Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[Corinne Prince St-Amand]

--and the alliance have developed. In those sessions with employers--you have a copy of the employer road map in front of you--we certainly could signal this as a possibility and see if there's interest from the employer community.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry.

Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I can pick up where you left off.

I read through your book. It talks about mentorship and bridging programs. However, the employer has little incentive, in terms of financial incentives, through HRSDC or your office to do the mentorship program or the bridging or internship programs.

So I have questions about three areas. I will ask them all.

One, how do you reduce the red tape for the employers so they can access the programs? And if there are funds available, what kinds of funds are available? Are you looking at developing more incentive programs so that even small businesses can access them, not just the big banks, like the Royal Bank, which have HR staff? So that's the employer side.

And then the second part is about the trainees. The trainees are often using up their savings while being trained and get desperate and go and do their other jobs, like delivering pizza, for example. Once they get trapped doing that for a year or two, they can't get back out. So having the income support, child care support, and transportation support they really need in the first year or two they are in Canada is critically important. Where is that at this point? Who is looking at that? In Quebec, for example, they have one year of French training with income support. I'm not talking about free ESL programs, which I know we have, whether voucher programs or whatever. What I am talking about is how you provide the income support so they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and using up their savings.

The third area is for Health Canada. I see that the $15 million per year over five years to deal with the barriers runs out next year, in 2010. Is that funding going to be renewed? And is that amount useful in actually helping to increase the number of internships in hospitals, because we can give them all the information we want, we can have programs, we can have workshops, advertising, and everything we can possibly give them, including any website, and all of that, but if there is no internship and they can't get their practicum in the hospitals—even if they totally qualify—because there are just not enough, it won't help them?

So where are we at in regard to opening up more internship programs in hospitals? I ask because I don't think the $15 million each year actually provides that kind of incentive. So what incentive is there so that hospitals or companies will actually bring in the interns and the apprentices so that these new Canadians can get their first job and get the Canadian experience? If not, then it's not going to work.

Now, the last piece—because this is a fairly complex issue—is the provincial-federal responsibility, the forum, and the framework agreement. Once that framework agreement comes into place, is the target to have a process that's similar in different provinces, that's transparent and has similar timeframes? I ask because one province could take six months, whereas another could take five years, or something like that. So maybe you can describe the framework and the kind of desired outcome you're looking at when you've finished the consultation.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, we have three minutes to answer those three questions.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Well, it's very complex.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It is indeed. I don't know what to say, but we have a time problem.

[Corinne Prince St-Amand]

Very quickly, Mr. Chair, I will address the first question, and then pass the rest to my colleagues.

On the employer issue, Madam Chow, you've raised an issue that is broader than foreign credential recognition. We're getting into the additional supports that are absolutely needed to ensure successful immigrant labour market integration in an holistic way.

Over the past several years, the federal government has been working very closely with a number of organizations across the country who have put in place some very innovative programming. You may know about Career Bridge, which is one that comes to mind. At Citizenship and Immigration, my colleagues in the integration branch have been testing some bridging programming through contribution agreements. It's still early days, but you're absolutely right that these types of bridging, mentorship, and internship programs are absolutely needed. I know I can't get into it right now, but even at the federal level, both HRSDC and Citizenship and Immigration have piloted an immigrant internship pilot. It's now in its second year running. It's very successful. Many of those interns have actually found full-time employment in the federal government after their internships. I'd be happy to provide you with more details on that if we have time.

Kathryn, over to you for the health question.

[Kathryn McDade]

Sure.

Thank you, Ms. Chow.

You asked a couple of very specific questions. First, on the issue of the internationally educated health professionals initiative and the funding, you're right that the first five-year funding cycle is about to expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The full amount of the funding will be renewed, and I've started conversations with provincial and territorial governments about how they want to use that funding, looking at what we've learned over the first five years of the initiative and what they see as the gaps in some of the programming they're investing in. Then we have a period of several months to figure out a go-forward strategy. So the short answer is yes, it is being renewed.

On your question about the number of internships or residencies in hospitals, I can give you more numbers if you're interested in them. The numbers are actually quite encouraging in terms of increases in the number of seats. Between 2003-04 and 2008-09, at the undergraduate level there was an increase of 30% in the number of seats across the country. At the post-grad level or the residency level, which I think is your primary interest, there was an increase of 32%. So that has been a dramatic increase. It's not supported through the internationally educated health professionals initiative; the main support is the Canada health transfer, as you know, which supports health care delivery in the provinces and territories.

With respect to immigrant medical graduates, you asked specifically about getting access to residency seats for international medical graduates. Those numbers are also quite encouraging. In 2003 there were 75 seats in residencies for international medical graduates. In this current year of 2009, there will be 404. So in a pretty short period of time there's been quite a dramatic increase in the seats available.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. McDade. I'm sorry that I keep cutting you off every time you speak.

Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

Monsieur LaRue, I'm impressed with your support for individuals prior to their arrival in Canada, and I'd like to ask you about your actual role.

You say that with your “Working in Canada Tool” you provide immigrants with relevant information on credentials. That includes pay rates, credentials, job offers, and those sorts of things. And you aggregate information from six labour market databases that exist in the federal government. I was very, very pleased to see that you can produce 40,000 reports and that this database is accessed about 780,000 times a year.

So you are not like an employment agency that finds people jobs. Is that correct?

