Mr. Chair, next, I would like to address measures to assist foreign trained workers.
All too often we have heard stories from friends and neighbours who have immigrated to our country about how they are disqualified from working in the field in which they were educated in their own countries. I have met many constituents who have degrees in medicine, health care and engineering, whose degrees are not recognized in Canada and could only gain employment in their area of specialty if they were to retrain at Canadian educational institutions. Having families to take care of, these highly trained immigrants often taken on menial jobs, such as driving cabs, to sustain their families, as they set aside their retraining. Over time, frustration sets in as they realize they may never work in their area of specialty in their new homeland, Canada.
This has been a longstanding problem. What has the government done to ameliorate this particular situation?