We could continue to support the programs, for example, that many settlement organizations like ISANS are offering now, across the country. Employment workshops, job resumé workshops, language training. Specifically, it depends where you come in. In our language training, we deal with a range of people, from those who are illiterate in their own language to people who have university degrees and speak English very well but may just need a tune-up, as it were, around some of the language used in their specific profession.
Providing a wide range of opportunities for language training is important. We found English in the workplace to be really helpful, where a teacher will go into the workplace and work with the employer and either a group of employees or a specific employee, dealing with specific language issues that need to be resolved.
Certainly language is very important, as is having a variety of opportunities. Employment counselling services, which we offer, are very important. Again, they run the gamut from learning how to write your resumé to having people come in from HR departments around Halifax, for example, to give the client the opportunity to go through a job interview. There are mentors, and there are Bridge to Work programs that are very successful, giving people training in the specific skills they may need for a job and then an opportunity to have a placement in a workplace to gain that experience.
We have a whole variety of tools, so continued and enhanced support for that would be very important. Also, we can do all we do as an agency, but what is really important is that the workplace itself also changes. Resources that support us—or support workplaces in demonstrating cultural competency and learning how to deal with these issues of barriers and successful integration—are also very important.
Again, I can't underestimate the work of the international qualification recognition program, as well. For someone like you, who had specific training in your profession, being able to have that translated and moved forward when you come into the Canadian context is very important. We need to find those pathways to enable people to do that.