practices across the country, and avoid overlap and duplication on an issue that is extremely complex.

Earlier this year, all governments recognized the importance of foreign credential recognition to the economic health of the country, as well as the important role that each level of government plays in ensuring that the skills, education and talent of those coming to the country can be quickly and rightly utilized.

My colleague Jean-François LaRue, from HRSDC will give you more details on the subject in a few minutes.

As we continue to work closely with our provincial and territorial colleagues, Health Canada, and HRSDC, the FCRO will continue to support and take a leadership role on matters related to pre-immigration and overseas initiatives. To this end, the FCRO received funding of some $13.7 million over two years in Budget 2009 to support the development of harmonized standards and clear pathways to form credential recognition for targeted occupations beginning overseas; to strengthen the scope of the overseas platform to support and implement the first ministers' commitment; and to develop a pan-Canadian information centre, in essence a website that will showcase and promote the sharing of promising foreign credential recognition practices across the country.

Prior to the establishment of the FCRO at CIC, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada laid the foundation for consistent foreign credential processes overseas through a pilot project with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. In October 2010, the FCRO will build upon the pilot and expand funding to provide FCRO services to not only the federal skilled workers category but also to provincial nominees in China, India, and the Philippines. It will also support the creation of a fourth location in the United Kingdom, beginning no later than 2011.

The United Kingdom location will serve the British Isles, the gulf, and Scandinavia. These offices combined will cover a larger pool of immigrants and could access close to 75% of the current volume of federal skilled workers and 44% of the current volume of provincial nominees.

The FCRO is also offering important services to immigrants domestically, including the provision of information on foreign credential recognition processes in Canada, to support faster integration into the Canadian labour market. These services are offered in person to clients across Canada through 329 Service Canada centres and 245 outreach sites, as well as through a toll-free telephone line through the Service Canada call centre.

Information on foreign credential recognition is also available through the FCRO website, which includes the “Working in Canada Tool”. It is an online search tool that provides individualized information on specific occupations, communities, and labour market conditions, as well as information targeted to both internationally trained individuals and employers. Between the FCRO launch in May 2007 and September 2009, the FCRO website received over 732,00 visits, with the majority coming from overseas.

Although foreign credential recognition remains a challenge for most immigrants seeking entry into the Canadian labour market, governments are coming together to support and develop initiatives that will play a crucial role in not only supporting economic recovery from the downturn and promoting future growth of our country, but also in providing immigrants with the tools and services they need to begin the assessment and accreditation process while still in their country of origin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My colleagues from HRSDC and Health Canada will now inform you about the additional work done at the federal level on foreign credential recognition.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much. It has been a good review.

We will now have Mr. LaRue make a presentation.

Good morning.

[Jean-François LaRue, Director General, Labour Market Integration, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and distinguished members of this committee.

On behalf of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, I would like to extend my thanks to the committee for the opportunity to input into your study on foreign credential recognition.

My name is Jean-François LaRue, and I am the new Director General of Labour Market Integration, within the Skills and Employment Branch. I also have with me my colleague Silvano Tocchi, from the Skills and Employment Branch.

Today, I would like to provide the Committee with an update on the important work that HRSDC's Foreign Credential Recognition, or FCR, Program has been doing to improve the labour market outcomes of immigrants.

First, I want to emphasize HRSDC's work toward overcoming systemic barriers to immigrant labour market integration and how this work is very distinct and yet complementary to the role played by CIC, which seeks to address the individual—and I insist on the word “individual”—credential recognition challenges faced by immigrants.

From a systemic perspective, we know there are real economic costs to the Canadian economy associated with the non-recognition of foreign credentials. As was noted last Thursday in testimony, these losses are estimated to range between $2.4 billion and $5.9 billion annually.

Beyond the losses to productivity, the underuse of the skills and employment potential of immigrants also results in unnecessary increases to social services costs, a decreased ability of employers to find employees with the required skills, and loss of potential tax revenue.

That is why the initiatives supported by the foreign credential recognition program are not just the right thing to do for individuals; they are also sound economic policy in an area where the leadership role of the Government of Canada is key.