[Jean-François LaRue]

That's exactly right. In fact, the “Working in Canada Tool” is not designed to place immigrants in jobs, but to enable immigrants to secure employment by equipping them with reliable and up-to-date information.

Obviously, there are challenges in regard to the information to which we have access. You have to understand that most of the databases that were developed on labour market information were done in the sixties and seventies. So these survey materials were designed for a very different economic reality, one where there was an over-supply of workers and not necessarily the shortages that we know of these days. Although we're in a recession, certainly the looming demographic challenges we're going to face are going to be problematic.

So work has to be done not only on the instruments used to diffuse information and to provide the right information, including credential information, to immigrants coming to the country, but also on the data and the labour market information being tailored.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I see you've had some successes.

I will mention in passing that just yesterday I was in a cab here in Ottawa and was chatting with the driver, who's from Iraq and is a mechanical engineer and is driving a cab. Now I'm not saying that driving a cab is not an important job; we're lucky that we have people who get us around safely, but ideally he would be working as a mechanical engineer. He came to Canada eight years ago.

But I notice that in health care you've had some successes. I'd like to ask you about them as well. In your internationally educated health professionals database, you've registered more than 55,200 clients, and 92 internationally educated doctors were recently selected for residency positions in Ontario with the help of that service. One of them was from my riding of Oakville. He was a doctor from Pakistan, studying for the credentials exams, which are very difficult—and should be—and yet he was delivering pizzas at the same time, which made life a little bit difficult for him.

Perhaps you could tell us a little bit more about the work the Foreign Credential Referral Office does to connect foreign-trained professionals with the appropriate credential agencies, perhaps with an example and in plain language.

[Jean-François LaRue]

I think I'll let Corinne and Kathryn respond to this one because this is really their area of responsibility.

[Corinne Prince St-Amand]

Thank you, Mr. Young. I'll begin.

The Foreign Credential Referral Office, as well as the pilot project funded by HRCC that the FCRO will begin funding later next year, allows, in three countries currently--China, India, and the Philippines--for individuals who have been given approval for immigration to the country.... When they receive their letter from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, they are also given information on the ability to take in a free, personal, face-to-face session that is up to two days of information and training. They go into these offices, in China, India, and the Philippines currently, and are told about what it will be like in Canada and what they will need to do in order to work in their occupation.

A foreign-trained nurse in the Philippines, walking into an Association of Canadian Community Colleges office in Manila, would be given general information on settling in Canada and would be given specific information on the nursing profession. In fact, the “Working in Canada” tool that Jean-François spoke about earlier is one of the key tools used in those offices overseas. That nurse would be working with one of the employees of that office to figure out whether they are a licensed practical nurse, a registered nurse, or a psychiatric nurse, and would be asked where they want to settle in Canada. The office would then connect them to the appropriate regulatory body while overseas. In fact, our office has developed a very detailed workbook they can use to do their search while they're still at home in Manila, but also bring that with them.

I did bring copies with me today for the committee, but we didn't have enough in both languages. I would be happy to forward that to the chair if you'd like to see that product as well.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I'll pass to Mrs. Grewal, if that's alright.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Last week we had some witnesses from the Alberta International Medical Graduates Association who talked about some of the challenges that are being faced by foreign physicians. Please can you tell us what Health Canada is doing to allow more Canadians to benefit from their medical expertise?

[Kathryn McDade]

Thanks very much for the question.

I was going to talk a little bit about an initiative that addresses exactly the challenge you've raised. International medical graduates' entry into the medical profession, as you know, is one of the most complex licensing processes in Canada and varies across jurisdictions.

What we've done with the Medical Council of Canada and provincial-territorial governments and several of the regulatory associations is to develop a common assessment process for international medical graduates who come to Canada looking to enter into residencies. Rather than having these assessment processes...I was going to say done ten different ways across the country; it's actually more than ten different ways because it varies by medical school. Even within a jurisdiction you can have four, five, or six schools running a different assessment process with different requirements. We have only this spring agreed on a common national assessment process. It will be piloted this fall in three assessment centres. Then, based on the pilot, we would hope to roll it out nationally.

The second piece of work, which hasn't started yet but we're working on it with the Medical Council, is for internationally trained doctors who come to Canada practise-ready. These are doctors who are not early in their career, not looking to complete a residency. They've already completed their residency training. They've practised in their home country. We're looking to develop a common national assessment process for those professionals, but we haven't started that work yet.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you very much.

Our time has come to an end.

I want to thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming and offering your comments. You've been very helpful. Thank you very much.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Chair, I have a point of order.

I know we've said that we would take the next hour and look at recommendations. This area is fairly complex, and you're absolutely right that the government side really only had seven minutes in total. Is there a desire on the government side to want to delve into this more and therefore change the agenda somewhat, so we could do another hour with some more discussion in order that we can answer more of the questions? Does that make life totally chaotic and it's not worth going down that route?

I thought I would raise that because you raised the question that they had seven minutes. Do people feel they need more discussion with the staff here, or not? As a courtesy, I thought that question should be asked.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

If not, then we can just go in camera.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Does anyone have any other questions on the government side?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Maybe not.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You've been very helpful, Ms. Chow, as usual. Thank you very much.

We will suspend the meeting for a few minutes to continue in camera.

Only those who are government members can stay, along with their staff.

[Proceedings continue in camera]