Mr. Speaker, I also want to congratulate the member for Hamilton Centre on his speech and the very passionate way he brought the concerns of his constituents to the House this morning.
On the question of foreign credentials, I have met with a number of people in my constituency who are in exactly that situation. I met with a doctor who was a refugee from Iran. She went to India where she trained as a doctor and eventually made her way to Canada. However in the 20 years she has been here she has never worked as a doctor, which is her chosen field. She is working in nursing administration but even that job is disappearing from underneath her. Her suggestion was to ensure that there were residency placements for people from other countries who did their training overseas. The competition for residency placements for doctors in Canada is very vigorous and she felt that one way we could go was to ensure that those people who needed those kinds of residencies had particular places designated for them in the process.
I also met with an engineer who also has not worked in his field as a professional engineer. He has worked as a consultant but not in his exact field over the years. He too believes that we need to work more closely with the professional associations to make sure that there are real opportunities developed for these people when they come to Canada.