By tapping into the skills of immigrants, HRSDC is supporting the creation of a larger, more efficient, and more flexible labour market. By ensuring the qualifications of immigrants are given their due, we are laying the foundation for a more efficient job-matching process that responds to the needs of employers.

The FCR program is a key lever through which the skills, international experience, and global perspectives of Canada's immigrants can strengthen the labour market and position Canada to succeed in the forthcoming economic recovery.

Since 2003, the foreign credential recognition program has been supporting systemic labour market interventions to improve the labour market outcomes of immigrants by strengthening Canada's capacity to assess and recognize the credentials of immigrants.

The FCR program provides strategic financial support to organizations responsible for assessing and recognizing foreign credentials, some of which you met here last Thursday. Our support enables these organizations to develop processes and practices that are fair, consistent, transparent, and rigorous.

As of October 2009, the FCR program has provided support to 123 projects in 27 different occupations, for a total of $71.2 million worth of investments. Through Canada's economic action plan, an additional $50 million was allocated over this year and next to support this work. The FCR program is currently supporting 34 active projects, 19 of which are in the critically important health sector on which my colleague, Kathryn McDade, will report to you a little later.

I would like to draw your attention to four areas where we have seen considerable progress.

First, the FCR program has played an important role in facilitating the emergence of pan-Canadian partnerships. The FCR program provides financial support to a variety of stakeholders, including regulatory authorities, assessment agencies, professional associations, post-secondary educational institutions, immigrant-serving agencies, sector councils, and employers, so they have the opportunities to coordinate their efforts to develop FCR processes and tools tailored to the needs of their clients and members.

Second, we are also increasing the capacity of regulated occupations to evaluate and recognize the credentials of immigrants, with an initial emphasis on physicians, nurses, and engineers.

Engineers are the single largest occupational grouping of newcomers to the country. Our partnership with Engineers Canada, who are leaders in developing FCR models, has helped this key demographic group to integrate into the labour market.

Since 2003, FCRP has funded a series of projects with Engineers Canada that have proceeded from environmental scans followed by concrete recommendations for effective tools and processes. The FCR program's early interventions and ongoing support have helped Engineers Canada produce their groundbreaking Database of Foreign Engineering Institutions.

This Database is centrally maintained and used by provincial engineering regulatory bodies to assess internationally-trained engineers, thereby expediting the evaluation and licensure process for international engineering graduates in Canada. This project also resulted in all engineering regulators across Canada agreeing on consistent approaches to FCR for internationally-trained engineers.

Third, the FCR program also has had engagement in the non-regulated sector, which represents between 80% and 85% of the jobs in the Canadian economy. The FCR program has supported 11 sector councils, as these crucial stakeholders provide an effective platform from which employers are able to access the tools they need to facilitate credential assessments.

Our partnership with BioTalent Canada is one such success story. BioTalent Canada is creating opportunities for immigrants in the biotechnology sector to connect with employers through internship programs that include curricula to help employers coach internationally trained professionals and introduce them to the Canadian biotechnology sector work environment. BioTalent Canada has also developed a national practical assessment and training approach for the internationally trained. This approach assesses and teaches sector-specific terminology and acronyms and language ability such as listening, comprehension, and pronunciation. The project is also increasing cooperation between governments, community agencies, industry, and, most importantly, internationally trained professionals as they are welcomed into Canada's biotechnology sector.

Fourth, we've also made progress in delivering supports to individuals prior to their arrival in Canada. As noted by Corinne, the Canadian immigration integration project has piloted the design and delivery of a continuum of services, beginning overseas and continuing after an individual's landing in Canada. This pioneering work has helped to lay the foundation for the overseas strategy of the FCRO.

Complementing the FCR program's efforts to create a systemic capacity is the “Working in Canada Tool”. Managed by HRSDC, workingincanada.gc.ca helps provide immigrants with relevant, up-to-date, and credible information on credential recognition, pay rates, current job offers, and much more. The “Working in Canada Tool” aggregates information from six Government of Canada labour market databases, and produces reports customized to an immigrant's occupation and location. The tool can produce close to 40,000 unique reports, and it is used nearly 65,000 to 75,000 times a month, mostly by people living overseas.

Regarding the foreign qualification recognition framework, as you know, on January 16, 2009, the first ministers directed the labour market ministers to develop a pan-Canadian qualification recognition framework and a plan to put it into place. This process is ongoing. Over the coming weeks the forum of labour market ministers will continue to work towards a consensus framework document. I'm confident that the work the forum of labour market ministers is undertaking will make a significant contribution to reducing barriers faced by internationally trained workers and that it will lead to the improved integration of immigrants into the labour force.

The FCR program will continue to be a key piece of the Government of Canada's response to the issue of foreign credential recognition. Building on the lessons we have learned over the years, the FCR program will replicate the early successes we've had with groups like Engineers Canada and BioTalent Canada to address systemic labour market barriers on a larger scale.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My colleague from Health Canada, Kathryn McDade, will round out the picture, by speaking to the Government of Canada's interventions in the critically important health sector.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. LaRue.

Ms. McDade.

[Kathryn McDade, Director General, Health Care Policy Directorate, Department of Health]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On behalf of Health Canada, I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to contribute to your study on foreign credential recognition. This morning I'd like to take a few minutes to provide you with a brief overview of investments that Health Canada has made to support improvements in credential recognition, specifically in the health professions.

To set the context for my remarks, I'd like to note that internationally educated health care professionals play an important role in the health workforce. To give you a few statistics from 2007, 22% of Canada's doctors, 15% of physiotherapists, and 8% of both occupational therapists and registered nurses were educated outside the country.

Despite their significant role, it is well documented that these professionals can face multiple challenges around integrating into the workforce. Barriers include: navigating the complex array of steps to licensure in their given profession, which may vary across the country's 13 provinces and territories; and, lack of familiarity with the Canadian health care system and its unique requirements for clinical practice in Canada.

In 2003, Canada's First Ministers made a commitment to work together to secure and maintain a stable and optimal health workforce in Canada. In 2004, first ministers agreed to a 10-year plan to strengthen health care, responding to concerns around timely access to quality care for all Canadians.

As part of the plan, federal, provincial and territorial leaders agreed to increase the supply of health professionals, in part, by accelerating and expanding the assessment and integration of internationally trained health care graduates.

In support of this 10-year plan, in the 2005 budget the Government of Canada committed $75 million over five years to the internationally educated health professionals initiative. The goal of this initiative, which is known by the acronym IEHPI, is to address barriers and advance progress in five areas related to the integration of internationally educated health professionals, including promoting preparedness of these professionals to self-assess; improving access to credential assessment and verification through increased access to information and path-finding; initiating faculty development programs to ensure that educators have the skills to teach internationally educated health professionals; supporting successful completion of licence or exams; and increasing the availability of training orientation and other supports to facilitate integration into the workforce.

To date, investments under the IEHPI have focused on seven priority occupations, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, medical laboratory technologists and medical radiation technologists. IEHPI is currently funded at $18 million per year. Approximately 90% of that program funding is directed to provincial and territorial governments through bilateral agreements with Health Canada.

This funding has increased the capacity of provincial and territorial governments to work with their regulators and professional associations to improve the integration process for internationally educated health professionals. Provinces and territories have developed innovative initiatives in the areas of credential assessment, bridge training, career counselling, information services, and orientation programs.

I'd like to give a few quick examples of some of the specific initiatives that provinces and territories have undertaken.

In December 2006, Ontario launched a "one-stop" information, counselling and path-finding service for internationally-educated health professionals wanting to apply for licensure to work in their field. By October 2008, the Centre had registered more than 5,200 clients. Among these clients are 92 internationally-educated doctors who were recently selected for residency positions in Ontario with the help of this service.

A competency assessment program for internationally-educated nurses was developed in Alberta and has been implemented in all the western provinces and Nova Scotia. The program assesses internationally-educated nurses' competencies and helps to prepare candidates for assessment and clinical practice in Canada.

In 2007 the assessment process was taken overseas to explore the feasibility of off-shore assessments to reduce the time required for the assessment and registration process. A total of 33 assessments were performed in four locations: England, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

In British Columbia, international medical graduates are receiving an orientation workshop that provides information on working in the medical field in Canada. Feedback from the first 65 medical graduates was positive, and plans are under way in that province to make the orientation session mandatory for all new international medical graduates.

As a final example, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan have partnered on strategies and tools for the assessment and verification of internationally educated occupational therapists' competencies to facilitate their practice in Canada.

Those were examples of provincial-territorial investments supported by Health Canada. The remaining 10% of IEHPI program funding supports pan-Canadian projects that are undertaken by national professional bodies, academic institutions, and health care organizations. Again, to give you a couple of examples,

the widely-subscribed “Orientation to the Canadian Health Care System, Culture and Context” workshop, developed by the University of Toronto, provides information on the Canadian health care system to internationally-educated professionals in six cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Ottawa, and via an on-line program.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. McDade, I'm going to have to cut you off. I see you have some time left, and already we're over. I'm sorry to cut you off. We do have your notes.

The chair notes that we're going to be in the same problem this week as we were last week, where we'll only have time for one round of questioning, which does create an unfairness to the government side. I notice there are some smiles in the room, but there is, in the chair's opinion, an unfairness. In due course, whether it's in the business session today or at our subcommittee meeting—November 4 or November 5?—I'm going to suggest that this topic be revisited. We have time for one round of seven minutes each.

Mr. Karygiannis, and then Ms. Mendes.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, folks, and thanks for coming.

Have any of you tried to navigate this website you've set up?

[Jean-François LaRue]

The “Working in Canada” website?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

The foreign credentials website.

[Jean-François LaRue]

Yes, I have.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

You have. Let me tell you my experience. I'm a professional. I am a graduate of engineering in Toronto, and I tried navigating it as if I am somebody from overseas. When I arrive at the website, in my area, it was suggested that I go to CICS, which is a local provider for people settling in Canada. They absolutely could not assist me with engineering skills or who I contact and everything else. I don't know what site you're navigating, but the one I tried to navigate certainly did not get me the same results you're describing.

The other thing I have for you is, when we ask people who are coming in—doctors, engineers, pharmacists—to join those organizations...these organizations are self-controlled within the province, correct?

[Jean-François LaRue]

Correct.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Now, wouldn't you also want to encourage more people to become members of these organizations as well as vote for, let's say, PEO? Wouldn't the Government of Canada be interested that foreign people who are coming in also get to vote for who's on the board?

[Jean-François LaRue]

I can't speak to the internal functioning of these organizations. What I'm trying to do is have in place processes so that credentials of foreign or recent immigrants are recognized, and then they can participate and be accredited with those organizations.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

You give them money, don't you?

[Jean-François LaRue]

I do give money to have processes put in place so that these bodies work together toward common objectives and processes and develop tools that they need to make appropriate assessments.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. LaRue, wouldn't you have a carrot and stick approach, where you not only give them money but you also encourage them to have members vote? Don't you think that's prudent?

[Jean-François LaRue]

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're getting at.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

What I'm getting at, sir, is that only 15% of PEO members in Ontario, the last time around, went to vote. I find that number horrible.

[Jean-François LaRue]

Yes, it's pretty low. I would agree.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

So don't you think you should also have a carrot and stick approach, that, yes, we're going to give you money to train these people, but I also want them to be a part of the governance of the body? Wouldn't you have something in there, a caveat, that says you have to do this?

[Corinne Prince St-Amand]

Mr. Karygiannis, the federal role is to fund organizations, including national associations of regulatory bodies, to build assessment tools to ensure that their processes for obtaining licensure are as fair and transparent as possible for foreign-trained, as well as for Canadian-trained, individuals. Once an individual in a licensed occupation becomes a practising member of that occupation, as you well know, they obtain a licence and they then have to pay licensing fees to maintain that licence. With that right comes the right to vote within the occupation, but in an area of foreign credential recognition that is, as we've said in our opening statement, the purview of the provinces and territories, I don't think the federal government has the right to insist that either domestically trained or foreign-trained licensed individuals in any occupation must vote in one way or the other.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

You should encourage them to have self-governance and to have people participate in that self-governance. Nowhere in the contracts that you've signed with them is there encouragement for people to participate in voting. Enough said.

You're spending $71.2 million in doing all this. How much money was used to advertise in the ethnic press?

[Jean-François LaRue]

I would have to get back to you on that specific question, because I don't have that figure.